Coast Starlight

Stan busy drawing as Jont snores...
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We stocked up on provisions at Pike Market in Seattle for our 24 hour train journey to San Francisco - a much anticipated highlight for the boys - which was lucky as the on-board food was apparently abysmal.

The train was a double decker, with comfortable reclining seats & footrests, the grumpiest guard in humanity, and a large empty downstairs room which the boys quickly took over as  a playroom and were joined by Naomi (another manic 6&three-quarter yr old traveling home with her granny) for a spirited game of puppies in danger.

a spirited game of puppies in danger

the boys busy writing their journals - a rare moment of peace!
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The boys eventually crashed after a hard day of rescuing those puppies, and Jont and I celebrated by silently opening a bottle of red and knocking it back as quickly as possible to try and get some sleep. Everyone else in the carriage seemed to find this easy - from about 5pm the place was littered with snoring Americans.

It’s easy to feel that there isn’t much difference between Canada and America, the accent is so similar and it all seems the same but already we’re missing the “excuse me”s and “after you”s of Canada, not to mention the sense of humour and smaller girths.

Sunrise over California!
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Anyway, we got hardly any sleep, the views were wonderful and we arrived in a very misty San Francisco at 9 am desperate for a shower. Which thankfully we got about 40 mins later after finding our motel. Hooray!