The Pacific Northwest
Most
people think of the State of Washington as a rainy place characterized by the
belief that it rains nonstop in Seattle between the end of September and the
beginning of May and then it rains only every other day the rest of the year. Well, not true! At least not entirely true. It does tend to rain a bit in the wintertime,
but it is more of a mist, but it is better than below freezing temperatures and
snow. What most people do not realize is
that the State of Washington has two extreme climate zones; the western “wet
zone” characterized by the emerald green lush vegetation outlined by the
Pacific and the Puget sound regions and the Eastern dry zone that seems to
conveniently stop at the Idaho border.
In fact most people do not realize that next to death Valley,
California, with an annual rainfall of about 6 inches per year, Eastern
Washington is the driest place in the country with an annual rainfall of 7
inches per year!
The Desert of Eastern Washington east of Spokane
We
woke up in Spokane, WA as the train was leaving the station about 6:30 a.m. –
it was running about an hour behind schedule – probably due to the heart attack
episode back in Wisconsin. It’s hard to characterize
a city from the train that early in the morning, but from what I could tell,
the center of the Inland Empire, as Spokane as known, has not changed much form
the 1980s when we used to travel there.
There is a lot of desert farming in Eastern Washington using sprinkler
irrigation. When you fly over the area
it seems like half the dessert is irrigated with these circular sprinkler
systems forming circles of plantations that can be as big as a quarter mile in
diameter. Luckily, there is enough water
in the northwest to handle all that, unlike states like Arizona where the water
is so scarce.
One of the most impressive
sites was the crossing the Columbia River - largest flowing river in the
U.S. Like the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) controls the hydro power
generation of this mighty river. It
looks huge at Wenatchee area but when the Snake joins it just south of the
Tri-Cities in southern Easter Washington, it becomes enormous. Adrian and I decided to have breakfast in the
restaurant and we sat in a table with a fellow who have had his suitcase, with
his insulin, stolen in Glacier. It might
have been a case where the lady to took it might have gotten he wrong
suitcase. With good reason, he was anxious
to get to his destination and to his pharmacy for an additional supply.
Crossing the Cascade mountains
was an impressionable experience with its thick forests, rugged mountains and
tall peaks with glaciers on the top providing the source for pristine rivers
with water so clear it lured you to go and have a drink. I could not take my eyes away from the
scenery, in fact I doubt if I blinked the whole time. The crossing is not as difficult as it used
to be before 1929 when an 8-mile tunnel was built through the mountains. The train used to wind up and down the
mountainsides taking a day or more to get across. The tunnel reduces the crossing to less than
20 minutes, but in complete darkness of a hole a mile below the surface
above. I thought about being trapped a
mile below a mountain as we made our way through the dark hole. We emerged on the western side of the range
and we went from a non-populated area to a an area sprinkled with towns, farms
and cities.
Then it happened, we have
reached the Pacific Ocean (well, actually Puget Sound, but wants to quibble
with details). We could see the
snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountain range across the Sound and Seattle
was only an hour away. The tracks are on
the coast from Everett to Seattle and we had a great treat with a seaside vista
for the rest of the trip.
My daughter,
Rebeca, was waiting for us at the train station, and in a way, I hated for our
trip to have to end. The first and only condition
for taking this type of train trip is not to be in a hurry. It is the trip that counts, not getting
there. Of course, the experience is
always improved if one has a sleeping compartment, not just for a more comfortable
sleep, but you get priority in dining room seating.
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