JUNE 29, WEDNESDAY

ARRIVING IN BELLINGHAM

I arrived in Everett after an all night and morning ride on the Empire Builder from East Glacier. I had no food with me this time so ate for supper what the Cafe Car could microwave: Mac and cheese which were crisp and tough on the bottom and a Hebrew Hot Dog which tasted good although the microwaved bun was tough to chew. It cost the same as the good meal at Serrannos Mexican restaurant.

In the morning I skipped breakfast because breakfast would be a way of passing the time in my four hour layover in Everett before taking the Amtrak Thruday bus to Bellingham. I had read up on things to do in Everett including the farmer’s market and a botanical garden and beachfront park

As I was asking the very brusque woman running the Amtrak station station where the bus would leave from and if I could store my bags ($10 apiece Amtrak standard) when a masked (just him and me) man in his 70’s with a shorts and a large backpack heard where I was going and told me he would show me the way to Bellingham, where he was also going, and save me money at the same time. So I followed him and he began to tell me his life story and to give me practical advice at the same time. He did all the talking and I listened until the bus came which took us to a second bus and finally to Bellingham. He said he was from San Antonio, or that that was one of his addresses and that he was a traveler, always on the move. He had been divorced for fifteen years and since retirement at 60 he had been traveling around the United States, a lot of the time on Amtrak. He had enlisted in the Navy before the Vietnam war and had served 4 1/2 of his six years. He was a river rat, operating on the rivers of Vietnam, had been hit with shrapnel in his body and his head, was treated in a VA Hospital and honorably discharged. Since then the VA has been taking care of him in its hospitals as a wounded warrior. He suggested I get a VA card and because of my advanced age the VA would take care of all my needs: hospital, retirement home, long term care and burial. He had already made arrangements to have his ashes taken out to sea and scattered on the waves.

He had had one job after another and kept up his licenses for all of them—tug boat operator, plumber, realtor. Right now he was coming to Bellingham to buy a sailboat if he could get a comfortable one for $50,000. Then he was going to sail it down to San Diego and then across to Hawaii and then back through the Panama Canal. Taking a long triangle by way of Hawaii would keep him from having to deal with gunrunners off the coast of Central America. He seemed quite confident.

If he didn’t find a boat in a couple of days he was going to head south. I asked him how he traveled. By local bus lines like the Skagit bus line that we were about to go on, #90 to Chuckanut Park and Drive and #80 to Bellingham. He would go by local buses for $1 or $2 a ride and then camp out in State Parks, he had all the gear with him. He told me that the fare on each bus would be $2 but when I got on to say that I was a senior and offer $1, which I did, and got on #90 without question. He told me not to call Bellingham to say that I was coming because something could go wrong, a flat tire or some other delay. And sure enough it did. When we got to Chuckanut Park and Drive bus #80 was there but not going anywhere. A security guard with a bright yellow marked T shirt was pacing back and forth. My mentor, whose name I never learned, asked him what he was doing. “Looking for evildoers,” he replied. But apparently he didn’t spot any and in a few minutes when a fire engine and ambulance showed up with four or five uniformed masked rescue workers he went into #80 with them. They came out in three minutes looking as businesslike as when they went in and then drove away. The security guard went back on patrol. When we entered the bus an elderly woman with a tiny dog and with a bicycle helmet on and her bicycle fastened to the front to the bus was sitting there with two heavy black bags that were intended to hang on either side of the bicycle. She had apparently hurt her arm somehow, maybe putting her bicycle on the rack, so that she was holding her arm over her head and couldn’t lower it. So we headed off to Bellingham while she was on the phone in her other hand explaining what had happened to an elderly man who met us at the bus station and took her bicycle off the front rack. And at that point my unnamed friend told me just where to stand to be picked up and shook my hand and wished me well and took off to find his $50,000 sailboat. Having met a real traveler while I traveled comfortably on Amtrak took the wind out of my sails.

Jim who I had called to say that I was coming early was there to meet me. In his car Amtrak returned my called after I had been put into a half hour queue and cancelled my Everett to Bellingham Thruway bus, thus giving me two more segments for my trip in case, as my mentor had advised, something goes wrong along the way.

It was good to now be in Bellingham. It was cool when I arrived but the day before it had been 90 degrees. The train ride through the mountains of eastern Washington state along the Columbia river was beautiful. Their house is beautiful and they have arranged an apartment next door owned by a man who recently remarried and is with his new wife in Pennsylvania. His daughter and her husband own the house but they are away for 8 months. So I am here with all the amenities next door to Jim, Lisa, Lulu and Kalifa. Jim and Lisa both are working today and I am processing photographs of Glacier Park and writing this post and looking forward to whatever happens tomorrow.