In late June I set off for Seattle to pick up Graham, who was flying in from the UK for a couple of weeks of train chasing. I took my time getting up there, and stopped for a shot of a train near Dunsmuir, California. and since Mount Shasta was still covered in snow, I took an hour to wander around looking for a photo site. After all this, and 1650 miles on the road, I arrived at the airport about an hour before his flight was due in, and wonder of wonders, it was early!
From Seattle we headed up Interstate 5, which was quite busy, to Hope, British Columbia and a hotel for a couple of nights. Canadian immigration was interested in our journey in search of trains, and asked if we'd seen the Thompson & Fraser canyons, which was where we were headed! After checking in to the hotel, we set off to look for a train or two. We found one crawling slowly in to a siding, and the engineer came over and asked if I'd mind going to get his conductor, they had been knocked down by a detector, and the train was better than 9500 feet long. So off I went, but the conductor was nowhere to be found. I went back to the head end, and told the engineer that the people at the crossing had said the conductor was on the other side of the train. Since the train was blocking the crossing, he dragged it forward to clear, and I went back for the conductor. Who was grateful for the offer, but needed to find the problem, and would quite likely be a long time. So I picked up Graham, and we went off to find something to eat, since it was getting quite late.
Chris and I had been on the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in 1997, I recognized a few places, but mostly we shot in places that were new to me. After the first couple of days the weather cleared, and we had some excellent days, with only one cloudy afternoon. There were osprey all over the place, and lots of bald eagles too.
After a week in Canada, we'd about covered the Thompson & Fraser. Traffic on CN was quite sparse, but I shot enough for a nice program, so we set off for the Columbia River. we ended up in Cascade Locks for a couple of nights. Since it was prime tourist season in both BC & Oregon, I was blown away by the price of hotel rooms. We had superb weather on the Columbia River, but train traffic was a bit weird. BNSF had a MofW window for a couple of days, and UP was quite sparse, good in the early morning and evening, but long waits in the afternoon. And of course the traffic on the opposite side of the river to us was usually quite heavy! we had 50 mph winds one day, which made shooting quite difficult, the tripod and camera wanting to get airborn! On the Monday afternoon, the day before Graham had to leave for home, my Trailblazer's power steering went, so the following morning I had to take it in to the dealer, which was fortunately next door to our hotel in The Dalles. The nearest power steering pump was in Portland, and there were no rental cars to be had, so poor Graham had to take a very expensive taxi to Portland airport. Which was only the start of his problems getting home, the flight from Chicago was late, then had to turn back and land in Chicago (with a full fuel load) after having electrical problems. He finally got away more than five hours late. I spent that day and the next morning sitting in the hotel room, then dragged all my luggage over to the dealers and sat there. They tried quite hard to sell me a Subaru Forester! I finally got the car back at 4 pm and set off for home. I made it to the Oregon/Idaho border, where I spent the night in a somewhat, how shall I put it, less than average motel. Next day I made it to Flagstaff, which was a VERY long day, then got in to home late the next morning. All in all, it was an excellent trip, covering about 5500 miles.
A northern Arizona sunset, only 400 miles from home!
