Day 4 of our Amtrak Rail-Pass trip

Monday January 18th

It finally got light enough to see outside but there were tall trees on the sides of the tracks and no view of the famed "Awesome snow covered mountains" of the Empire Builder. I was told they were there but sometimes the trees, fog/rain obscured the view of them. This was the best picture I could get of those elusive "snow covered mountains along the Empire Builder route. I suspect if you want to see them you better go the other direction where the train is crossing the mountains n the daytime and traveling over the flatlands at night.

During the night most of the train-cars behind us were split off of ours and taken to Portland Oregon. The train splitting takes place in Spokane Washington at about 2:00 am. Most of the cars including the Observation Car go to Portland so only a couple cars and the dinner continue on to Seattle. Anyway, when we got up we decided to drink train coffee so had to buy it in the Diner car as opposed to the "Sightseer Lounge Car" that I call the Observation car.

$2 for a 12oz cup of run of the mill coffee

We pulled into Seattle's King Street Station about 40 minutes early and unloaded our bags. 

We then sorted stuff out so that we could leave the larger bag at the station and only take our overnight stuff with us sightseeing and to the AirBNB. The King Street Station has baggage storage for ticketed passengers at a cost of $4 per bag a day. They ticket the bags and store them in a secure area where they are safe(?)

Unencumbered by our large roll-on luggage we set off to explore and find some place good to eat. The first stop was the Eastern Cafe where we had coffee and Latte and chatted it up with the locals as to what might very well be the best place in the area to eat. After some discussion back & forth it was a general consensus that Harbor City Dim Sum was the hands down favorite.

So....after a refill or two we headed to around the corner and up a couple blocks, cause we were already in Chinatown, to the Harbor City restaurant. We were early, about 11:00am but there was already a packed house and a line to get in. We watched folks chopping up what we thing was duck and others pushing Dim Sum carts around to the ravenous patrons inside. Finally it was our turn and we sat down and were immediately offered about 38 varieties of everything from spring rolls and steamed buns to things we didn't recognize. We asked for a menu (something no one else did) and selected shrimp spring rolls, coconut tempura battered shrimp, Steamed Chicken buns, Beef Tendons, Chicken feet and a duck ball. it just kept on coming and finally we had to say enough. The bill was only $22 for everything including the tea and water! I like that place. Super good food, super good prices and quality/unique and scrumptious foods. I especially liked the chicken feet and Shawn even ate some.

 They kept rolling carts of various Dim Sum by and offering them to us ala-carte

 Two rooms full and 4 carts rolling all the time

We decided after all that food that we needed a walk so we proceeded to walk, and walk, and walk. 

Shawn says we did about 6 miles of walking but all I know is I was ready for a beer. So we ducked into a local dive and had a couple pints to quench the ol thirst.

After the beers we tossed out the idea of figuring out the busses or other mass transit to the AirBNB and just sent for an Uber ride. $9 and ten minutes later we were at Catlyin's place and 30 minutes later got our second wind after our first real shower in 3 days! More about the AirBNB later but so far it's perfect!