Plane, Train, or Automobile?

I know it's eight months away, but I am considering my travel options to Fort Worden, WA for the Lorenz family reunion. Three years ago, I drove to Lyndonville, VT with assistance from my aunt and uncle and turned that trip into a visit to Niagara Falls, the Baseball Hall of Fame, a visit with a college buddy in the Washington D.C, breakfast with a library school friend, and a night stopped on I-64 in West Virginia when two cattle trucks collided.

Fort Worden is about 2,000 miles away from KC. It's on the Olympic Peninsula thirty miles west of Seattle. I've flown into Seattle six times before and have enjoyed the trip, especially the delayed approach to Sea-Tac and the delayed takeoff from Sea-Tac so that passengers can gawk and take pictures of Mt. Ranier.

But for this seventh time, I'm considering two other options. One option is to drive. I calculate that it will take me four days to drive, accounting for things like distance and my well-being. I figure I would drive on I-29 north to South Dakota, connect with I-90, and drive straight to Seattle with stops in Rapid City, SD, Missoula, MT, and perhaps Richland, WA. One big cost factor, of course, is what will we be paying for gasoline this coming summer.

The other potential mode of transport is to take Amtrak. I've been studying the schedules on Amtrak's site and, unfortunately, there's no direct route from KC to Seattle. So what I'll have to do is travel to Chicago and travel directly to Washington and then perhaps rent a car so that I can drive to Fort Worden.

Perhaps it would behoove me to maintain open communication with other family members and then perhaps arrangements can be made for all of our safe travels to the family reunion.