In my row on the Coast Starlight train sits a couple with a little girl, who unfortunately cries out loudly at half past six and ends my sleep. That was definitely not enough sleep for me. In addition there are always several announcements from the dining car on the train in the morning, announcing the procedure for breakfast for the guests in 1st class and announcing when all the rest of the normal "coach class" can sit down. Twenty dollars is charged for the meal in the dining car, and even 45 dollars for dinner. That's too much for me. At least I still have half an "all meat" pizza with me from my restaurant visit in Sacramento yesterday. I delay this breakfast until nine o'clock and only then eat it. After that, the small family next door is on the train somewhere for a while. It's quiet and the pizza made me sleepy enough to nod soundly until 12 noon with no problem.
The train is about to leave California and head into the state of Oregon. The landscape differs significantly, because here there are no longer only mountainous pine forests, but suddenly a lot of water. Great lakes and rivers now interrupt the forests. If you were a beaver, you would probably want to live here.
What is disturbing is that there is another Vancouver on this railroad route. This fact has already frightened me several times. I want to go to Vancouver in Canada. But there is also a smaller Vancouver in the US state of Washington. If you don't have all your senses in this regard, it can happen that you end up in the wrong place.
While rolling through Oregon I get some work done as I almost always have an internet connection while on this section of the track. My destination for today is Seattle. It is also the end of my train journey through the USA. In Seattle, I'll be staying at the Green Tortoise Hostel for two nights in a dorm with bunk beds. It's Memorial Day weekend in the US and all hotels have added a holiday surcharge to their already high room rates. From Seattle I will then continue by bus the short distance to the “real” Vancouver. With my USA Rail Pass I was allowed to travel 10 route segments crisscrossing the USA. I used nine of them on the bus ride to Vancouver.
My train arrives in Seattle more than on time, almost 20 minutes earlier. There is a baggage claim area in the station building. This fact alone is remarkable, because we don't have anything like that here in Germany. In addition, it's a beautiful baggage claim that outshines all airports.
It works smoothly and my suitcase is there after a few minutes. It's a mile walk to my hostel. I check how much an Uber car costs. In Texas, this was always very cheap, even on longer rides it cost about seven dollars. Here I'm checking the Uber app and it says it's going to cost over $10 for that single mile. I've already noticed that for about a week now I've been turned on by the thrift and I'm very careful with money where I was very generous with it in Texas. This prompted me to forego the Uber ride and instead walk the hilly route to my hostel with my two bags. It was the wrong decision because it takes much longer than planned and I have to take two breaks for every block covered. To make matters worse, I also walk a block too far.
Seattle from the Alaskan ShorewayThe check-in at the reception of the backpacker hostel is friendly. But it's busy, because tonight there's free beer and it's served at the reception. I generally don't drink alcohol on my solo trips, otherwise they might be in for a treat. I get accommodated in a quadruple room and sleep in the upper bunk. It takes me a moment to get settled as this is the first hostel I've stayed at on this trip. In the motels in Texas I always had everything in my room and during the train journey I had everything I needed in the cooler at my feet. Now I have to figure out what to keep close at hand at the top of my bed and what to stash in storage under the beds.
For the first time in four days I take off my clothes and especially my cowboy boots in the shower room. It's lovely and the shower is good.
The bunk bed is of the simplest kind, and the mattress is no wider than that in a ship's berth. But considering that I haven't slept in a horizontal bed in several nights, it feels great. After just a few minutes I fell asleep.
