The Metropolitan Lounge which is what Amtrak calls their priority seating area for people that have sleepers is really pretty nice. When I got there there were a lot of folks sitting around for various trains. Quite a few left with the Southwest Limited and more for the Empire Builder my train. They have comfortable chairs spread around, free coffee and pop plus the internet as well as bag check, wish I would have know that before spending $8 on a locker. I am in car 731 space 4 which is on the top floor of the Superliner Sleeping Car. While it is expensive doing the sleeper ($425 for Chicago to Seattle) it is really nice. You have juice, water bottles and coffee available all day, your own private seating area which if not large is nice, all meals included except alcohol. So for a 44 hour journey it will make it much nicer and be for me a private retreat. Oh and we were even given Champagne on boarding if we wanted it. They still try to add a few nice touches to train travel. By the way don't plan on putting a normal suitcase in the closet it is only 4 inches wide at most. They do have a baggage area and I had come prepared with a reusable shopping bag so I took out what I needed and stored my bag.
Well had a nice dinner on the train with a salad, pork chops with mashed potatoes and vegetables and bread pudding for dessert
. It was all very good and nice to be part of the package price of the room. Sat with 3 others and while a little quiet for the most part we did have some interesting conversation after a bit. One of my dinner companions was an Amtrak employee traveling for pleasure and the other two were an older retired couple. They were examples of the spirit of America and that you can travel and enjoy it even with difficulties. He used a walking cane like a blind person so assume he had vision issues and he had a bone conducting hearing aid even with that he had difficulty hearing. Yet here they were taking a round trip train trip from Washington D.C. to Seattle than down to San Francisco out through Salt Lake, Denver and back home. They also talked some about visiting 54 countries and how they went on a 93 day around the world flying trip. Shows you that more often than not the limitations we put up are are own not necessarily anything required by fact.
The second day on the train is going well with an early breakfast of oatmeal and raisin bread making for a good and filling breakfast
. Spent a good part of the morning in the lounge car or my room reading and watching the scenery. It really is just a relaxing way to travel and gives you time to thing. I wish I was more familiar with the country in North Dakota because there were large stretches of area where we had water on both sides of the track, in ponds, spread out and such. I wish I knew if this was still from the flooding earlier this year that shut down Amtrak service in North Dakota or a feature of the land. The Minot ND station is still closed due to flood damage and normally that is a stop you can get out and walk around at as they change engineer crews there but not know for safety reasons no one could get off.
The sleeper was really nice to have as a place to be without a lot of extra noise as would be the case sometimes in the lounge car. I did enjoy the lounge car though with it's big windows a couple of times a day to read and watch the scenery. We unfortunately went through the Rockies and Cascades during dark hours. It would be better in summer but this time of year it was dark pretty much the whole time through Eastern Montana to after the Cascades in Washington. The food was enjoyable and we even got wine with our dinner on Saturday that they had leftover from the wine tasting event they had in the afternoon. It was a fun little event if not particularly refined but just enjoyable and got to taste four different wines.
While I enjoyed the train and the varying scenery across the country glad after three weeks to get home on Sunday.
Clinton to Seattle on Amtrak
Friday, October 07, 2011
Seattle, Washington, United States
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