One day down, n-1 to go
09/09/2009 at 23:12 from (45.607073, -122.418423)
After a nervous morning spent packing, weighing, and re-packing our bags, we finally set off for our last car ride through Seattle. It was the last in a seemingly endless series of lasts that's lasted the last several months. After swinging through Burien to pick up Papa, we raced up highway 509 to the south side of Seattle's downtown. Half an hour before our boarding time, we rolled up to the crumbling hulk of King Street Station.
We rushed in, got our tickets, and set up camp by the gate. Like any goodbye, we spent most of our time making small talk and trying to think of anything we had forgotten (as if we had any time to rectify it). Mom did her best not to cry and dad filled the both of us full of advice. Way too soon, the other passengers started lining up and the conductor announced that the train was boarding.
And so, after hugging my mom and dad for not nearly long enough and waving far too much, we stepped aboard Amtrak train #509, bound for Portland. We've taken the train before, when we moved to Seattle from Chicago, and this ride was almost as lovely as the last. We rode coach, which still felt like an opulent splurge after the cramped and inhumane conditions of modern air travel.
We watched the sun set over the water out of our window as the train gently swayed. Soon after dark, we stepped off the platform in Vancouver and into my grandparents' car. As usual, my grandma made sure we didn't starve and we capped our first day of travel with some pistachio dessert and a round of warm hugs.
