Mount Vernon to Portland

 

It looks like another gorgeous day.

Looking down to the living room.

A nice neighborhood walk.

Only 6 boats on the lake today.

Around 9 am we headed to the train station.  While we waited for the train we had time to play a card game. The train was only a little late.

The train left Mount Vernon about 10 am.

We almost got to Everett (2nd stop) when we came to Bridge 37.  It had been open to let a boat go under.  For some reason they could not return it to the locked position for the trains.  So we were stuck.  They called people to fix the bridge.

Bridge 37

We went down to the dining car.  Played a couple of games and had lunch.

3 hours later the announcement came that we would back up to Stanwood and they would send busses for us.  

I missed this earlier because we were on the other side of the train.

Everyone is off the train and waiting for the buses.

Debbie and Joe drove to Stanwood to meet up with us.  Debbie brought wine.

Joe with his crutches

 We had a few minutes to visit before the bus arrived. Some people had made other arrangements. 

We got on the bus

Debbie and Joe were waiting for us to leave.  They were going to check out a new restaurant in Stanwood.

There was our train

We left Stanwood at 4:50 pm.   It is a 4-hour drive, but we will be making stops, so I don't expect that we will get home much before 11 pm.  We were supposed to get home at 3:45 pm.

We passed "our" bridge at 5:50 pm. 

Seattle

We are stopping at all the places where the train would have stopped. The bus driver did not know where all of the train stations were so he had his GPS going.  We had bought a cheese and cracker tray when we were on the train.  That was what we had for dinner.

Olympia

Sunset as we were driving south.

It was a comfortable bus, and pretty uneventful -thankfully.

My attempt with a moon picture from inside the bus.

It was too dark to take a picture at the Kelso or Vancouver train stations.  We pulled into the Portland train station at 10:10 pm. The bus was 1/2 full by the time we got to Portland.  We called a Lyft driver.  He dropped Nathan off at the Goose Hollow MAX stop.  He was lucky.  A train came in a few minutes.  The next one was in 25 minutes.  We got home at 10:40 pm.  It was a long day.