After an interesting 24 hour choo-choo into Chicago from New Haven (<<---link back to Part I there), with a layover that couldn't be nicer and more comfortable, including friends, steak, swordfish, watching the home team win the Stanley Cup, a walk along Lake Michigan, two showers and a very comfortable bed, I was ready for the second long leg of my trip. Train 27 is the Empire Builder out of Chicago, which splits in Spokane. The front half of the train goes on to Seattle, and the rear would head to Portland. The highlight of the Empire Builder is after skirting the Canadian border through the great plains, there's a late afternoon crossing through Glacier National Park. It's one of the most remote parks in the USA, and it's also one of the least crowded. On the train, that's not a factor, but it is so beautiful, and our schedule had us passing through Glacier late in the day on Wednesday night. I had been looking forward to taking pictures there for a month. The other highlight would be the next morning, when we would be powering through the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington side. I'd photographed many trains from the Oregon side of the Gorge, and had only driven the Gorge on that side from White Salmon, just across the river from Hood River, OR. (The highlight of that drive is the view of The Gorge from Cape Horn, or the top of Beacon Rock, one of the prettiest views of anything I've ever seen. May as well include a shot here!)
A real treat in store before I boarded the train; Lisa and I made reservations at Blackbird for lunch. I find it interesting to note that after just finding their website to which that would link, they haven't updated their site in two months, especially after winning the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef a month ago.
We ordered three courses from the prix fixe menu, and then dabbled throughout the rest.
Happy to be here.
This is the smoked arctic char with cauliflower, pear and rosemary.
And I wanted to try the lamb tartare, which was nice, but not the most memorable tartare I've had. I would have preferred it diced. The barley was delicious.
Lisa ordered the whitefish sandwich.
This was an interesting dish with sturgeon, chicken wing meat, marinated kale, turnips and walnut puree. There really is magic to the mix of ingredients. I'd wished for more of the chicken.
My favorite savory dish was something I decided to order as kind of a send-off, since the other dishes weren't really that filling. The short rib burger, ordered rare, with excellent, crispy, oily fries.
The exclamation mark to this wonderful meal was this dessert. Goat cheese cheesecake, cajeta ice cream, burnt grapefruit and avocado. I don't think they'll be serving anything like this on the train.
And now, ready to roll to Union Station for a 2:00pm departure.
Union Station in Chicago is quite a bit less complicated than Penn Station in NY. I was able to find the gate quickly. A line had already begun to form. The cast of characters on the line seemed interesting. There was a family of what appeared to me to be Amish folks among the diverse group of westward travelers. I happened to find an attractive, dark-haired lady behind me who assured me I was on the right line, and gave me a bit of the lay of the land on this train. She suggested I should claim a seat and then do most of the trip in the observation car, especially through Glacier. I told her I was oddly nervous, since this whole experience was new to me.
She told me the story of her six year-old child, who had a heart condition that was diagnosed before he came to term, "I went ahead with him anyway," she said. He had since had five heart surgeries, spent half his life in a hospital, and she repeated that every day with him was a blessing. She didn't expect him to live past 10, and her objective was to make sure every single day was great for him, even though he wasn't allowed to do anything most kids do, like run. She had arranged for her teaching to follow him throughout his school years, so this year she would be teaching second grade. She kept pausing and saying, "I wouldn't have chosen to do this differently" at least ten times.
As the line started to move, we wended our way around a couple of bends, I showed the agent my ticket and I was told I would be in car 3.
(Below I will include my Facebook posts as they went--in the smaller type, along with some selected responses from my friends who were following me.)
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These cars are two stories, the bottom housing luggage and the bathrooms.
I placed my suitcase in the rack in the cabin, only after I battled a door to the actual checked luggage, thinking that was where I needed to put mine, as I was trying to get help from the conductor, "This door doesn't open!" I almost broke the thing down. And then realized my baggage wasn't checked. It was going to be out of sight on a rack downstairs the entire trip. Upside, it would provide a changing room of sorts, because the only people coming down would be going to the bathroom. Downside, you had to trust no one was going to grab your suitcase and leave with it at every stop. A little less secure than I would like. I would have liked to have my baggage within eye shot.
You climb a narrow staircase to get to the coach seats. I decided I would take one on the south side of the train in anticipation of traversing the Columbia River Gorge two days hence, and figure out the Glacier positioning after I scoped out what the observation car was all about.
- Malcolm J Palm, Donna Fogliano Seraphin and 2 others like this.
Tom Love What exactly are you doing? Cross country train trip?June 25 at 1:23pm · Like
Chris Angelus Yes Mr Love. Figured I had to round out the trifecta.June 25 at 1:24pm via mobile · Like · 1
Mary Mangini Saunders Sounds like an interesting experience Chris! Happy travels : )June 25 at 1:28pm via mobile · Like- Tom Love I like it.June 25 at 1:35pm · Like
It did turn out to be about a half hour until we pulled out of Union Station. Again, while normally someone who likes to keep on schedule, this was wide open for me. My only real interest was getting to Glacier in time to see it in daylight. We were scheduled to get there the next day around 7pm, which allowed for three hours' leeway. Since we were in the same week as the Summer Solstice, the days were longer, and the further north you go, the later the days end. Probably the sun wouldn't be setting until 10 in Glacier, I thought.
We pulled out at about 2:45 pm and were on our way west.
Lisa Seyferth Gustman It was GREAT Chris! And thanks for Blackbird! You'll "be good" by 8:30!! Enjoy the next leg of your x country! Stay close!
First stop, Milwaukee. We were told on the way that the reason we were creeping along was that because the engineer was late, we were now behind a commuter train, and had were at the mercy of their stops and speed. By the time we got to Milwaukee, we were already an hour behind schedule.
At this point I started to walk around the train a bit, and got to see the observation car.
The Amish folks seemed to have taken up residence. A friend of mine pointed out they may be Mennonites, but I preferred to think of them as Amish. It made the cast of characters just that much more interesting for me. Especially the image of Amish poker games.
- Fred Duda Looks like a Discovery Channel show....I'll send along the number for my video-producing sons.
- Chris Angelus I would rather they be Amish. Every time I can hear Archie Bunker calling them "The Aimish" I just have to laugh. Mennonites just doesn't have the same ring, or humor factor.
The conductor was a nice guy, and was making the rounds to make sure everyone was happy.
- Chris Angelus I'm digging this. Earbuds in. In my own world. Right now Van Morrison. And I'm a vagabond but don't feel alone. Dinner with strangers in 2 hours.
June 25 near Wisconsin Dells, WI via mobile
Sucks. When you miss what would have been a great shot you can't rewind the train.
I took a break to watch the Mets play on my MLB.TV feed on my phone from Chicago. I was thinking of staying in Chicago another night to see phenom Matt Harvey pitch his second game in the bigs, but logistics in the midst of this rather involved adventure made me see the light; watching it on the train would be so much easier. It's not as though I hadn't been to Comiskey Park before, or seen the Mets. Thankfully we were just outside of Milwaukee, so I wasn't blacked out because I was in the local market.
Sleep wasn't that great this evening. I did have both seats to myself, and I used the footrests and the reclining feature. And I was happy to have come across the Lug blanket and pillow deal I bought at the airport in Portland on my way out of town. I slept on and off... until just before Fargo, ND. Fargo is where my great friend Dave hails from (now, although he grew up in the small town of Lisbon, ND.) Oddly enough, we have kept in touch for years, and North Dakota would be the last of the contiguous 48 for me to visit. Or step foot in. (Does it count if I don't step out of the train?)
See you in Part III. Morning in North Dakota. You think this is long for you? Ha.
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