Aug. 26-27, 2018 -Vancouver to Los Angeles


Aug. 26. 

The start of an amazing train and bus journey. 


 A funny coincidence as I was waiting outside Bette's condos for my 3:50am taxi, was when a resident from the same condos came running down, and lo and behold there were 2 taxis waiting. No, he was not on the same train to Los Angeles! Each taxi driver gave us a name, and we picked the right taxi. It was a short ride to the station, and a few passengers were standing outside, as the place was locked. 4:30am came and went, finally at 5pm a guard came and opened the doors to the station.  No sign of Immigration and no train personnel knew anything about it, just telling us to wait until the bus showed up at 5:30am. I could have had another hour's sleep! After about an hour on the bus, we got to the US border where we got off with all our luggage. I sailed through and got back on the bus which took us to the Seattle train station.  I think I slept quite a lot, as it was 9am when we arrived in Seattle. 
The border crossing from Canada to the US.


Seattle train station. Such a beautiful building!







So exciting!


The car with the observation deck. I spent most of my time up there. 


Tacoma  Galloping Gertie Bridge  https://youtu.be/KRutAt0FlGA  The island behind was the one a pilot crashed into recently after stealing a plane from the airport. 



Going further south 



I changed trains at Martinez - going on to Bakersfield to catch the bus to Los Angeles. I met Louise at the LA station as she had come in from the Los Angeles airport. Another beautiful train station. 
We took the Metro train to Long Beach, then there was a free Passport shuttle bus to the Cunard liner the Queen Mary. Finally! I was so excited.
Los Angeles Train station



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