Oh My Gosh It's October

Well hello friends in bloglandia. It has been a minute since I posted anything and I thought it might be time to step in and let you know what's been going on around here. It is easier for me to keep engaged if I have a challenge of some sort and I sorely missed finishing the A to Z earlier this year. To help me now I'm going to try the October Ultimate Blog Challenge. The object is just to blog for 31 days. Not sure I can get that many in but I'm giving it a shot. 

For my first post I'll share that my husband and I went on a train trip from Emeryville (just outside of San Francisco) to Seattle, Washington. It has been one of the things we've wanted to do for a while and we are finally able to get away together now that one of us doesn't have to stay at home in case we were needed by my mother-in-law. 

To help me get through the month I'm going to break the trip up into segments. First is the train ride to Seattle. 

We got to the station early so had about an hour to wait before the train left. 

Part of the fun was leaving at night. 

This particular route is called the Coast Starlight on Amtrak and actually runs all the way from Los Angeles to Seattle. 

Since it takes 23 hours to get to Seattle, we decided that it would be worth it to get a "roomette" so that we would have a place to sleep. 

The two seats pull out and form one bed and then the top bunk is the other. 

Honestly it wasn't the most comfortable arrangement but we made it work for the night. We decided that we would contact our travel agent and see if we could get an upgrade for the ride home. They have a "deluxe" room that has its own bathroom and is a little bigger. 

Also on this train is an observatory compartment where you can sit and watch the scenery go by. That was pretty cool. But as we were traveling at night, we couldn't see much - LOL. Still, it was fun to watch the passing lights from the different towns. 

As part of the package you are entitled to 3 meals plus beverages. For the dinner meal you are allowed one alcoholic beverage free if you choose. The food was actually pretty good. For breakfast I had an omelet and my husband had french toast. The omelet wasn't really hot but the cheese was melted. Bill said his french toast was cold. You don't need "reservations" for breakfast but they come around to your rooms during the trip to ask what time you'd like lunch and dinner. 

Each table had flowers and when you were seated, they paired you up with other passengers at a table for four. We ate with different people at every meal. It was kind of fun learning about others who were traveling with us.  

  

I didn't take a picture of all the food but for dinner I had steak which was so tender and juicy. They had some good desserts too!  

We didn't get off the train at every stop but there were a couple where the train stopped longer to refresh supplies and then we did get out to stretch our legs. Along the way I tried to take pictures of what was going past our windows.

Saw the sunrise as we were having breakfast just outside of Klamath Falls. 

Some beautiful scenery going through the mountains. 

We thought the train would have a "bar car" like an actual bar but they don't. Instead they have a space downstairs from the observatory car that has drinks and food you can buy if you want something in between meals. 

            A pumpkin patch!

And finally we made it to our destination, King Street Station, Seattle.  

We had left the Bay Area at about 9:30 on Monday night and pulled into Seattle at 7:30 Tuesday evening. We took a cab to our hotel and settled in for the next 3 days. This was our view out the hotel window:

We stayed at the Hyatt Place. 

 

The Lobby had a shop where you could get drinks and snacks and breakfast was included. 

The room was very nice but we were a bit surprised because there was no dresser to keep our clothes in when we unpacked. 

And this is where I will leave you for today. We settled in for the night and got ready for the first of our adventures in the morning, the Space Needle and Chiluly Gardens. 

Shout out to my friend Karen Fitting of Marvelous Mouse Travels. I have known Karen for many years now but mostly as a scrapbooking buddy. This is the first time I've had her help me with vacation planning and I have to say she is wonderful. We told her what we wanted to do and what our budget was and she put together a package for us that was just perfect. If you are looking to do any traveling, I'd highly recommend her. She even helped us get an upgrade for our train ride home so we could have a bigger space. 

Okay, that's about it for today. So sorry about the photos. I haven't blogged in so long that I forget how to format, especially in Blogger. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll have it figured out LOL.