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Intro
General Scenes
The BNB
The Train
Water and Snow
Prologue
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Intro
We had decided that before Kathleen came back from visiting in Alaska that Patricia and I
deserved a treat. Though it didn't fit into the budget, it was worth every penny to have a weekend
to ourselves, off doing something different.
My thought was to Mount. Rainier as on clear days it dominates the skyline (except that the
cloud cover was so low that weekend we never saw Rainier itself).
Anyways, Patricia came home after talking with someone at work about a dinner train, I went
on line (of course) found the info and located a Bed and Breakfast nearby. We booked them and
left Shantree with a sitter for the weekend.
We had a very enjoyable trip! Driving up Saturday morning, dinner train and B & B that night.
We got up Sunday morning and drove through Mount Rainier Park on the way home Sunday.
Lots of beautiful scenery along the way, even though we never saw Rainier itself.
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General Scenes |
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Billed as the `smallest' church in the country, in Elbe near
the train station.
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Hodgepodge along the way. Reminds me of the granite at Tahoe.
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The BNB |
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The bed and breakfast that we stayed at.
We reserved a room at a Rainier Inn, arriving in the
afternoon before the dinner train, Patricia took a nap
and I scouted out the grounds.
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The main house |
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The cottage we stayed in, two upper apartments and
one large lower.
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The stairs up to our room, notable for the fact that they FIT
the building in rather than cutting down the flora.
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This is their back yard, I could get used to this!
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Even had a stream running through the property, these
two guys were casual on the other side.
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We reserved the hot tub for after the dinner train, in a
secluded grove out back. . .
Bathing suits? Hey this was a romantic weekend.
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Front yard
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Their `creek' that ran through their property had many marsh
type plants, reeds, cattails, etc.
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The Train
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An old style steam engine it had it's own track.
No turnaround, just two hours up and two hours back down
the same route.
Through some beautiful scenery though.
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and going!
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Where we've been
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The whole train, black engine, the white car is the kitchen,
next the dining car trailed by two passenger cars.
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The bar behind my seat, with the live entertainment in
the same car.
Lot of easy listening entertainment.
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The dining was done in two sittings, as we were in the
second seating, we relaxed in the club cab first.
Lucky, as it turned out we had the best seats in the train.
Our two with another pair on the other side, but separated from the
rest of the car by the bar.
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One of the few shots of us together.
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The trains were real working steam engines.
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The last lounge car was an original presidential campaign car.
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Elbe station
Start and end point.
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Engine returning
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The thing about locomotives is that they can run equally well in
either direction.
We backed up the route and pushed back down.
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Water and Snow
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Lots of water, from a lot of snow. . .besides the lakes and the
river, there were a lot of little waterfalls all along
the road from melt runoff.
Some of them were even prettier than the full normal falls.
Quite a bit of snow considering it was summer.
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A lot of these little seasonal temporary runoffs.
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And then the river had several full waterfalls as well. |
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The sound of running water over a ledge has to be the
most soothing sound in the world.
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Now this did remind me of a typical Tahoe scene.
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That dark spot next to the road bank is a
vehicle, the bank is twice as tall. |
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You can see the haze here that covered Rainier that kept us
from seeing it even as close as we got.
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This was a beautiful little iced over lake, could
not catch on film the beautiful blues and greens
that peeked through the snow cover though.
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Just out of Elbe, only time we were close to the road.
After this the train turned more inland, following
through forest and farmlands.
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We usually only associate driftwood with the Ocean. But it does start somewhere. |
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Lake at Elbe
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Almost a mini glacier feeding into the river.
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Prologue |
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We had a wonderful time, besides getting away alone we got to see and experience
new things and places. |
