Trip Report: March 14 - 25, 2002
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
CULTURAL TOUR OF THE PACIFIC COAST
SEATTLE TO VANCOUVER, BC
Day 5, Monday, March 18, 2002. We arise at 6am to check our e-mail and pack up for our departure to Canada. The Mt. Baker International departs at 7:45am from King Street Station, just 15 minutes after the southbound Cascade for Seattle. We check in at the Business Class kiosk and obtain our boarding passes and $3.00 meal vouchers. Business Class passengers are pre-boarded and after settling into our seats we proceed to the adjacent dining car while still standing in the Seattle Station. A Sounder locomotive is spotted on a track across the platform.
I have the oatmeal with brown sugar, nuts, and raisins, Sylvia the omelet. Each entrée is accompanied by a fruit cup and a muffin. The food is tasty and supplied by a local catering company. Passengers on this train still enjoy white linen table service in the diner.
It is a gray day as we depart Seattle, and the mist turns into rain, and white caps begin to form on Puget Sound. As we cross the border the rain becomes snow. Canada is a winter wonderland today and we are glad we are not on a bus. The TV monitor in our coach is predicting an early arrival into Vancouver at 11:33am. If this really occurs, it will be the first time in our experience. We do some work 
on our laptops, then entertain ourselves with the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, followed by the emergency procedure card in the seat back. Did you know, for example, that when you remove the seal around the emergency exit window, that you then have to lift the window out of its frame and place it on the floor inside the train; tossing it outside might injure a passerby. The card warns would be escapees that the window weighs 77 pounds! How are your biceps?
The scenery is beautiful on this route, even under cloudy skies. Some of the watery beach cove scenes remind one of misty Japanese paintings. Will I ever get tired of riding trains? Here I am, almost old enough to go on Medicare, and I am still not blasé about riding trains.
Here we are rolling along through a snowstorm, warm and comfortable in our wide Business Class reclining seats. In the adjacent dining car, other passengers are enjoying a hot breakfast with linen and silver service. Coffee and hot oat meal is being served in the Bistro. A first run movie is playing on the monitor and this morning's papers are available in the magazine rack. Does it get any better than this?
We arrive a few minutes early and step onto the snowy, slushy, unprotected platform gingerly. Business Class passengers are off loaded first and thus are first through Customs and Immigration. We exchange some US dollars for Canadian dollars and take the next taxi to the Waterfront Hotel, formerly The Canadian Pacific Waterfront Centre, , now, although it claims to be the same company, it has merged with, as is called, Fairmont. As a traditionalist who has for decades enjoyed the special ambience of the CP properties, I am somewhat grumpy about the name change although the elegance is unchanged. Since I signed up for membership in the President's Club, I can bypass the line at the reception desk, and check in at the President's Club counter. Being a member offers other small amenities as well and is worthwhile to join. No charge, of course.
We have tickets this evening at the Orpheum Theater, the beautifully restored former movie palace which is now home to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The program tonight (under the direction of the electrifying Assistant Conductor Ms Tania Miller) begins with a world premier of a work called "Aurora Dances", composed by Derek Charke who was inspired by the Northern Lights while in the Northwest Territories. The young Canadian composer introduced the work and asked several instrumentalists to play samples as he described the way the Aurora Borealis appears. The music itself is shimmering and celestial, and unlike many modern compositions, quite pleasant and evocative. However, while we liked it, we were disappointed that the audience gave it only a polite round of applause.
The rest of the program was Russian, with Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, whose melodies are doubtless familiar to you even if you don't dig classical music, and Rachmaninoff's seldom played Symphony No. 1. These two works share something in common other than their Russian heritage. They were both panned severely by critics who first heard them. Tchaikovsky went on to premier his concerto to the public in Boston, and it has since become one of the most popular works in the repertoire. Rachmaninoff went into a blue funk and left the score behind when he departed Russia in 1917, never to be heard again, he thought. But the instrumental parts were found in Leningrad in 1945, the score reconstructed, and the symphony was played again to a warm reception. Sadly, Rachmaninoff had died two years earlier, and never knew that his first symphony, dramatic and melodic, was ultimately a success.
It was an exciting evening at the Orpheum. We had walked the easy ten blocks from the Waterfront, but after the concert on this cold drizzly night we thought a taxi would be nice.
A taxi line outside a US concert hall is practically unheard of, at least we have never seen one. In LA one night we were stuck on the lonely hill of the Music Center, in the deserted downtown of the City of Angels, for a half an hour and afraid we would be left there all night. The Yellow Cab dispatcher had never heard of the Music Center. We finally called the bell desk at our hotel and they were able to get a cab to us. In Seattle outside the opera house on one rainy night, there was not a cab to be flagged. Not to worry, we thought, we will just take the Monorail back to our hotel. However, the Monorail shuts down before the opera lets out. Dozens of people huddled under the Space Needle for nearly an hour before we could get taxis to pick us up. In San Diego, we began to walk to our hotel in the deserted downtown area, and were lucky to flag down a lone cab that was passing by. Outside the Orpheum Theater, there was a taxi line. Now we knew we were in a foreign country. For $6.00 Canadian, we were whisked back to warmth of the Waterfront Hotel in five minutes.
Travel Tip: If you are in LA or San Francisco without a car, you are out of luck. On our next visit to LA, we arranged with the Marriott concierge to have a limousine pick us up after an evening concert. The driver was there waiting for us after the performance. It was worth the price.
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