Saturday, July 22, 2006

The Cove Chronicles - Day 10: The Great Train Ride

Today was the big day. The day of The Great Train Ride.

There's a train line that runs from La Grande out to Enterprise. A private company has been able to buy rights to part of the line, and a few weekends out of every year, they run a tour train along the Wallowa and Grande Ronde Rivers.

It's the Eagle Cap Excursion Train, and it runs from Wallowa to just outside of Elgin.

They're in the process of getting the rights to the last couple of miles into Elgin, and when that happens, they can run trains from Elgin all the way out to Enterprise.

This morning, we piled into the Kiddmobile with Jamie (a coworker of Dad's) and his wife and headed out to Wallowa. We pulled up to the station, got on the train, and headed straight to the open car, which had no air conditioning but had the best view.

We stayed there the entire trip, which took about six hours.

We headed out from Wallowa, following the Wallowa River through Minam, then turned off and followed the Grande Ronde River (which was significantly lower) up to just outside of Elgin. After switching the trains around and hooking up a few rail cars, we headed back.

It was a nice, relaxing trip that took us through some beautiful countryside. The lunch was pretty good, too.

Here are some pics.

Mom, Dad, and I ridin' the rails.

The engine in all its glory.

Mom, Dad, Jamie, and his wife.

You have no IDEA how hot those ties were. And yes, I AM an idiot.

On the way back, following the Grande Ronde.

Crossing the bridge where the Wallowa and the Grande Ronde Rivers meet.

Jamie.

We drove around a bit more after the train ride finished, and stopped for milkshakes. My cranberry milkshake tasted distinctly of vanilla. I wasn't very happy about that. But the battered mushrooms made up for it (a bit).

After dropping off Jamie and his wife, we headed into La Grande and stopped in at Big Behemoth Mart, where I picked up a pocketwatch and an alarm clock to use down in San Diego, as I would be taking off the next day.

All told, it was a fun day spent with my folks, and a good way to round out The Cove Chronicles.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You forgot to tell everyone about all the "moons" we saw.

Friday, September 15, 2006 12:48:00 AM  

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