Chicago, Day 1

Our first day in Chicago began with a trip to Union Station to try and disentangle the mess that was our reservation. After the first re-route, Amtrak lifted the segment limitation on our pass, making it possible for an apparently unlimited number of reservations to be associated with it. In the extensive re-booking that followed our second re-route and subsequent emergency airlift, we had reservations lingering from both, and the routing that remained would have required us to be in at least two places at once, if not three. We walked up to the ticket counter in Chicago, and the agent we spoke to visibly cringed.

After the cringing, he was the most helpful Amtrak employee we had yet encountered. He cleaned up our booking entry, got us back on track, and managed to get us aboard the Lakeshore Limited on 1 July. This was still a day behind schedule, sticking us in Chicago for an extra day and causing us to miss Canada Day in Niagara Falls, but it was certainly better than I'd gotten on the phone. I'd also already made plans for transportation to Toronto based on leaving on that train, so all we needed to take care of was a last-minute hotel in Chicago. A quick click on Hotwire (and the judicious coincidence of my paycheck being deposited a few days early) and we were on our way.

After doing pretty well at our game of ticket poker, we headed out in search of Chicago pizza. A friend on Facebook recommended Aurelio's, and his recommendation was excellent. It turns out that there is an Aurelio's just around the corner from Union Station. (Of course, we didn't figure that out when we left Union Station. Of course not! We thought about going back to our hotel to leave our bags, then decided better of it once we were downtown. We mailed back our first pack of memorabilia at the post office, THEN looked up Aurelio's, and had to backtrack.) They had a $10 pizza-and-pasta lunch buffet, and after weeks of PB&J sandwiches we were eager for as much pizza as we could stuff ourselves with. The pizza didn't look all that great, considering its location under a heat lamp, but looks can be deceiving. One bite confirmed that this was indeed excellent pizza. (For the curious, it was the Chicago-style thin crust, not deep dish- which, I expect, cannot be held under a heat lamp for long.) I pass on the recommendation to any heading to Chicago, with the caveat that locals might know better than I. Thanks, Dana, for the tip!

We then set out trying to follow an itinerary from WikiTravel, but it turned out that the author's travel plans didn't exactly coincide with mine. We set out to see Chicago's Michigan Avenue, also known as the Magnificent Mile. Once we got there, however, we found out that the Mile is magnificently expensive- it's Chicago's primary commercial strip, populated by high-end department stores and boutiques. We did dig the Old Water Tower and nearby pumping station and firehouse, the first two of which survived the Great Chicago Fire, but the remaining occupants of the Magnificent Mile did not appear so magnificent to us. Therefore, we went elsewhere.

A quick walk east (and an astounding realization, on my part, that the water was now to the east, rather than its proper location in the west) took us to Lake Michigan, which we then proceeded to swim in. The cool water was refreshing in the muggy heat of the day, and it was fresh water despite its extension beyond the horizon. (Salt water always bugs me a bit, leaving a crusty impression on my skin after I'm done swimming.) We spent a bit of time splashing about and comparing notes on the local wildlife, which was out displaying an impressive array of colored plumage.

After our swim, Dani was feeling in need of a respite from the continuous city-walking that we'd been engaging in. We wandered back to Michigan Avenue and caught a bus headed for Union Station. We also were under the impression that we had to leave the city quite early in order to make it to our suburban (and inexpensive) hotel for the evening, so we got on a blue line train heading for Forest Park, connecting to one of the CTA's rare #17 buses. After the end of that ride, we had a mile-and-a-half walk to our hotel. Neither one of us were happy about it, but Hotwire hides the actual name and address of a hotel from you until you pay for and book your stay. (In return for accepting this limitation, you get insanely cheap rates. In most cases, we stayed for 50% or less of the room's posted rate. In this case, it was cheaper than hostel beds for the two of us.) We walked, weary, packs on, across suburban wasteland, pausing only for water and a bit of grocery shopping at a Super Target. We finally reached the Hillside Extended StayAmerica, checked in and tried to spend the evening relaxing.

Of course, fate would not allow us such a luxury. The air conditioning in our room didn't work. A quick call to the front desk informed me that, no, a maintenance person was not available on site, and that the desk clerk's promises to "call right back" were empty. We didn't receive a call for the duration of our stay. Plan B- a cool shower and opening every window in the place- worked passably well. I also then logged on to the Internet to discover that Pace, Chicago's suburban bus agency, is not on Google Transit- and that a quick perusal of their schedules would have brought us directly in front of our hotel, with buses running half-hourly up until midnight! At least we discovered this before the mile-and-a-half walk back to the #17 bus. With that, we ended our first day in Chicago.

Disaster and Rescue

After the washout of the Empire Builder earlier in the trip, we were re-routed on to the California Zephyr out of Sacramento to Chicago. Some scrambling meant that I was able to save most of our trip, losing only a day in Chicago and half a day in Niagara Falls. (It would turn out to be worse than that, but I'll explain why later.) We'd also have to ride straight through to Buffalo, making for 4 nights on the train, in coach. Not an ideal situation by any means, but okay. So, after an evening in Seattle that Amtrak still refused to pay for, we grudgingly boarded the Coast Starlight back south to California, expecting an early morning transfer to the Zephyr the next day. We settled in and I got to doing some blogging.

My blogging was interrupted, however, about halfway between Portland and Salem, OR. The conductor came by to ask me if I had received a call from Amtrak. It seems that some of her other passengers had been called and informed that the Zephyr that we were trying to transfer to would be cancelled due to flooding, and that buses were on hand in Salem to return passengers to their origin stations. I told her that, no, I hadn't received such a phone call, and that I really hoped that I wouldn't. Sure enough, three minutes later, I received just such a phone call. I got on the phone to Amtrak's Customer Relations department, who informed me that they'd be happy to bring me back to Seattle. I informed them that there was nothing for me in Seattle, and that returning me there was tantamount to tossing me onto the streets, and they refused to provide any sort of accomodation in Seattle for me. They also offered to deliver me to Denver, where they would also leave me to my own devices. I informed the agent that I would not be leaving the train until I had either a place to sleep or a plan to get to Chicago, and hung up.

Salem, OR came and went, and most of the people in our car emptied out onto the waiting buses. (Amtrak, on long-distance trains, seats passengers by destination. Our car was all Sacramento passengers, and 90% of them were Empire Builder refugees heading for Chicago.) We stayed, and I tried different tacks with Amtrak's customer relations agents. Nothing worked. I was finally re-routed via the Southwest Chief, but that train (the only remaining route from the west coast to Chicago) was so overbooked that the agent was unable to get me aboard earlier than 5 July. (It was 27 June.) That, of course, was when I would be able to board the train- it wouldn't get us to Chicago until the 7th, or to New York (our eventual destination at that point) until the 8th. This itinerary would have us cooling our heels in Riverside for a solid week, and would eat Chicago, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal, and most of our visit to New York City (and therefore, most of our visit with my best friend, who is currently in exile in Brooklyn). We were both devastated by this outcome, but since we didn't have the money for a flight or bus to Chicago, we were resigned to booking it.

I then, fatefully, texted my mother about our situation. She expressed incredulity about the awfulness of Amtrak's customer service (unsurprisingly- I can't quite believe it myself), and asked if there was anything she could do. I said that, barring a last-minute flight, there wasn't. Surprisingly, she replied with "Your dad and I will look into things- give me some airport options," which I did. At this point, we were in Eugene, OR, and about to lose cellular service for the spectacularly isolated stretch of track over the Cascade range, so (not thinking that much would come of it), I told her I'd call when we were back in cell range.

When I called her, she informed me that my grandparents were prepared to foot the bill to fly us to Chicago the next morning, and that I should arrange to get off in Oakland. Who am I to argue? (Thanks again, Grandma and Grandpa!)

The next morning, we arrived in Sacramento nearly an hour early. I took the opportunity to get off and stretch my legs. By the time we were in Oakland, however, we were magically half an hour late. Somebody, someday, will have to explain to me how that works. My grandparents picked us up from the station and took us out to breakfast at a wonderful breakfast place called Dell's in their town of Castro Valley. It's the sort of dive that many towns have- decor that hasn't been updated since the place opened, cash only, but phenomenally good and phenomenally cheap food. We chatted about what we'd seen so far, and the abysmal treatment we'd received at Amtrak's hands, and headed back to their place to relax and wash up for our 14:00 flight. We also made use of their laundry machines, which turned out to be a tremendous mistake. I thought that two hours would be enough for a load of laundry, but we were running later than everyone concerned would have liked when we finally got the clothing out of the dryer. They dropped us off at the airport, and (after thanking them profusely once more) we headed off to our gate.

Our flight was overbooked, and we were subject to the usual requests for volunteers to be bumped. The offer was tempting enough, but after our recent troubles Dani wasn't feeling lucky enough to give it a try. We boarded the plane nearly last in line, and weren't able to find two seats together. A tip to everyone who fills in the window and aisle seats on a sold-out plane- if you see a couple come down at the last minute, it'd be kind of you to move and let them sit together. As-is, we were both sitting in middle seats, and two rows apart from one another. We tried to keep the shouting back and forth to a minimum, but there was an instance in which I dropped my sunglasses in the lap of the gentleman between us. The flight itself was rather miserable- four hours of flying through a thunderstorm, listening to the cries of at least two clearly distressed infants. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for earplugs! However, when it was over, we were back in Chicago and back on our originally-scheduled itinerary... or so we thought.

You see, when we were first re-routed, we changed our reservations for the Lakeshore Limited from Chicago to Buffalo. Considering the ease with which we'd changed them, and the opening we'd made with our own cancellation, I thought that it would be relatively simple to switch them back again. Not so! It seems that, not only had the 30 June train (which was our original reservation) filled up, but the 1 July train (our first re-route) had as well! Our reservations had been changed to the 8th of July, and changing them back was going to be... problematic. We decided to take the El into downtown Chicago, get some sleep, and deal with it first thing in the morning.

Seattle

We left Victoria early in the morning- a bit too early, as is my custom. We got to the ferry terminal nearly two hours early for our sailing, and were quite thoroughly alone in the waiting area for some time. Dani was somewhat unhappy with me, but I like to be prepared. Sadly, the Clipper's terminal in Victoria is a touch uncomfortable, filled with the most unpleasant folding chairs you can imagine. It felt like we were waiting for an awful school play. Around 10:00, U.S. Immigration started processing us, and I held out hope that there would be somewhere nicer to sit on the other side. Sadly, it was an even less pleasant holding room, filled with the same chairs, but we were soon liberated and taken aboard the ferry.

Once aboard, all the seats that were available were at tables facing each other- and I had the dubious fortune of sitting across from a very, very tall gentleman. Neither of us had any legroom for the three-hour crossing to Seattle, during which the cabin staff did their best to sell us something, anything, from their on-board shops. Puget Sound was astoundingly calm, and the crossing was uneventful (if highly commercialized). We pulled in to Seattle on a drizzly afternoon and enjoyed a short, if hilly, walk to our hotel- which brings me to the second time I had to call my family for help. Despite our best efforts, we didn't have enough money on hand to pay for the room. After a few hours on the phone and Internet, my mother came through with everything necessary to persuade the desk clerk to let us in to a room. (Thanks again, mom!) Of course, $80 a night in downtown Seattle doesn't buy too much of a room, but it was a place to keep warm and dry.

I asked the desk clerk what she'd do with an evening in Seattle, and she tipped us off to a few suggestions. One was a pub called Buckley's just down the street, reputed to have an excellent happy hour, and the other was a visit to the Seattle Public Library. Both were spot-on. The pub had excellent happy hour appetizers- I had delicious pulled-pork sliders and chicken wings, Dani had a quesadilla that was far too big for her, and we split a plate of garlic tots. If you're ever in Seattle, do stop by and give them a try- tater tots smothered in garlic and cheese, fried to perfection. After a week of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, they were welcome.

After dinner, we headed to the amazing new Seattle Library. The building is a great example of recent architecture, and uses its unique shape to the fullest. Aside from being beautiful and expansive, it also houses a book robot and the world's only book spiral- a slowly-sloping hallway that wraps around the central stairway, organized by dewey decimal number. Libraries are wonderful places, but Seattle's library stands out as unique among them. Give it a visit if you're nearby.

At the library, we stopped by their small store in order to buy a magnet and postcards. While there, I had the happy accident of somebody mistaking me for a Canadian. We made a comment about how the only cash we had was Canadian, and that it was useless but pretty. The clerk agreed that "our money" was pretty... I told her I took it as a compliment.

We headed back to our hotel, courtesy of Seattle's extensive free-bus area, and got ready for our train back down to Sacramento- where, we were told, that we would connect to the California Zephyr to Chicago. Of course, the next morning was when it all started unraveling.

The Train in Maine Goes Mainly Up In Flames

(Photo: Me)

I'll get to this in more detail in the future, but I wanted to let you all know about our adventure today. I'll let the fine reporters at the Portland (ME) Press-Herald fill you in:

Downeaster, truck collide in 'fireball'

NORTH BERWICK — A Downeaster train with 109 passengers aboard slammed into a trash-hauling tractor trailer at 11:05 a.m. today, killing at least one person.

The driver of the truck died in the collision, said Cliff Cole, a spokesman based in Amtrak's New York office. Some of the train's 109 passengers were injured, but it's not clear how many or how seriously they were hurt, said Steve McCausland from the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Justin Nelson, 24, of Los Angeles, was traveling on the Downeaster with his wife as part of a cross-country rail tour when "we drove through what looked like a fireball."

"We were just sitting there, running along, when all of the sudden, the train started violently shaking," Nelson said. "Then there was fire all around us. There was lots of screaming."

At the scene of the collision, heaps of trash covered the gravel alongside the tracks for several hundred feet. Various other charred debris smoldered amongst the garbage. The locomotive and at least one passenger car were still aflame more than an hour after the crash, according to eyewitnesses.

To answer your questions: We are okay, and are presently sitting in our hotel in Bar Harbor. In fact, there were no serious injuries on the train. The engineer and conductor were treated for smoke inhalation, and one passenger complained of a head injury. All were released from the hospital today.

And yes, I'm getting a copy of that newspaper.

Victoria

Photos to be uploaded later, when we have better Internet access.
(We are currently aboard Amtrak's Adirondack in Schenectady, NY en route to New York City.)

We boarded the Pacific Coach Lines bus to Victoria, which would deliver us onto the ferry at Tsawassen Terminal (Pronounced Tuh-WAS-sen) on the mainland and drive us in to downtown Victoria from the Sidney terminal on the island. PCL buses get priority booking on the ferry, so they're the first aboard and the first to depart upon docking. After our driver got us situated on the Spirit of British Columbia's vehicle deck, we were all shuffled off the bus and up to the passenger areas of the ferry. Dani and I were expecting to get a bit of time to relax and enjoy BC Ferries' complimentary wi-fi. (As you can tell, we haven't had a lot of time on the Internet on this trip.) However, the damn thing didn't work until 20 minutes before our arrival in Sidney, during which time Dani was able to upload some photos to Facebook (and that's it). We were forced to look out the windows, and the scenery was spectacular- cabins and homes clinging to the sides of the tiny islands that form the passage between the mainland and Sidney, served by smaller ferry boats that shuttle between docks on each one of them. While I can't say the isolation appeals to me, the views certainly make a case for moving there.

(Photos from boat go here!)

We were called back down to the bus as the ferry arrived on the island, and they drove us into downtown Victoria- stopping along the way at Mayfair Mall. Of course, I only realized after we left the stop that our hotel was within a block of said mall. (On the way in, I also spotted an Accent Inn which I recognized immediately as the former Stay-N-Save Victoria, where I stayed the last time I was in the city with the Serrano High Rattlesnake Regiment. Sadly, the attached restaurant no longer advertises their famous sirlion steak.)

Upon our arrival in downtown Victoria, we quickly found ourselves confronted with Dani's lack of bus fare, so we had to find a place to make change- and this on a budget. The local 7-11 was unable to make change without making a sale, so he managed to extract a loonie from me for unnecessary breath mints. We grabbed one of the many frequent buses along Douglas St. and headed to our hotel.

At our hotel, we found ourselves confronted with the same trouble that befell us in Vancouver- the hotel wanted a $200 deposit, and we were in no position to provide the same. This time we were unable to bargain our way out of the requirement, and had to cajole my mother into providing a credit card to hold the room. This would be the first time I would reach out to my family for assistance, but not the last. After a tense hour or so, we managed to get situated in the room, proceeding to take care of things like blogging and laundry and planning our next day's sight-seeing.

I woke up early the next morning to go take in the sights, while Dani slept in. (This turns out to be a theme of the vacation.) The first thing about Victoria that was immediately apparent to me was the fact that the town is a tourist trap. Not a bad place to go if you've got money and are looking for a quick getaway, but most of the attractions of the area were a bit too rich for our tiny trip budget. Victoria's two main industries are tourism and government- it is the provincial capital of British Columbia- and it seems like what you would get if you crossed Avalon, CA (on Catalina Island) with Sacramento. Readers familiar with both places should catch my meaning.

Anyway, I wandered the harbourfront for a time, taking pictures of the various operations going on there. Victoria is the second-busiest floatplane port in the region, behind Vancouver, and its small and beautiful harbour makes for excellent photography. I also watched the departure of the M.V. Coho on her way to Port Angeles, WA- it is amazing to see a boat of that size maneouvre its way out of such a small harbour. It basically had to perform a giant three-point turn. After that departure, the Victoria Harbour Ferries performed their "world famous" water ballet. I'm not sure how world-famous it is, seeing as I'd never heard of it, but I did watch for a while and take pictures.

I found myself in the early afternoon wife-less and without much motivation to go sight-seeing without her, so I was lucky that we were in town during the Victoria International Jazz Festival. Free concerts were being held in Centennial Square, so I took my lunch next to a fountain while listening to live jazz. There are worse things in the world...

After lunch, I met up with Dani and we proceeded to check out the (actually) world-famous Empress Hotel. This massive structure was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in order to entice eastern leisure travelers to the company's rails and steamships. Along with Wimbledon, it is one of the last snooty British things- you can still take high tea in the dining room, or visit the attached conservatory (complete with a live pianist). It is also a magnificent building which dominates the harbourscape of Victoria, topped in copper roofs that have turned green with age, complementing the Parliament Building across the water. So, of course, we had to have a look around.

There are a few interesting things open to the public at the Empress, including the aforementioned conservatory (which is now attached to the Victoria Convention Centre). Another nice spot is the Empress Archives, which showcase the history of the building and have quite a few knick-knacks from the hotel's past- old brochures, menus, invitations, silverware and toiletries and the like. There was also an amusing hallway of self-deprecating editorial cartoons. (Also on this hallway were a pair of ridiculously comfortable chairs. Neither of us wanted to get up from them...)

Of course, since we won't be able to afford to stay somewhere like the Empress for a very, very long time, we decided to take a quick peek at how the other half lives. We didn't manage to get terribly far. There was an unguarded elevator near the Archives which led us straight up to the top floor, where I was hoping to get a view of the harbour. Sadly, it seems that all the windows on the floor have been reserved for paying customers, so we headed back out.

We wandered in the general direction of the Parliament Building, but stopped to listen to a busker on the waterfront. It seems that the Victoria Interntional Busker Festival was running concurrently with the Jazz Festival- they were quite organized, down to arranging locations and selling programs and t-shirts at the local mall. This particular guy was quite good, singing mostly covers of classic rock songs with a boy who, I assume, must be his son. We dropped a few cents into his guitar case after a half-hour's listen. (Would've given more if we could've.) The new-found knowledge about the busker festival made my happening upon a superhero playing a keyboard earlier a touch more sensible.

When we arrived at the Parliament Building, they were just starting up an organized tour- the only way you can get in the building on weekends. I'd played on the steps of this structure before, in 1999, but if I'd been inside the memory escapes me. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

As most of downtown was rolling up the sidewalks (and we were limited, by budget and transit agency whim, to traveling in the direction of our hotel), we proceeded to try and visit one of Victoria's other landmarks, the Craigdarroch Castle. It was built by the coal magnate John Dunsmuir as a testament of his wealth and prestige, although he died before its completion. It now belongs to the City of Victoria, which gave us hope that admission might be free. It wasn't, so we didn't go in, but we did take some great pictures of the outside.

After the castle, with our bus transfers running out of time, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep. The next day would bring us to the Victoria Clipper and our first deviation from the original itinerary- an unplanned night in Seattle.