And here's a view of my home, the San Juan Islands, from the Amtrak Cascades train I rode on for half an hour from Bellingham to Mount Vernon. I wanted to see the view from this stretch of track in the daylight, since I have traveled almost all our nation's rail system and I believed that this stretch was possibly the most beautiful coastal section. Despite, my bias, I think the stretch of coastal running on the Coast Starlight (Los Angeles to Seattle) in Southern California is more scenic--it is longer, and always traversed in daylight.