CHAPTER THE FIRST -- EUGENE TO SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA

In which Oregon is bid a fond farewell and Jake gives the city of Seattle a traditional Glasgow Kiss

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Saturday, 19 September, 2026.

We arrived at the Eugene Amtrak station in plenty of time, thanks to our son dropping us off.  He was happy to do so, especially considering he did so in what was previously my car and is now his.  Though the platform was closed for construction, it was a matter of little difficulty to find the proper embarkation location and board the train.

This train was the Coast Starlight, which runs most of the length of the US West Coast.  I’d been on it before, but Shannon had not, and I wanted her to see it before we left the United States.  There’s a beautiful antique train that runs (or maybe just ran) that route, but my luck wasn’t in… we got a standard Amtrak train, so I didn’t get to show Shannon the theater car.

Still, it was a mostly pleasant journey.  We were able to secure dining car reservations and had a lovely conversation with a Seattle couple who’d traveled extensively in years past, and we spent a good deal of the journey in the observation car listening to relevant historical tidbits related by some park service volunteers who were aboard the train that day.*

Crossing the Columbia River from Oregon (on the left) to Washington (on the right)

Despite the eye-wateringly intrusive but blessedly only occasional presence of a man we shall simply call Grandpa Smelly, and an interaction with a confused woman who mistakenly claimed our assigned seats for a short time, the train ride was largely uneventful.

When we arrived in Seattle, however, the train ended up disgorging its passengers at the same time that the stadium next door to the train station was disgorging its sports enthusiasts.  We had secured a reservation at a very interesting nearby establishment called the Panama Hotel. 

The Panama Hotel isn't merely an old hotel that happens to still be operating; it's a rather remarkable piece of Seattle's Japanese-American history. Built in 1910 in the heart of the city's old Nihonmachi (Japantown), it was designed by a fellow named Sabro Ozasa, Seattle's first Japanese architect, and originally served Japanese immigrants coming to the area for work. The basement still contains the Hashidate-yu, one of only two surviving intact Japanese-style public bathhouses in the United States.

More soberingly, when Seattle's Japanese-American residents were forcibly removed during World War II, many families stored their belongings in the hotel basement before being sent to incarceration camps. Some never returned for them. Trunks, clothing, photographs, and other possessions remain there today, and some can be seen through a glass panel in the floor of the hotel's tea room.** The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006 and is just dripping with history (the room we slept in, at least, sported original, pre-WWII furnishings).

So this wasn't just someplace to sleep near the train station. It was someplace we specifically wanted to see.

Unfortunately, while it was only a few blocks away, someone had apparently constructed it uphill.  So while the hotel was only separated from us by a few blocks horizontally, it was rather more distant when the vertical axis was taken into account.  So through the madness of post-game stadium traffic and crowded sidewalks, up the hill with wheeled luggage we went.

In retrospect, perhaps we should have gotten an Uber.

After struggling with the combination of luggage and uneven concrete surfaces about halfway up the hill, I’d figured out that it was easiest to push the wheeled bag ahead (and uphill) of me, as I could both push and slightly lean on it to keep it on course (thus making sure it didn’t turn into a Sisyphean-boulder-analogue by dodging past me and rolling several blocks back until encountering either the bottom of the hill or a pinball-like series of newly bruised and understandably angry fellow pedestrians).

This system worked brilliantly right up until I opened my mouth to brag about it to Shannon, at which point one or two of the wheels of the luggage tipped into a significant crack on the sidewalk.  My momentum was too great to stop in time, and it tipped over.  Seeing this happening, and catching my ankles on the now upward-swinging bottom edge of the luggage, I accordingly tipped over as well, performing a sort of two-man acrobatic act with the suitcase, and ending when my knee, shoulder, and head all contacted the pavement.  This produced what I can only describe as an awe-inspiring deep and resonant sound, perhaps like that of a great, basso profundo coconut, finely tuned by Stradivarius himself, landing from a great height onto exact center stage of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.  Shannon, on the other hand, describes it as “a hollow thunk”.

She was concerned.  I was embarrassed.  The luggage withheld comment.

Shortly thereafter we arrived at the hotel, and met the proprietor, who was holding court on the sidewalk with some friends.  I am certain that I presented myself in an appropriately intelligent and dignified manner, to the point that probably nobody even noticed the dripping sweat, the broken glasses, the bloodied temple, or the distinct limp.  Interesting conversation was had, delicious tea was consumed, and, eventually, much-needed sleep was obtained.

RETIREMENT TAKEAWAY: Seattle's an awesome city, but it's way too expensive to make the shortlist.

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* Did you know that Willie Nelson worked as a radio DJ in Vancouver, Washington?  Neither did we!

** If you like tea, said tea room is 100% worth visiting.   So many teas!  So little time!