Here comes bod!

Got the train out of King st station – it ws delayed by about 30 minutes because apparently somebody forgot to refuel the train… we then missed our slot and hgot stuck behind a freight train for a few minutes – apparently they have priority on the lines – this doesn’t bode well for the more congested industrial heartlands around Pitsburg and Cleveland.

The train trip was great – I spent most of it in the ‘Bistro ar’ chewing the fat with a photographer and an architecture professor – it was great they loved the pictures of the library – so I’ve got another couple of contacts.

There was snow alongside the tracks from Tacoma to Vancouver – I finally got to see the Tacoma Narrows bridge – not the original, for obvious reasons and got a good view of the parallel span being built to expand the capacity of the deck.

Portland Union station was exactly whta I wanted a train station wo look like, i.e. with the dropped platform, having to cross the tracks and the whole turn-of the century charm that you get in places like Bakers street and St. Pancreas.

I met this girl in the station, she gave me a heads-up on the city – apparently there are hidden beavers and remenants of the cow parade to look out for – am also keen to get a look at the bridges and the highway. There are some hot springs that she recommended as well as a hidden bridge somewhere – she’d been there, loved it and bought the t-shirt (I have a photo to prove it) – apparently the bridge connects three islands with spans merging between all three – sounds cool, but the hot springs might be better.

Am going to get my bearings and try and get hold of Chris and Julie, then it’s sushi, sangrias and strippers — wahey!

Tags: knackered, portland, seattle, Travel, Travel, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2005 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.