Strom Travel Diaries

Day 8 – Friday, December 24, 2021

Thanks to my early night and Mom just always waking up at an ungodly hour of the morning, we were able to get an early start, get our stuff together, and head out of the hotel by about 8. We got a Lyft to King Street Station, checked our bag, and found a place to sit until the train started boarding. I left Mom with the carry-ons and went to get photos of the station and scrounge some breakfast, which turned out to be a delicious bagel and muffin.

Our train, the Coast Starlight, boarded on time and we found ourselves upstairs but on the right side of the train this time. I quickly realized that this would put us on the coast-side! We settled in for another day of vista-viewing from the train. This leg would be going from Seattle down to LA over the course of two days, and the last third or so would be along the coast. But we had lots to see before then!

We passed many waterfalls next to the tracks, fields of rotting pumpkins, and mountains in the distance. At one point we passed a large pond with what appeared to be trumpeter swans! We noticed a lot of different types of birds, though the train was often going too fast to get an ID. But great egrets, great blue herons, and vultures are usually pretty easy to identify. We saw lots of gulls, ducks, probably grebes, crows and ravens, and several hawks—most likely Cooper’s hawks or red-tailed hawks. At one point, we passed some fields that had these coyote-shaped cut-outs, presumably there to scare off little critters.

As it got later and we got into Oregon, we started climbing in elevation. By dinner time we were seeing snow-covered evergreens and snowplows out and about in the towns we passed. The day passed quite quickly as we alternated looking out the window, reading, and doing word puzzles. I worked a bit on this journal and we finally got to bed about 10:30 or so.