Amtrak Trip

These pictures are from our recent Amtrak trip over the mountains from Chemult, Oregon to Eugene, Oregon. This trip was a gift to my younger daughter Emily from my parents. My two daughters,Jessie and Emily, my parents and I rode the train. My husband Matt and my son David chased the train back over the mountains. Odell Lake, featured in one of the pictures, is a favorite fishing and camping destination for us. We often hear the trains that travel the tracks bordering the lake so we decided this would be a fun trip to take. Emily, David and Matt all love to watch trains. This is the reason for the trip being a gift to Emily. It was a beautiful day and it was an adventure.

My family went and spent the night at my parents' house as it is about 2 hours closer to the taking off point than our home. We arose at 6 am so we could leave at 7 am to make it to Chemult by 9:30 am. The train was due to arrive in Chemult at 9:40 am. We arrived at our destination on time, though mom was convinced we were going to be late. Then we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally at 10 am when the train was officially 20 minutes late, we called the information line for Amtrak. We discovered that the train was running 3 HOURS behind schedule. Now, Chemult is a blink and you will miss it map dot in the middle of Central Oregon. There is just not much there. However, one thing it DOES have is a pretty good restaurant so we headed over there for a late breakfast/snack while we waited. We waited there as long as we could be eventually the kids started getting to restless so we headed back over to the empty parking lot that represented the "station" to wait some more. Finally, at about 12:30 the train arrived and we were able to board. We chose to sit in the lounge car where we had a beautiful view from the nice big windows. The trip was amazing. We were lucky enough to be sitting across the aisle from a gentleman who is an engineer for the freight line. He had deadheaded to Klamath Falls and was riding the Amtrak back to Eugene. He gave us landmarks and told us interesting things throughout the trip. We saw deer and a couple of elk. We also saw some beautiful country that you can't easily see any other way. Poor Emily fell asleep for part of the trip but enjoyed the parts she remembers. LOL. There were certainly so fun memories created as well.