Washington State 2024 - A Train Trip

 We took the train from Seattle to Kelso, about a 40 minute wooded drive along the bank of the Columbia river from my brother's home. The Seattle train station, like many historic train stations in the U.S., harkens back to a time of gracious travel. Spacious, white spaces sporting beautiful architectural details. make waiting a pleasurable experience. It is about as far from the uncomfortable chairs and sea of humanity you encounter at most airports as you can get. Shopping is better at the airports however. 

Industry and nature share space outside the train windows. Nearer to Seattle you pass the backside of the stadiums and a plant with a parking lot full of cars. As you move away from the city trees fill the landscape, their branches heavy laden with moss due to the uber moist nature of this part of the country. Small rippling creeks and rivers flow through the dusty fall colors. As we pull into it's station Tacoma crawls up a hillside looking defiant and proud of it's command over the nature that surrounds it. 

As we pass through the tiny town of Winlock, population 1472 as of the last census, an announcement comes over the speaker system informing us that we are about to pass the "world's largest egg". It is a 12 foot long, 1200 pound concrete egg perched on a pedestal, a typical roadside attraction. Up until the 1950s Winlock was the largest egg producing town in the country, hence it's sense of ovum civic pride. 

The tiny station in Kelso is, like many others across the country, historic. My niece, a teacher who works minutes from the station, picks us up and we take the lush country highway to my brother's home.