Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”
— Lisa St. Aubin De Teran
Finally caught up! Since we’re leaving for holiday travel tomorrow, I’ll probably quickly be behind again, but, oh well! Today’s prompt:
How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year? (Author: Tara Hunt)
This is easy. Obviously, we took the big trip at the end of the summer. (This post is going to be phot-heavy, so I’m going to split it into at least two posts.)
We flew to Chicago, then caught the train (romantically called the Empire Builder) and rode it all the way to Seattle – two overnights on the train. We had our own sleeper car:
The seats covert into a lower bunk, and the top bunk swings down from overhead. It was a little cramped, but it was definitely worth the experience.
We rode through some of the most gorgeous parts of the country. We crossed the Mississippi:
There’s a line in an Indigo Girls song that goes, “Well, the Mississippi’s mighty, but it starts in Minnesota at a place that you can walk across with five steps down” – I heard that in my head as we, indeed, crossed the river in Minnesota. We spent much of the night in North Dakota; in fact, we pulled through Fargo, where I was born, at about three in the morning. The next day was spent largely in Montana, which was gorgeous and made me dream of Legends of the Fall:
The next morning, we rode through the Cascades, which was unbelievable – we want to go back and spend some time there:
I took that last one (well, all of these, actually) through the train window. I can’t believe how well this one turned out.
We pulled in to Seattle, took a cab to the hotel, and immediately went down to the Public Market:
Later we headed to the Space Needle, just as the sun was going down:
Mount Ranier was off in the distance:
The next day we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, went to the Mariners game, and toured underground Seattle. We left Seattle the next morning, but not before taking a peek at the Fremont Troll, who lives under the bridge:
Our next stop was Mount Saint Helens, and I don’t even have any words, so we’ll just let the pictures talk for a little while:
We headed to Oregon next – tune in for Part 2!
Hear Me in the Harmony 
Hi Mel! I’ve been catching up on your blog, and you (and my new MacBook!) are inspiring me to start writing again ASAP. We’re also planning a trip to Seattle & Portland in the summer, so I can’t wait to see part 2, and will be picking your brain at some point! 🙂
Oh, Julie! I was just thinking about you and wondering if you’d abandoned your blog completely. I’m so glad to see you’re going to give it another shot, and I can’t wait to read it again!
What a great trip that was! I was looking at train schedules last week, inspired by you, and would very much like to take a train to San Fran, where my college roommate lives…how cool would that be! Darn job.