The first job of the day involved taking Adam downtown to pick up the hire car for his trip down to Palm Desert. He hired a 7 seater GMC vehicle from SIXt.
Islay had gone off with Alex to shadow her aunt, for the morning, as part of the school work experience program. Adam and the rest of his family left the house about 11 to shop for food for the journey and then pick up Islay from the foundation.
My Achilles issue kept me more or less house bound. Maggi took Bennett for a walk and became frustrated probably because she had nothing to do. Sadie left for her sailing summer camp and Carrie moaned about her arm. I felt at a loss, read and indulged in Sudoko.
Greg came down made himself scrambled eggs and then disappeared upstairs to his office. Lee arrived around 10 to clear the mess from the morning’s breakfast and make the house momentarily tidy.
Lunch of egg mayonnaise sandwiches over Maggi and I left the house to return our Jeep to SIXt. My eSIM had stopped working that morning when I tried to navigate back from dropping Adam off. I hadn’t thought anything of it and assumed it was a setting on the phone that had changed. Now Maggi’s eSIM was also out. I can only presume that the company has gone bust.
Departure from Seattle
After leaving the SIXt drop off garage on 2nd Avenue I dragged my case the 1 ½ mile distance to King St Station for our Amtrak train trip to Chicago. I walked slowly and awkwardly, but fortunately the route descended all the way. Maybe for the first time on such a long city walk I obeyed all the pedestrian lights at each cross road. I just didn’t want to get caught in the middle of the road with cars bearing down and not be able to skip out of the way.
We found the station very easily and settled into a spot. However, with only a very weak on-off WiFi signal in the station we both became isolated from the internet and communications. How dependent we are on texting and communicating with everyone so easily was soon demonstrated as we felt a bit stranded.
We stepped aboard our train and found our room. The stewardess soon dispelled any hope of WiFi on board. Now Maggi and I would be completely cut off until Wednesday afternoon US time. No hope of contacting France about the leak issue. The decision to travel by train seemed a disaster.
We sit in room E on the upper part of the train. Our luxury room for two can only be described as pokey. The toilet doubles up as the shower, the minuscule sink outside the toilet only operates with spurts of water. Everything seems cramped.
The evening meal came and went. I ate all the food without the dessert. It tasted ok. I’m sure it all came via a microwave.
Our steward Donald has helped whenever necessary, but others less so. The restaurant and other staff help but in a surly fashion.
The view from the carriage is dominated by trees as we speed along through the mountains. The extraordinary scenery uplifts one’s spirit. Initially we followed the Pacific coastline until we reached Everett. The train then turned south and then east as we climbed up into the Cascade Mountains. Spectacular is perhaps the only way to describe it.
Around 9 o’clock it became too dark to see and we closed the curtains and fought our way with the bunk, sheets, blankets and lack of space. Donald gave us a hand. Thanks.
At Spokane I got off the train to stretch my legs at 1 am but the door wouldn’t open. I, therefore, opened the window. One of the attendants walked along and shouted at me SHUT THAT WINDOW. I looked at him and obeyed his command. Later he said I can’t open the door with the window open. I don’t know if that is true or not.
Both of us feel disappointed with the Amtrak experience.