Riding the Rails

(Enjoy today's blip in large.)

We awoke to a glorious sunrise, boding well for Phil's train ride to Seattle this morning to attend the 3rd annual Belgianfest. He's been looking forward to trying as many of the 70+ Belgian-style beers from more than 30 Washington brewers as possible.

It's not the sort of event he should be driving home from, so taking the train is a great way to go. We're fortunate to have an Amtrak station here -- it's part of the Fairhaven Transportation Center. The 8:45am train to Seattle originates in Vancouver, B.C., and makes several stops as it heads south. It's a much more enjoyable way to travel than driving, as the tracks follow the shoreline for much of the journey (scroll down to see the route map).

After waving goodbye to Phil, I went down to Marine Park, about half a mile away, to remind myself of what he'd be looking at as his train headed south. You can see how closely the tracks hug the shoreline here -- they're at about 9 o'clock in that linked photo.

Marine Park is a little gem on Bellingham Bay, a great place for a picnic or dog walk, or for more abstract photos, such as this one (the park is next to a shipyard -- and yes, I did a little post-processing to make those colors pop), or endless nature photography opportunities.

I have a long list of things I hope to accomplish today before I pick Phil up at 9:00pm. It will be interesting to see how many of them I will get done -- but here's the first one, an early blip!