Holidays on Whidbey -- 2008

We took our annual trip to visit with the family over the holidays. Kitty pushed for the lowest-carbon-footprint form of transportation--Amrak. Even though our past experience is that Amtrak runs *very* late, has generally poor service and is expensive, we got reservations and showed up at the San Jose train terminal for the 9pm Coast Starlight to Seattle. 24 hour trip when it runs on schedule. It is a nice way to travel when the train is moving.





Frances in the Parlor Car








Cold stop at Klamath Falls






We had two of the little sleeper cars




The trip actually went pretty well till mid-Oregon. We arrived there at the same time as the biggest snow/ice storm of the last 50 years. To make a long story short, we ended up in the Seattle Amtrak station at around 4:30am. Seattle was pretty much shut down by the same storm, but after 3 hours, we managed to catch a ride to Whidbey Island.


The view for 3 hours waiting for a frozen drawbridge to be lowered






The kids at the Seattle King's Station






The view from my folks house




It was cold! Snow flurries off and on for the first few days. Brother John, Anne and Chris could not get up I-5 from Corvalis and arrived two days later than planned. Zach got in from a trip to Mexico and made it up Christmas eve.


We played cards, hit the Everitt climbing gym, exchanged gifts and visited.























Everyone was doing well and it was a great visit.
Too short a trip and we were back on the train for Santa Cruz.

These photos all taken with a Nikon d40 plus Nikkor 16-85 VR