June 8 - The trip starts at the Santa Barbara Train Station where we catch the Starlight that will take us up the coast to Portland Oregon.   At Portland we need to switch trains to the Empire Builder for the 2nd part of the trip to Whitefish, Montana just outside Glacier National Park.

[Karen]  Yup - that's me alright. Very nice car attendant told us to go on up to the dining car and get lunch and he would see that our bags got to our room - and he did. A very nice young guy named Jesse. Travelling by train is much more relaxing than by plane especially for old fogeys like the one pictured. Our room was one with seats that made up into a bed with that wonderful man of mine crawling up into the pull down bunk at night plus our own bathroom with toilet and shower. Wish I could wax lyrical about how comfy the bed was and how good the food was but I would be lying. It was great to have our private bathroom 'tho I didn't try the shower. Also, if you have a bit of trouble walking normally it is even harder to walk on a train rocking back and forth on rails! We were 4 cars away from the dining car and after doing that once or twice I noticed that they also served food in a small portion of the parlor car which was one car closer. More limited menu but Eggy (his name on his badge) was very friendly and helpful. I accidently left my Midland hat in the dining car that first lunchtime but was happily reunited with it the following day. The waitress said she kind of fell in love with it and was sorry to have to give it back!

Thursday, June 10

[Karen] Oh my aching back! Poor dear husband of mine had to hold my hand back and forth to our room and food. He also discovered that the train had no secret for getting the internet when we were not traveling thru cities. Surprise! Only humans insist on having the world wide web at their fingertips. And in between the train cars there are very heavy doors that like to try to squeeze you if you aren't speedy. And the trains travel very fast at times and you tend to ricochet off the walls if you are ungainly on your feet. Well we eventually arrived in Portland and managed with Jesse's help to get our luggage and ourselves to the Empire Builder and into our 2nd room with private toilet & shower. However, this time although the room was larger the toilet and shower were a bit less easy to negotiate. All in due time we arrived ....

Friday, June 11

[Karen} ...in Whitefish where we picked up our rental car, a Chevy Impala with a huge trunk and comfy (mainly) seats which will be nice when we pick up my brother, Walter Thorson, and his wife Mary , in Calgary,AL,Canada and drive with them to Banff in four days. I hope Walter will figure out how to deal with adjusting the passenger seat's lumbar controls because I find the bump in the seat just makes my back hurt rather than being comfortingly supportive. I have already communicated to some of you the sad story that unscrolled in front of us about the poor woman who was LEFT BEHIND. She was hysterically reciting her tale to the station manager as I was waiting for Kalon to take care of getting our rental car. "My train left without me!!! I just went to get a cup of coffee [evidently at a store a block away from the train station] ,,, and it's gone!!! And my purse and luggage and everything are sitting on my seat on the train!!! What am I going to do!!" The station manager had a look of 'why me? why today?' on his face. 'Leaving trains go and leave! I can't do anything about it!'  Trying to calm her down he told her all he could do was try to get the next station on the phone but that they were not yet open and he wouldn't be able to get them on the phone for awhile. Yes, she could try to get a taxi to take her onward to the next station - but when he tried the taxi solution they said they wouldn't do it on her word that she had a valid charge card in her purse on the train... I suppose they thought once she got on the train she could just disappear and if the driver got on the train with her, the train might go with him stuck on it with no way of returning home and no ticket!! OY VEY!!! I felt the least I could do for another human being in her straits was to give her $20  so she could at least call home and maybe find someone who could help her. Well Jesus could have helped her more but that was about all I could do. We proceeded on to Lake Macdonald where Kalon took a short hike and then on to the Lake Macdonald Lodge where we only found the Lodge restaurant open. So we had a nice bowl of lentil soup each. Then on to our motel in Browning where we will stay for two nights. Dinner calls! Catch you tomorrow! 

[Kalon] We had lunch at Lake MacDonald and then I did a short hike to a non-descript lake (few mosquitoes).  Then on to Browning.

Lake McDonald Lodge