Day 15 May 4th Vancouver to Seattle

city from skytrain

We again had a day of not too

Brentwood town centre station

much activity after the time on the Rocky Mountaineer. We rose to a largely overcast day but it was dry and warm. We had left a suitcase in Vancouver and one of the first jobs was to reorganise our total wardrobes we had brought with us so that we now have his and her cases once again. We then wrote a few postcards which we could post before we left Canada. We checked out of the hotel and left our luggage ready for later collection.

Canada place

We had to decide on what to do for the day as were leaving for Seattle at 1745. We had a bit of shopping to complete as we needed to top up supplies and the we decided to go on a circular tour of the city using the skytrain – a driverless system of a largely overground metro. It was a good way to see the city from an elevated position and we took several photos including one at Brentwood High Street but we did not find any Martins around. We ended up at the Canada place waterfront and had a quick wander round before returning for a lite-bite lunch. We then made our way back to the hotel and relaxed for a time before we organised the luggage retrieval and a taxi to take us to the station. Because during the journey we were crossing the border the check in time was much earlier than usual and the process longer as it involved American immigration authorities. Not too intimidating a process or are we getting used to it?

coastal scene

Once through we were soon

Boarder crossing

settled in an upper viewing carriage with good, comfortable seats which had plenty of room – much improved over our usual British GWR, although it was not as good as the Rocky Mountaineer! We got underway and once out of the city we followed the coast and got some good

sunset over islands

views and photos. We stopped at the border and border guards gave our documentation the once-over and we were soon on our way again.

The evening was very calm and the sunset over off-shore islands was very photogenic.   

We arrived at the very impressive Seattle station (complete with marble pillars) and got a taxi to our hotel.  They were expecting us and so we went straight to our room to settle in as it was now 2300.  I left writing the blog until the following day.