Because we live on San Juan Island, traveling anywhere takes a few more arrangements than those who operate their lives from a mainland home base. We begin by getting a ferry reservation and traveling to Seattle on Sunday, by car. Our hotel room is near the airport and comes with 8 days of parking. It's also a convenient three blocks from the Metro Link station!
Monday morning we head out early for the train to downtown Seattle and Union Station. $3.00 buys the tickets!
No ticket for our ukulele buddies.
From the Link station, it's up a set of stairs and off toward Union Station where we find the Amtrak trains.
It's a "beautiful day in the neighborhood"! Arriving in a quick 30 minutes...then a short two block walk, we have an hour to wait for our train, the Coast Starlight.
Union Station has had a recent face lift. It's beautiful!
No security checks or long lines with train travel. Show your ticket and proceed to your car.
We meet our friendly steward and settle into our cozy (little!) roomette.
Each sleeper car has coffe, juice and fruit set out for the passengers. Kinda fancy!
The dome car and the parlor car are part of the travel by train adventure. From Seattle to Portland we have guides from the National Park Service to narrate the sights.
Then it's off to wine tasting in the parlor car! Nice afternoon activity...while the train speeds south.
Did you know there is a movie theater on this train? Neither did I! The show of the afternoon? "Minions"....of course!
On "fresh air stops" we walk around train stations, and lap the length of the train once or twice. Then it's the parlor car for happy hour before our dinner reservation at 6:30! Three meals a day come with the sleeper car ticket.
Off to sweet dreams, after much arranging this and that in our roomette. Guess who drew the short straw? (Actually...there was no straw.....what a guy!)
We arrive at the Salinas station at 11:00 a.m., after 26 hours of riding the rails on the Coast Starlight. The Amtrak connecting bus meets us at the station and takes us directly to the gate at Asilomar Beach Conference Center in Monterey, CA. Such service!
It's time to break out the ukuleles and join the fun at the West Cast Ukulele Retreat!
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