Portland - Ho!

Good morning from the Amtrak! We're currently riding at a steady and slow pace and according to the conductor that walked by, we made up some time over the evening hours so that we're almost back on schedule. We'll see how well that actually holds up. The train ride to Portland thus far has been not even close to the scenic views that we had only days prior as we took the train through the Rockies, so I guess you can say we got a bit spoiled on our first train trips compared to now. Northern California was more farmland and spread out than the California image you probably have in your head. It was more like just a few rolling hills and ranch country, just not the western style large cattle ranches and dairy farms we saw in states like Montana, Idaho, or Wyoming.

I didn't get to sleep until about 4AM. With poor internet, a selection of my personal movie collection, and spider solitaire, I really couldn't get comfortable so I stayed up pretty early into the morning hours. Normally the train provides a great opportunity to blog, so I went ahead and updated as much as I could and got the writing portions done, but after a solid amount of time documenting our trip - the family likes to have constant updates too, so I usually wait until they are all up so that I can read it aloud and get some internal feedback before releasing it to all of you lovely readers.

So let's talk about trains. Trains in America are actually pretty full. I think they're used far more than you could imagine they would be, and the people that you encounter along the way are all across the spectrum of interesting and friendly to bizarre and weird. For example, on a few previous trains, our family stumbled across a cohort of Amish folk that took up almost half of a car. That must have been a few families with a whole lot of children because they were all ages for sure. The girls sang hymns in the lounge car while playing cards as the adults read books or knitted. Interesting stuff. We've met contractors, brick masons, and even come across groups of all ethnicities too. Whether they are on their way to a meeting, traveling to see family, or just tourists like us, the train is a lot more sociable than planes seem to be.

Anyways, once we arrived in Portland at Union Station, we took the "Max" which is the light rail system to our hotel. The cool part about the Max transport in Portland, Oregon is that as long as you stay primarily in the downtown region (which is like the first zone of the city) all transportation is free! I didn't do much research on it, but I think it was Portland's way of trying to revitalize their inner-city areas and increase the amount of people that visit there. Needless to say it made a great experience for us, being that we didn't have to pay for any transportation during our stay. When we got to our hotel we threw our stuff down, all got showers, and decided to head out on the town for some grub. Mom picked out a place called Captain Ankeny's Well, which was supposedly a micro-brewery and a place with some good food. Portland isn't exactly famous for any one particular trade or product, other than we think some rose gardens that are located there - so at the pub we all got calzones and pizza. Captain Ankeny serves up an epic homemade calzone that you can create from scratch, so that was a fun little diamond in the rough that we discovered there. Past that, we hopped aboard the Max and headed back to our hotel to catch an early night of rest, since in the morning we would be departing once again by train - but this time headed to Seattle, Washington. I think we'll have more planned there than in our short stay in Portland (probably because Seattle is my city that I planned...cough, cough), but stay tuned for updates as soon as we can! Also, please feel free to provide feedback, email us, or message us on facebook and twitter about what you think of the blog, our trip, or just your daily thoughts. Whenever we do grab some internet or cell service it's great to hear from you all and know we still have an audience out there! Cheers!

~Josh