The train to Portland was absolutely cool. Jason drove Bjorg and I down to the station in Seattle and dropped us off just as Willy and Jen were walking up. Once inside Jill and her friend Barbara quickly joined us. None of us had ever ridden the train so we had to ask quite a few dumb questions to figure out how to get checked in but we did it!

On the train we were given seats in the very bottom of a car - facing backwards! Yikes! Fortunately Bjorg had given me some Dramamine and we actually spent most of the ride upstairs in the viewing car. We had some great water views all the way past Tacoma then we headed more inland. We did discover that there just is no graceful way to walk on a train. We were giggling so hard as we walked that people were starting to look!

Once we arrived in Portland we took a short cab ride to our hotel. Our cabbie was a bit scary - I'm pretty sure he was trying to kill us! I'm hoping he's no where near the route we are walking this weekend!!

Check in went very smoothly once again. There are only around 400 walkers here in Portland so I guess we'll get to meet just about everyone!

For dinner we met up with some of the gals that camped with us on Whidbey Island and headed to a great Italian restaurant for some pre-walk pasta. Yummy! Before dinner we walked a couple blocks from the hotel and found a sand castle contest in downtown Portland. It's amazing what you can do with sand! Very impressive.

Well, once again we'll be catching the 5am shuttle in the morning so it's lights out! Night night.