harisrid Tech News

So why did I travel across the three states of the West Coast – Washington, Oregon, and California… by a train!

For about a week during March 2023, I stayed over at my uncle and aunt’s home in Seattle, Washington, spending quality time with my extended family and devouring books in their makeshift library. Like the trip between San Jose and San Diego, I could have taken a quick two hour direct flight between the two major Pacific metropolises. But I thought to myself that not only would a second train journey be magical – it would also complete a near cross-country journey across the vertical length of the continent United States. More ever, Amtrak travel entails a myriad of benefits for travelers – extra leg room, freshly-prepared meals, an more eco-friendly travel mode, observation deck views, memorable conversations with strangers, and seeing the country through a unique lenses. Unlike the first train ride though, this one would be the first overnight train where I would sleep in the coach seats ; day one would be spent in the states of Washington and Oregon, whereas day two focused on California. Alright, let’s explore both days !

Day One : Race Through the Pacific Northwest States of Washington and Oregon

I initially left King Street Station sometime around 10:00 a.m., heading South from Seattle, WA to Portland, Oregon. Like most days during Spring, the weather took on its typical form of overcast cloudy skies with mild interspersed precipitation, save for occasional breaks of sunny skies and rays piercing through the cloud layer. The section in Washington wasn’t as “exciting”, but still held a couple of interesting sights to observe. Nonetheless, it made for solid focused reading time – I worked my way through a few sections of Chip Hyugen’s Designing Machine Learning Systems book !

Now onto entering Oregon – the fun, memorable section. I first stopped in the city of Portland for half an hour at union Station ; I figured this would be an opportune moment to decompress, stretch, and inject some physical activity – especially given the day’s length of the train journey. I also purchased snacks and a few postcards and walked myself around in Union Station, taking in the smells, sights, and sounds of the historic building.

The train then set forth southeast to Dunsmuir, California from Portland’s Union Station. But in order to do so, it had to cross the cascades – which not only entailed slow train travel along an ascent through mountainous, hilly terrain, but also entailed a loss of cellular reception for about three hours. While it sounds scary, it really wasn’t, given the glacial and safe rate of ascent. But back on topic, the best portion of this trip involved the dinner time winter wonderland experience in the dining car; I saw the stratus clouds of rain and drizzle slowly morph into a snow storm and the fog-covered landscapes change into a frozen arctic tundra. It was a must see to glimpse in one’s lifetime sight!

Waking up for Day 2 – in the Farms of California’s Central Valley

On the second day of the Amtrak journey, I woke up to the sights of drier, desiccated landscapes : a quilted patchwork of small town America, sprint-time blooming orchards, fecund farms, and man-made canal irrigation systems. California’s Central Valley – a stark contrast to yesterday’s trip – teleported me from a rainy, verdant world to a drier realm. Nonetheless, I took in the beauty to admire, and for someone domiciled in the state’s west coast – a more-urbanized and media dominant portion – I, a wandering sojourner, got a good reminder of what the rest of California represents.

This trip segment was short-lived – I spent only a few hours in the morning taking in the splenetic, sunlight views from the observation deck and the dining cars. I woke up to the trains’ quotidian, hum-and-drum sound : constantly recurring on a rhythm beat. The breakfast meal involved a delicious 30-minute meal of Amtrak’s baked bread, healthy fruit, a grilled cheese sand-which, and coffee – a jam-packed All-American continent breakfast. I took the time to get my senses back to normalcy from a night of serious sleep deprivation ( it’s not easy to sleep on Amtrak coach) and then started collecting photos from the observation deck. Let me share them!