Boarding the Train

On Saturday we dumped the dog at the kennel, crossed the border and headed to Spokane to board the train. There's one train a day to Portland and it departs at 3 in the morning. So we did some last minute shopping. Got Noah some sneakers. How could he have exactly zero pairs of shoes? The kid outgrew his last pair of shoes after the move to winter boots in the fall. His dress shoes are his dad's old dress shoes with kleenexes stuffed in the toes and he had no running shoes and no casual shoes. My efforts to find him anything other than $12.99 vinyl Made-in-China shoes in Nelson had come up empty. So among other things we got him some shoes.

Then we went to the train station to wait. And wait. We went out for a late supper, in shifts, leaving folks behind to guard the suitcases. As it turned out this would be Sophie's last real meal.

We spent 9 hours based in the train station. It was mostly empty and reasonably comfortable. The kids read, played cards, chatted, napped, used the laptop, listened to some of our current readaloud. And waited. Finally the train rolled in. We boarded, took up our sleeper berths and most of us were asleep within a few minutes of pulling out of the station.