Overland to Oregon

Overland bus travel in the USA is not cheap, convenient, or nice, so we decided against that original plan. We could have driven the rental car the whole way from Missoula Montana to Portland Oregon, but we really wanted to catch a train 🚃. Conveniently, Amtrak's Empire Builder goes right along the Columbia River, so we factored that in. The drive through mountainous Montana and Idaho was really pretty, then awfully ugly and busy on the interstate through SE Washington, but we made it to Pasco in time to return the 24-hour rental-car and walk around a bit. Such a contrast to the gentrified cities we'd been in! Flat, industrial and with a racially diverse population - mostly Mexican. We had a great Mexican feed; all transacted in Spanish. Also stayed in a fabulously outdated and partially rundown hotel - the Red Lion - so good, including a full breakfast. Turns out the Amtrak engineers stay there too so it was easy to catch a ride to the train station 😃.
The train was far from full so we had a choice of comfy seats and ended up spending most of the trip in the observation car - see pics 😄. So cool to see the landscape change from windswept desert to green hills with tall trees.Baca lagi