— पांच हजार नौ सौ अट्ठाईस —
The
Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad, and specifically its
Christmastime train ride, is something I've known about for ages and long wanted to do. Well, in short: I'm glad I finally got to, and also I can now check it off my list. Described as "a 75-minute immersive theatrical experience, where Christmas tradition meets enchantment," I expected something a little less chaotic than a
crowded coach car with random jester-like entertainment and a walk-on by Santa Claus. Maybe I shouldn't have been "cheap" by buying the $55 coach tickets and splurged on the $73 "First Class" tickets instead. Except even $55 is honestly kind of a lot, but I decided I'd do it just this once.
For the record, I still had fun. The many children present—very much to be expected, of course—were a little shrill for the enclosed space, but the scenery was very pretty, the disappointment of there being no snow notwithstanding. I mean, I know people who would rather stab themselves in the face than do something like this. Not me! I'm way too pretty for that.
I did get
a great photo of my $55 hot chocolate and cookie. Okay okay, a train ride was included in that price too. A very loud, crowded train ride. Which was also fun! To do once. It was almost worth it just to get that photo. (I am very good at spending money.) When I showed the photo to Alexia she said, "You're so good at that!" It's because I know how to use Portrait Mode on the iPhone camera app.
I suppose it's also worth mentioning that we got
a souvenir Christmas ornament as well.
Now, just imagine
all of this covered in snow.
The scenery was still pretty, but it would have been better with snow. But, on this day, even 20 miles from Mt. Rainier, it was 50°. At least it didn't rain—we happened to go on a day that was between
flood-causing atmospheric rivers. On the upside, as you can see from the Nisqually River
here, which our route went alongside of much of the way and even over on a bridge, the water levels in the Elbe area actually weren't too bad.
I also learned something new yesterday. "Elbe" is pronounced "Elby."
— पांच हजार नौ सौ अट्ठाईस —
Full disclosure: most of the above text was adapted, with minor tweaks here and there, from the captions I already wrote in the working draft of my PART TWO "Christmastime in the Northwest" travelogue email—captions from three of the four photos I'm using in that email for this event. Here in this blog post, I'll provide a few more details:
I left home yesterday morning at 9:50, walked to the bus stop at 2nd & Stewart, and waited maybe 10 minutes for the 554 Sound Transit Express bus to Issaquah, scheduled to leave that stop at 10:25 and it was two minutes late. It was only five minutes delayed by the time it reached the stop I got at in downtown Issaquah, thus arriving at 11:07, and Alexia was already waiting in her car in a nearby parking lot. The route from Issaquah to Elbe is estimated at just over ninety minutes, and we made a deal that if I took the bus over there first, she would then drive me all the way home. It was kind of a bad deal for her, as a perfect storm of countless factors created incredibly bad traffic for much of our way back home—never quite stop-and-start, but often rather close to it. We did stop for a late lunch / early dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Eatonville called Puerto Vallarta, which was actually excellent; the drive home from there should have taken 80 minutes, and instead it took us 107 minutes. I guess a delay of roughly half an hour isn't
that horrible, but when you're in traffic that's clealry going slower than it should it's annoying—plus, Alexia still had to drive through that traffic back home to Issaquah. I felt kind of bad about that.
She did really enjoy the Christmas music I played from my iPod's Apple Music playlists through her car stereo, though. We had done the same driving back from "
The Lights of Christmas" in Stanwood (a roughly one-hour drive) the day after Christmas in 2022. Alexia have made a lot of Christmas season event memories together over the past five years. There's a lot of ways we don't align in terms of politics and worldview, but I certainly appreciate her reliability as a companion to holiday events. We do have fun at these things together, and when it comes to certain things we have to pay for (like Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad), so long as she's actually interested, she doesn't typically have to be all that budget conscious. I manage to cover this stuff comfortably because I actually set money aside from every paycheck over the year to cover them.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ अट्ठाईस —
— पांच हजार नौ सौ अट्ठाईस —
Anyway, we got to Elbe at about 12:50, which turned out to be perfect timing. The train departure was at 1:30, and this gave us plenty of time to park, get our tickets, check out the gift shop for a moment, and use the bathroom before boarding. Once we did board, a staff guy who told us we didn't need to give him our tickets, a somewhat-older man with white hair and a beard and large teeth, actually leaned in as I went to climb the steps to the car, looking at my snowflake earrings I was wearing (because: wishful thinking). He even reached out and held one. And then he said: "Those started out as tear drops." When I later relayed this to Alexia, she asked, "Did you tell him 'You don't know the half of it'?" I laughed and said, "I should have!"
When we reached the seat on our train car, for a minute we wondered if they would even fill it, as it didn't seem like that many people were waiting outside—but, fill up it did, and these are very old train cars with no sound design to absorb the shrill voices of a bunch of children. Honestly the racket while we were on the train was a little much, and as already noted, the supposedly "theatrical" element was not particularly organized. They just had Santa appear and schmooze through the aisle, and then a few other staff did things like
juggle or
clap to work up the crowd even more, and then pass out little cups of hot chocolate and a chocolate chip cookie to everyone. There was a recorded voice coming out of speakers somewhere, but the din was so loud we could never make out what it was saying.
The
event description also mentions the steam train chugging "toward the Kringle Logging Camp," which naturally made us assume that when the train reached this apparent destination, we would all get out. Instead, the train just stops on the tracks for a few minutes as some other entertainers do things like juggle fire sticks along the tracks next to us, with deocrated buildings we apparently do not get to explore behind them. I think Alexia was right in then assuming it was just too many people to manage getting off and back on the train again, for a little excursion they do four times a day.
The one thing I really liked about the train car was that the padded seats had a seat-back on a hinge so you could flip it over and make it point forward or backward. When we first boarded, we thought we'd be knee to knee with a couple of other strangers facing us, but then we figured out that we could flip the seat-back over and face the direction the train would be moving. (Our tickets did have assigned seats.)
That said, the vibe on that car really did feel like they took "coach" pretty seriously, with little in the way of individual comforts. I do find myself curious as to what a "First Class" ticket would look like by comparison. Judging my
this photo on their website, we'd at least have gotten a table—but would that be the only perk, in which case it would hardly be worth shelling out another $18 for? Oh, I checked the FAQ: First Class also includes a souvenir mug. Big deal. I'm happy with my ornament.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ अट्ठाईस —
Credit where credit is due: Kris Kringle did indulge Alexia and me for a group selfie.
[posted 12:36pm]
