This year’s Christmas letter and annual review takes on a different form. We have taken the Amtrak Cascades from Portland to Seattle and a bus from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C., starting our trip around the nation on Via Rail Canada and Amtrak with a Caribbean cruise scheduled when we reach Fort Lauderdale. We thought it would be fun to review the year as the scenery passes by. So here we go!!!!

Following our transfer to Portland by Don and Meng in Don’s luxury Cadillac, our pre-train overnight at the Embassy Suites Hotel (the former Multnomah Hotel) was superb, a beautiful place to stay and a wonderful dinner at the Portland Chop House. A complimentary (and bountiful) breakfast and courtesy transfer to the train station added even more bravos.

The practically new "Talgo" train built in Spain was a joy to ride and even more fun was chatting with the train crew who joined us in the business class club car. Interestingly, this Amtrak service is provided and funded in part through a joint agreement with the States of Oregon and Washington. One of the trainmen, when told of our upcoming adventure, told us to just relax and enjoy it, not to stress out, because there will be delays and inconveniences but just roll with it; so now we’re prepared.

On arrival in Seattle, we transferred to Vancouver, B.C. by bus, around four hours and a pleasant trip as blue sky continued overhead. Now leaving Vancouver, we reflect on our stay at the Best Western Sands on English Bay. Our appetizers of bruchetta and crabcakes followed by vegetarian sandwich and chicken-almond salad in the Bayside Lounge were served by fun bartender/waiters (Mark recommends we check out Café Mingo when we return to Portland). Breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant Checkers and lunch a couple of blocks away at Baba’s –spinach squares with feta cheese and iced mocha- completed our stay and now we continue our journey on Via Rail Canada to Montreal.

Via Rail Canada from Vancouver to Montreal has been a wonderful journey. Fortunately, we learned some important information when we arrived on the bus at the train station in Vancouver. We stopped to ask a question at the Via Rail desk and learned we could only have two small carry-ons with us in our double chamber bedroom! So we did some major reshuffling and ended up with two garment type bags made out of hangers and plastic bags from a dry cleaners two doors from the Best Western Sands hotel. It worked well with our small carry-on bags and our new large suitcases rode proudly in the luggage car.

Blue skies continued through the spectacular Canadian Rockies and a stop in Jasper provided us a chance to buy a much needed item for our tiny deluxe bedroom chamber, a tv table, which has been a lifesaver . Yes, the train bedrooms are approximately 6’ by 9’ and when the lower berth is pulled out and the upper berth is pulled down, it becomes no more than a one-person standing situation. During the daytime, the two chairs are pleasant, but from Vancouver to Toronto we much preferred the elegant club car at the back of the train, only two cars from us. One half of it is a dome car reached by a short stairway with a cocktail bar and smoking lounge below and the other half has wonderful chairs, small tables and places where they serve complimentary coffee, fresh juice and snacks as you are encircled by 180 degrees of large panoramic windows.

The dining car is the best part, meeting and dining with folks from everywhere. Favorites included Gayle and P.J. from north of Toronto, Esther and Dick from Baltimore, Mary, who reported on an interesting poetry reading by the author who was aboard, and Lionel and Mary who live outside Montreal.

Mario (Vancouver to Winnipeg) and Scarlett (Winnipeg to Toronto) were extra special as cabin attendants. You can’t help but admire what all they do to keep folks happy. The change of trains at 11:00 p.m. in Toronto and the night journey onto Montreal wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but the train was interesting, extremely new and modern, originally built for Chunnel service but sold to Via Rail before it was used there. We slept a short while in our bedroom chamber before detraining in Montreal at 8:00 a.m.

Our stay at the Queen Elizabeth Fairmont above the train station was perfect. Being the largest hotel in Montreal with over 1100 rooms, it is a finely tuned operation which includes wonderful dining accommodations and a spectacular view from our 16^th floor room. Because of our early morning arrival, they stored our luggage which permitted us to have breakfast of the best Eggs Benedict ever, ever, ever, followed by a Grayline 3 hour tour of Montreal. Even though our tour guide, Angelo, made a barfing sound at the end of each thought ("blaugh"), we managed to pay attention to the beauty of the city.

Our second day took us on a full day Grayline tour to Quebec City and highlights had to include Rock, our terrific city tour guide and the spectacular Chateau Frontenac, Notre

Dame Baptistery & Cathedral where they were holding their annual church bazaar (we still have some cookies). The main church was like being in Fort Knox with all of the sparkling gold. A ride on the funicular took us to a late lunch at Bistra, a delightful French café with wonderful vegetable soup, pita bread pizza and carrot cake with vanilla sauce. A quiet period on board the bus brought us back to Montreal.

Our travel agent in Tillamook, Donna Miller, had warned us that the 10 hour train trip in coach to New York (no upgrades available) wouldn’t be anything special. She was so right. We felt lucky to have two double seats facing each other and plenty of room to stretch out with our tv table until… for some undetermined reason… they started assigning boarding passengers to cars based on destinations. Even though we heard there were 120 empty seats, our "New York" car filled quickly and we had a nice guy, "Bob from Yonkers", a drainage specialist, seated with us. Conversation was limited as throughout the trip he was talking by cell phone with his cousin and argumentative daughter. We were told by the passengers behind us that our hotel was only a couple of blocks from Penn Station, however……………

A difficult walk of approximately 6-8 long blocks with 7 bags took us from Penn Station to the rather bleak Best Western Manhattan on 32^nd Street (we had the Neil Simon Theatre written down as 32^nd – it is on 52^nd). So we checked into Room 611 overlooking the airshaft: 4 blank walls, 2 beds with sticky blankets which were quickly pushed to a corner with the well worn bedspreads, a tv piled on top of a cabinet with 3 drawers (the tv kept going off after turning it on), and a nicely polished board on 4 wood legs for a desk and a chair. Our tv tray-table and the wallpaper border at the top of the walls next to the ceiling did seem to kick it up a notch. Our late dinner out became a joke with most restaurants Korean or closed. We finally settled for pizza on 5^th Avenue at 32^nd.

The next day, Ally, our humorous taxi driver, took us to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we had a terrific lunch in the museum’s café (lightly crisped corn tortilla enchilada with roasted vegetables) served by fun waiter Freddy "Cruger" Matina. Then to the spectacular Richard Avedon exhibit – black and white photographic portraits of artistic, intellectual and political figures from Marilyn Monroe to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. All were photographed against a stark white background which make the photographs so powerful and interesting. Next, a walk by Central Park, a cab to the hotel for a change of clothes and off by cab to Bobby Flay’s (Food TV) Mesa Grille on 5^th Avenue at 15^th. Fun times with bartender Michelle from San Francisco, Alex and Scott, California advertising, and A. Jay Mehta, actor on Law & Order and Special Victim’s Unit. Soon our very special friends and former neighbors in Hawai’i, Sharon Chessum and Cammy Meraz, joined us (Sharon was visiting Cammy and Tony who recently moved to New York City.) Our dinner was fantastic, fabulous seabass, duck, pork and Southwestern lamb, each prepared to perfection. It was followed by a combination of desert delights exploding with scrumptious flavors. The lovely Torres Pino Noir and later a visit and picture with Bobby Flay completed a perfect evening.

We are currently running about 2 hours late on our train trip to Fort Lauderdale. The fall foliage has been spectacular and in Washington D.C. we had distant views of the Capital, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. Yesterday’s lunch and dinner on the train were quite enjoyable. Our waiters, Cliff, Duane and Vaughn in the dining car are excellent. We have now completed today’s lunch with Dolores & Bill Sepich from Cinnaminson, New Jersey, lovely people on their way to Fort Lauderdale for a Princess cruise in the Caribbean. We have blue skies with scattered clouds and continue to be blessed with perfect weather.

Then to Palm Springs for great visits and dinners with Betty and Judy, John, Alberta and Michael (Hawai’i friends just returning from Ireland). From there to Laguna Beach for a special luncheon and visit with Shirley Tysen and on to Seal Beach for a short 4-day stay with Pauline and Don which included two quick trips to Pasadena for a magnificent outdoor dinner at Fran and Don’s, and another run into L.A. for dinner at Madam Wu’s new restaurant at The Grove near Farmers’ Market (fun conversation with Henry Lee in the cocktail lounge).

Other highlights of these months included weekly visits to the 2^nd annual Tillamook Farmers’ Market (even more successful this year); Alice’s Country House BBQ; Judie & Bryan’s 25^th wedding anniversary in Oceanside; lay readings and providing church coffee and goodies; Noel’s blue ribbon for his Bing cherry cake at the Tillamook County Fair; Mildred Davy’s 1^st annual scholarship luncheon; Noel’s successful surgery for a facial cancer growth; taking Meng (Thailand foreign exchange student staying with Don Sheneberger) to a Thai lunch, Asian market and specialty grocery store in Portland; an overnight visit by Dick Sterns, one of Noel’s college friends; sharing of special dinners at/with Judie, Bryan, Don and Meng; get-togethers with Carrol and Dave; Don’s welcome Meng to Tillamook party and a very special event for Mildred – a trip to Portland to attend a round table discussion with President Bush (1 of 15 invited!!!).

Finally, October brought three special events: a wonderful visit and dinner with Ellen and Father Lawrence Crumb the evening before our annual parish picnic; joining Mildred Davy for her 91^st birthday celebration with family at the local pizza parlor and Helen Benscheidt’s 80^th birthday celebration in a beautiful castle overlooking the beach in Oceanside, and, as always, beautifully catered!!

What a grand time we had in Fort Lauderdale. After alighting from the train from New York, Rene was there to meet us in his absolutely spectacular super stretch limousine, a customized Lincoln limo that leaves everyone staring. We felt quite elegant on our arrival at the Renaissance Hotel and were very pleased with our 8^th floor room overlooking the cruise ships. That night, Bob Loshbaugh joined us for dinner in the hotel’s Bistro 17 Restaurant. How great to see Bob and review years past.

With a rental car, we toured Fort Lauderdale’s famous Gold Coast, did some needed shopping, shipped a box of collected "stuff" home and wended our way over Alligator Alley to Fort Myers for a wonderful visit and lunch with Olga and Curt Winter, long time friends from Los Angeles. How terrific to be with them.

In addition to Meredith & Ingvar and Penny & Chuck, we soon met Tom Hobby and his two daughters, Judy Poe & Jeanne Holmes. Before long we called ourselves the "Fabulous 9" as we toured five of the southern Caribbean islands: Puerto Rico (through hot, crowded and narrow streets, we found our way to the Morro Fortress); St. Barts (a tour of the island which has 24 gorgeous beaches and hills dotted by homes for the rich and famous, including David Letterman, the Rothschilds, a home built for Rudolf Nureyev; St. Martin (we checked out the tourist shops, the open air markets and had lobster club sandwiches at the Bamboo Cafe), and a delightful stop at Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands, where we were treated to a "Seabourn Experience" on the beach. Again, the Seabourn crew knocked themselves out in providing an unforgettable Beach BBQ with china, crystal, silver, every food imaginable and to top it all off, Captain Sorensen delivered the caviar from the ship via a small boat to the waiters who waded out into the surf to greet them and then proudly carried champagne and caviar to the folks gathered on the beach. It was really quite something to see.

The final stop in La Romana, Dominican Republic was forgettable with Meredith saying, "Why are we here? Why are we here?" But the return to Fort Lauderdale was filled with great entertainment by Jan Stearman, Eric DeGray and David E. Greene (Cruise Director and Assistant Cruise Directors), and the Chef’s special Galley Luncheon and Captain’s Farewell Dinner concluded this magnificent cruise. There was the usual sadness and hugs as our group separated to go different ways but we hope our paths will cross again.

Our first two days in Fort Lauderdale were busy with sending extra things home, a wonderful dinner at the California Café with Bob Loshbough, breakfast at H20 Mediterranean Bar and Grill on Fort Lauderdale Beach, lunch with Meredith & Ingvar at a marvelous French café just down the street from Reid Travel in Boca Raton. Also a look at the beautiful Misner Street and the Boca Raton Hotel and Club followed by a drive to Palm Beach and coffee at the Breakers Hotel, a former Vanderbuilt mansion. Absolutely spectacular.

Our last day took us to the magnificent Las Olas street, filled with lovely shops and bordered by waterways, multimillion dollar homes and yachts. Quite something. Then a gala farewell outdoor BBQ at Meredith & Ingvar’s lovely home in Pompano Beach with fellow worker Svien Johnsen completing our newly formed "Fabulous Five". What a fantastic voyage!!!

The scenery outside our shaking train (bedrooms are on the upper level and Amtrak suffers from the poor tracks owned and used by the freight train railroad companies) is that of desolation, Texas style. But yesterday’s 3-hour stop in New Orleans took us by taxi to Café Du Monde where we had beignets and café au lait - delicious. $3.00 each for three beignets and a cup of that marvelous café. What a bargain!!

During this trip we are receiving tender loving care from Julie our car attendant, and Cathy our waitress. Negotiating about the tiny "Deluxe Bedroom" is a chore and stressful at times but it is a fun way to travel and meet new people such as Leah from the Bahamas and Daniel from Peru who are moving to Los Angeles to work in the film industry, Brenda and James from Tallahassee traveling to Houston to spend Thanksgiving with family, and Fred and Gene Simon from Beaumont, Texas on their way to San Antonio for Thanksgiving. This morning we chatted with Marylee from Florida headed for a family get-together here in Texas and at lunch, Pam and Mike on their way to Tombstone, Arizona for Thanksgiving at a cousin’s restaurant (they own 6 Corvettes and a 2003 model will be waiting for them when they get home – to their 5 car garage home, that is).

One of the joys of traveling by train and cruise ship is the opportunity to meet new people, many of whom we have highlighted in this annual message. Our love and best wishes go out to each one of you as well as to each and everyone we have met during our travels. Indeed, fond aloha to all and may all your wishes for 2003 be fulfilled.

more……….

Celebrations: In Memoriam:

Helen Benscheidt’s 80^th Birthday Oscar Bean

Judie & Bryan’s 25^th Anniversary Willie Cabral (2001)

Karen & Bob’s Wedding Glen Cagle

Kim & Willie’s Wedding Gill Cronin

Pam & Tracey’s baby boy Freda Hurley (2001)

Mildred Davy’s 91^st Birthday & Edwina Kaapana

in her 40^th year of broadcasting George Paoa

It’s a Woman’s World on KTIL Dan Sager

Don Stasek

Christmas, 2002