Back on Track

 

Mount Shasta, California

After 14 hours of travel that would make the late John Candy proud we finally board the train we should have started the day on. The attendant already had the bunks in our roomette made up and that is fine with us. We have covered 400 miles by Uber, Amtrak bus, and commuter rail to get to this point. There are nearly 700 more miles left before this part of our Hejira is through.

The wild fires north of Santa Barbara that cancelled our train out of Los Angeles was no fault of Amtrak and they did a pretty good job of rescheduling everything. During the three hours we wait, additional commuter trains deposit more and more people in similar situations at the station in Martinez, California for the rendezvous with the re-routed Coast Starlight.

With a resounding “All Aboard!” from the conductor, we are back on track at 11 p.m.

By 6 a.m. Thursday the sky is barely starting to lighten in the east as the two locomotives and eight cars begin climbing in earnest to pass through the Cascade Range. The only familiar sight visible out our window is the constellation of Orion riding high in the southern sky.

Back home in Maine the ascendance of Orion in the fall is the harbinger of colder weather and the winter to come. Its message remains true here as well. Outside the train the temperature falls fast as we climb ever higher into the mountains.

The most impressive landmark at daybreak is lofty Mount Shasta, its summit covered in snow. The domain of Bigfoot and UFO sightings, Mount Shasta is the tallest in the range and the southern anchor of a magnificent string of peaks including Crater Lake, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Rainier.

When we finally cross the line into Oregon the scenery is already well on its way to transitioning from the high, brown desert of California to the green, temperate rain forest of the Pacific Northwest.

The train makes a brief “fresh air break,” in Oregon town of Klamath Falls just after sunup. The surrounding fields and forests are covered with a heavy frost. The thermometer reads 27 degrees. At the coffee place across the tracks from the station, three men wearing jack shirts over hoodies lean on the hoods of idling pickup trucks, steam from the coffee, the men’s conversation, and exhaust from the trucks, rises sleepily towards the intensifying light.

A stop at Klamath Falls, Oregon.

The next segment pushes locomotives to their limit, climbing several thousand more feet and passing through numerous small tunnels. I lose count after seven. In thick woods on the northern slopes, the stubborn remains of a couple inches of snow that fell earlier in the week continue to seek refuge in the shadows.

Eventually the train makes it way down into the Willamette Valley, another major agricultural area. For most of the way we follow the valley’s namesake river, a major tributary of the Columbia, which empties into the Pacific Ocean just a few miles from my brother Dale’s house.

After stops in Eugene and Salem, Oregon’s Capital, it’s a quick one-hour run to Portland where Dale and his wife Jane are waiting for us at the historic station. They have been out here for just under ten years. They’ve been back east to visit all of us there many times but we’re the first to reciprocate.

Station, Portland, Oregon.

As we disembark at Portland, we spot Dale and Jane waiting at the door to the platform. With hugs and excitement, we reach the zenith of our cross country adventure. It’s off for the hour drive to Seaside, some dinner, and a good night’s sleep.

Before we left on this trip, I made a point of stopping by the Town Beach in Bar Harbor and walking down to touch the water. First thing tomorrow we’ll be going down to the beach here in Seaside. I plan to walk into the Pacific, the power of the churning surf forging an even stronger spiritual connection between the inspiring power of the Coast of Maine, and this family outpost, here where the continent also ends, and another mighty ocean rouses the spirit with equal passion and intensity.

 

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