The Iron Horse Inn B&B was converted over 30 years ago from a long-empty lodging house for railroad workers into a bed and breakfast, one I frequented over half a dozen times over the years. In late 2019 a chimney fire spread to the whole structure, luckily when there were no guests present, and the inn burned to the ground. Others might have walked away, but the owners didn't, they rebuilt it better than ever. The new Inn has four spacious bedrooms on the main floor, plus an expansive common room where one can lounge on sofas by the gas fireplace, make a cup of tea, chat with other guests. It also has tables for breakfast, which featured delicious egg dishes with eggs the owners let our granddaughter ”harvest” from the chicken coop nearby when we arrived. The new inn is quite a change from ”before the fire” when the original room configuration was small rooms and common bathrooms down the hallway, just the way the railway workers had it. But there's something to be said for spacious rooms and private bathrooms, as it is now. Over the years the inn also acquired four cabooses. These have been open while the inn itself was rebuilt, but without breakfast as there was no common room or kitchen for that. Breakfast in the main inn building is now part of the deal for the cabooses. Our adult son and his wife and two kids (7& 11) were over the moon over the experience of sleeping in a caboose! They all shared one of the two cabooses that have child-sized beds in the former cupula sitting area atop the caboose. The adults had the queen bed on the main level of the caboose and the kids were up high, similar to the top bunk of a bunk bed, with windows giving them a 360 view when the curtains were pulled back. We are SO happy to see the Iron Horse Inn B&B back at ”full steam” again. Our room, the common room and the caboose were spanking clean, the breakfast tasty and filling, the coffee endless, the hosts some of the friendliest b&b owners we've encountered over the years. The Inn is also connected by a short path to the former rail yard of the Milwaukee Road train line that closed up shop in the 1970s. Train buffs will want to spend a bit of time walking around a self-guided tour of the train yard, where the station is still there in fading glory, and remains of the former roundhouse and other structures may be examined like archeological ruins. This is also a great area for biking, and many years ago I led a bike club trip from the inn. Quiet country roads parallel I-90 for many miles in both directions and also off to Roslyn and Lake Cle Elum, and the path of the Milwaukee Road train line is now a bike path that runs from the Seattle suburbs to points east of the Columbia River.
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