Saturday, October 11, 2008

Fall Foliage Train Trip


Last weekend, October 4Th, we went on a train ride of the Fall Foliage north of Elgin Oregon ( about 125 miles from home or 30 minutes from Enterprise Oregon). It was a birthday present for my husband. We left home at 7 a.m. and arrived 15 minutes to 10 a.m. before it departed. It became an adventure we will not forget.

The train wasn't quite what we expected and I am not sure what we expected but I guess a little more modern train. It was very old, you even could smell how musty and old it was. When the train started it only went 10 miles an hour.....very, very slow! And the car we sat in was swaying side to side, once in while I could smell the exhaust from the engine up about 5 cars. It also rattled from time to time as it went along, not the usual sounds a train makes. The seats were very old and not very comfortable but we were on a train ride.

It went up the mountain about 18 miles and stopped at Kimmel for 10 minutes so the train crew could have lunch. Nothing there but this sign!
Then we boarded again to go backwards back to the station. We then had lunch on the train. Ralph didn't like the choices: turkey sandwich or chicken salad. He took one bite of the sandwich ( which I must admit it wasn't good) and just ate the fruit and brownie. I loved my salad. We had some entertainment too,an 80 year old man played the guitar and a gal played the fiddle and a guy played the guitar. They were pretty good too. And we had the scenery and wild life to see. We saw some bald eagles on the river and a brown bear running alone the hill side. And to make it complete Ralph and I saw a very still Black Cow very close to the train on the bank.

All in all it was a lovely ride and great view..........but we were so glad to find a real bathroom at Safeway. And a hamburger for us at St Joseph town.

1 comment:

jen said...

That kind of sounds like the one we went on except we didn't get lunch, we didn't see any animals and it only went ten miles up and stopped at a town where they stagged a robbery and took our money as a donation. Our train didn't have any windows either it was an open car, it was cold. Sound like fun though!!