ALL ABOARD

As Easy As...

There are lots of hard ways but only one easy way to get from Chicago to Portland - take the train.

Chicago must be the rail capital of America. Not only do they have a dozen or so intercontinental trains leaving daily, they have five major train stations. This was once the main boarding area at Union Station (now everyone descends one or more levels) and the station handles all the Amtrak passenger trains and some commuter traffic (50,000 passengers a day. Also downtown is Ogilvie Transportation Center (40,000 commuters a day), Millennium Station (20,000 passengers daily), La Salle St. Station (16,000 daily) and Van Buren Street Station (10,000 per day). Most of these stations have been operating in one form or another since the 1850s.

Here passengers are heading for our train, the Empire Builder. From Chicago the train passes through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho then splits in eastern Washington. Most of the cars continue on to Seattle. A smaller train is formed to go to Portland, Oregon, our destination.

We briefly play peek-a-boo with downtown Chicago before heading north to Milwaukee, our first major stop. For a January, it sure doesn't look like winter.

Though there are rural portions of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin that are visible, what really strikes the eye are the abandoned warehouses and old, long dead factories. Graffiti "artists" have tagged anything.

SAVANNAH SQUARES

And A Round

Perhaps the most visited square in Savannah is Monterey. Folks don't always come to enjoy the beauty - they come to see the Mercer House, site of a murder made famous in both book and movie form: "Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil." Do you remember the story? Now do you remember that there were 4 trials - all ending in overturned or innocent verdicts. The OJ of his day, that was James Arthur Williams. Pity he was remembered for the gruesome details and not for the over 50 homes and mansions that he also restored in Savannah.

A Church, yes? Well, call it Temple Mickvie Israel and you'd have it right. This is the only synagogue in the US designed in the Gothic Revival style and the temple houses the third oldest practicing Jewish congregation in the US. It anchors the other end of Monterey Square.

In 1730 British colonist James Oglethorpe began working on what would be one of the most liveable city plans anywhere. Gridded neighborhoods designed around a common square became the blueprint for what is now Savannah's Historic District.  Oglethorpe lived to see 6 of the squares completed. Today 22 remain as "Progress" claimed two of them.  Most photographed is Forsyth Park, above.

Though many individuals like Mr. Williams have contributed over the years to the restoration of Savannah's historic core, few entities have done as much as SCAD in recent years. Founded as a private college in 1978, Savannah College Of Art And Design created an innovative program that has brought over 67 buildings back to life as architectural treasures. In addition to charging tuition the school also sells bonds (to many of the student's parents). The bonds have offered a generous payback to bondholders while at the same time allowing the college to purchase core structures. Then SCAD focuses academically on the restoration of those buildings. All the school's disciplines are brought to bear in examining each structure and students are involved in all facets of the rehabilitation. Revenue for the bondholders comes from the new tenants that move into these restored gems.

Not all historic houses are in the original District. As the town outgrew its grid of squares and neighborhood, housing spread west and so in many neighborhoods there is the touch of Victorian and other styles.

This is the "Round" mentioned in the subtitle. I had thought that working roundhouses were a thing of the past. Apparently no one told the Roundhouse Railroad Museum in Savannah. They have bragging rights to the "oldest and largest existing nineteenth-century railroad complex in the nation."

WILMINGTON, NC

Rising From Neglect

We are seeing reminders and monuments to the Confederacy in almost every town we've visited. "Pro Aris Et Focis" translates roughly: "For God And Country". Though many years have passed since the War of Southern Independence (as it is occasionally still called here in the South), Wilmington has been perhaps the slowest to find value in its core downtown as a tourist draw. 

Buildings like this are more and more the rarity in Wilmington. Note that someone has attempted to dress this building up and rather than tear it down. Fifteen years ago Wilmington's riverfront downtown area offered little for tourists and no cruise boats stopped here. Today the city is still going through a renaissance. The city's historic district encompasses over 300 blocks. 

The riverfront is a vibrant collection of restaurants and shops. A riverwalk runs for almost a mile along the Cape Fear River. The town is home to the largest complex of movie and tv production facilities outside of Hollywood and boasts the biggest special effects water tank in the western hemisphere.

This is a small section of "Keys With A View". Artist Dixon Stetler began this project several years ago when she took fancy to a construction fence that rimmed a vacant downtown lot. 20,000+ keys later this is but a small section of what has turned out to be a pretty cool yet subtle artwork.

One of those, "I didn't know that", moments occurs when you come across this glass and metal sculpture in the riverfront area. It resembles a Venus Flytrap for good reason: this is the only place in the US where that plant actually grows naturally. Outside a 60 mile radius, it isn't found.

Something else that the City had was mansions. As we walked around the edge of the old town we found too many to count. 

With a restored city hall like this, it is easy to see why Wilmington has pride in its history.

Every city with river or ocean access seems to have a Navy ship, new or old. This is the USS North Carolina which entered service just before WW II. The paint scheme replicates the way some Navy ships were camouflaged during that period.

Washington To Washington

There's A Difference?

When airborne it's always a toss up for me - do I read a book or look out the window. I try to do both. Though Ivan Doig's "Work Song" is one of the finest books I've read in a long time, I don't get the opportunity to gaze at the land that unspools below the window very often.

Mt. Ranier was visible until we climbed above the ceiling. Mt. Hood is the is just to the right of Ranier and that is Tapps Lake in the foreground. We are leaving Washington St. for Washington, DC

Fresh snow on the eastern front of the Rockies where they meet the High Plains at left.

Clouds on clouds on clouds, somewhere over the Midwest.

If we hadn't seen the Washington Monument as we landed, below, I would really have wondered just where we did land. 

Regretfully we are going to have to forego doing anything more touristy than just look out the window as we make a quick transition from the DC area to Baltimore.

Detour

Seattle

 Room With A View

Everything was in motion and all systems were go. Bags were packed and we were headed North then East. Then that storm with a friendly sounding name but a rabid reputation, Hurricane Sandy, made a mess of so many plans. Our plans were small potatoes compared to the lives that were disrupted, or worse, ended. But still, we were lucky to be just inconvenienced.

Instead of spending 4 days exploring Washington DC, we got reacquainted with a place that we hadn't seen in quite a while - Seattle. Further turning that sour lemony taste into lemonade was the room we got overlooking one of Seattle's most famous landmarks.

Seattle is a much more colorful city than its skies let on. At left a tree that could be mistaken as something from Vermont. Monorail tracks split a portion of the EMP (formerly known as Experience  Music Project) Museum Building. 

Guess what was 50 years old this year? 

Yup, the Space Needle. Still going strong and still as beautiful as ever. 

What is Robin doing? Well, given that it was Halloween when we met her, her appearance is only part of the story. Robin was at the Seattle Center to welcome us to a fantastic exhibit about legendary King Tut. Subtitled "The Pharaoh's Gold", it was certainly colorful and rich in history.

This gorgeous urn held the remains of King Tut's stomach. Seems there were funerary urns for many other parts of his viscera as well as his sarcophagus. These objects were over 3,000 years old. Some we saw were from 5 millennia ago. Not sure I've seen many objects that old.

This is what King Tut looks like today. This is the only model of his body. It was done with scanning equipment that then produced a 3 dimensional image that was made into what you see above. The king was estimated to have only been 19 when he died.

As observed we saw a bit of the city during Halloween. The lady on the left was actually a pretty young woman who assumed the costume of something out of Mary Poppins. The cute girl on the right was a little kid who was waiting for her porridge.

        

 

Good food is almost as common as the rain here, even in many delicatessens. Me? I was happy with a brown bag lunch with a soda whose label I hadn't seen for years.

As colorful as Seattle is, not all color is wanted. We did see more graffiti than before and there appear to be many more panhandlers. One guy tried to be clever with a sign that said: "Give me money or I'll vote for Romney." He'd starve in my home town.

One last note, every photo was taken with an iPhone.