the Singing Christmas Tree...

Pictures taken from the window of the train to Tacoma...

A couple of weeks ago I bought tickets for the Singing Christmas tree in Tacoma. Steve and I thought we'd drive down to Tacoma (South of Seattle so about 115 + miles.) and then come home that night. The production was at 3:00 we plenty of time.





Well, with the snow and predicted wind, on Friday we talked about going and thought...we can't drive. We checked on taking the train. PERFECT! We could take the train to Tacoma, write our Christmas cards, go out for lunch(we had a restaurant picked out), get a Taxi, go to the play, back in the cab, to the train and back to Bellingham...sounds perfect? Huh?





Let me tell you what we did:


First, we got on the train and headed toward our destination. We stopped several times. At one time the announcement something like this: We are stopping a lot because we are trying to figure out what may be the problem, we hope that it is the hose.... HMMMMM...okay, well they weren't panicked and neither were we. We wrote on!

We were having a good time BUT we are not really good at self portraits but thought you'd like to see our smiles! Our spirits were not dampened and we glad we had decided to take the train! And as you can see...the scenery was beautiful.

Because of the numerous stops, we were late getting into Tacoma. Scratch nice dinner...go to the closest spot...a Food court in a funky mall. Well, that's okay...


The man who served us assured us that we had to walk down the steps and we would find a taxi waiting for us. GREAT!

Down the steps we went, no taxi. Back to the guy...oh, just go to the bus depot and they'll call a taxi for them. Bus depot...mild bedlam. The buses were being cancelled, passengers were not being patient, the desk clerk...frazzled. Steve looked up the cab numbers and, armed with the book and my cell phone, I started to call taxi companies. Either I got an answering machine or if someone answered, they would tell me, "No fares tonight. Not anymore."

But our spirits weren't dampened. We walked back to the train depot laughing about our adventure. OH WAIT!!!!! There before us...a taxi and a driver. We asked him if he would take us AND pick us up. YES. WAHOO!...Then a couple of things happened:
1-He said, You know some drivers say, I will come back and pick up customer but doesn't come, I not like that. I pick up when I say so.

Self: So what will it take to make sure you come back????? Trust? Not high!

Next question: Our driver, Ahabibrashad, leans out of the window, we had given him the address, and said to another driver, How do you get there?

Self: How do I get there? Will you be able to find your way back????? Are we being stupid?

NOTE: The concert was from 3-5:00. Our train was to leave at 5:16. See the panic in my mind?

Ahabibrashad found the church, we made a date, 4:30! We went in. The music was wonderful. (The tree in this picture, although looks like the tree, is not the tree that we saw.) The costumes elaborate. It was great. Was I nervous? YEP!

At 4:25, we walked out of the concert, and there, parked in front of the church was the taxi. Ahabibrashad was there, too. And he had gotten there early and had gone in to hear the moosic (music). Praise the Lord.

Things were looking good. We got to the train depot at 4:50 and walked in to the sign that said:

Northbound train will leave at

Now, this is where it got fun...

First it was 6:30, then 6:45, then 7:00...finally at almost 8:00 we got onto the train.

It is 17 miles from Tacoma to Seattle. We got into Seattle about 9:00.

Here were some of the problems that the train was facing:

1-Switches had to be done manually...

2-there were some other problems with the train...they didn't tell us what they were.

We got to Seattle, transferred to another train and went on to our final destination...103 miles...and we got to Bellingham at 12:30.

I told Steve that I felt adventursous when we were on our way down. It was more of an adventure than I thought. It would have been so easy to focus on the things that went wrong. But we had an enjoyable day. We were safe. We were together. We saw some amazing scenery that was untouched by anyone. God gave us a beautiful Christmas trip where He again painted a picture for us that was amazing.