Navigation: Day1 | Day2 | Day3 | Day4

Our train wasn't boarding until 2:45pm. That was nice, because it meant we could clean and pack in the morning, rather than doing it the day before. We left for the train station at 2pm: we simply had to walk a few blocks to MAX and ride it to the other end of downtown. Compared with flying, this is really easy because there's no need to arrive super-early or to pack special. The lack of Orwellian security hassles is very notable: feel free to bring your water, and there are no long lines to analyze your pocket lint or tube of toothpaste larger than 3 ounces.

We've been on distance trains in Europe, but hardly in the United States. The train car itself seems like an airplane at first: reclining seats and luggage bins overhead. But when you think about it longer, you recognize all of the ways it's different than an airplane: the seats are much larger, there's significantly more legroom, the center aisle is very wide, and it's incredibly quiet. There are electrical outlets at the seats, and no restrictions on cell phone/laptop/MP3 player use during the ascent/descent periods of the flight.

On the trip north, the conductor informed us that we'd be detoured due to a mudslide. Apparently the mudslide was somewhere between Seattle and Vancouver BC, so they stopped the train at Seattle and moved us to buses.

The buses were organized by destination, so we were on the buses that were going directly to Vancouver- no stops at stations before there. That actually meant we arrived in Vancouver earlier than we would have on the train. It's somewhat annoying, considering we had booked the tickets especially to be on a direct train, but that's okay. The border crossing by bus was annoying: all passengers were taken off the bus and had to carry their luggage in to the customs station, then reboard. It took quite a bit of time. On top of that, it was easy to make a direct comparison between the train and bus: the bus was high-end, but felt very cramped compared to the train. The ceiling was much lower, the seats were narrow, and our knees were right against the seats in front of us. Oh well.

Once we arrived, we took a 10-minute bus ride and then walked about 12 minutes and were at our bed and breakfast. It was very, very nice (especially for the price!). We certainly lucked out on our choice of lodging.