California Trip - Day One

CALIFORNIA TRIP - DAY ONE

Bill kept a detailed journal on this trip, so I'm just going to type in what he wrote for each day - and then I'll add my own comments at the end.

June 20th, Monday "Thief in the Night: Things to Come"

Frantic last-minute preparations to leave. Got up at 7:00 am. Brett arrived 8 am. We left at 8:30. We had 4 bags (filled to the max) and 9 carry-ons (we were only allowed 8, so I combined 2 when boarding).

We got to the station at 9:00 am; had 1 1/2 hours till boarding. I read "Thief in the Night" book. 10 minutes before boarding we had to frantically fill out check tags for each bag. Once we walked out on the boarding walk, the train came within about 5 minutes and started off within 5 minutes. (Good thing I didn't go back to use the bathroom) There was only one other person on the lower level, so we were pretty much by ourselves (in the 1st 4 seats). The lots of room was for wheelchair people, so we had to be ready to move.


We missed seeing the Masters' house. We stopped briefly in Olympia, Centralia. Miranda read "Sorcerer's Son" to Tim, but he wanted to listen to his CD's (Tom Lehrer, Dr. Demento). Stopped in Longview/Kelso, Vancouver. Crossed over the Columbia River in Portland. More people got on at Portland. Somebody called to wish me Happy Father's Day, but it was a wrong number.

Salem stop next. By this time, lots of people were aboard. I spend a lot of time reading "Thief". Tim and Miranda were constantly on games. Megan did puzzle books. Lots of delays - switches & signals, passing train, maintenance. At dinner we went to the snack bar. They warmed up cheeseburgers and a pizza for us. Megan and I took the buns off and used some condiments. They were really good-tasting. Outside of that I only had 2 bars today, so I had a good diet day (not enuf water, tho).

I didn't realize the train would take so long; the others weren't happy with me for not taking a plane. I'm really learning a lot from "Thief", however. Megan is snoring (Oh, wait, that's Bob, the Native American with 2 granddaughters, one row back). Probably not going to be much sleep tonight as we're sleeping in seats. About 8 pm we saw snow outside (lots - we must have been high up). The leg rests were very uncomfortable.

- THE NIGHTMARE NIGHT -

It was Tim at his worst: playing DS all night (the incessant tapping), complaining, getting into the food bag all night, rearranging bags to try to sleep on the dirty floor, leaning hard against me, on and on. I only slept 2 hours (if that) and am now totally exhausted - with a toothache.


My comments:

While it was still light, the scenery was great. However, the train seats have a hard metal bar between them, and I am a bit too wide so I find myself sitting on the bar when I travel. Not very comfortable! I didn't get much sleep at all.

I really enjoyed talking with Bob, the Native American. His granddaughters (nieces?) were extremely attentive, although they were seated upstairs. The youngest one came down frequently to check on Bob and make sure he was OK. Nice girls. I talked with them about Disneyland and might have convinced Bob that he should take them there.

We did have more leg room by sitting in the front seats, but the drawback was no little tray to fold out to use. Before the train got too full, I moved back one seat to play cards. I'm really glad I brought the deck along, although I was sure sick of solitaire by the end of our trip!

It's probably a good thing that Tim brought both his Game Boy and his DS. He let Miranda borrow his DS to play Pokemon, and she monopolized it most of the trip. This actually worked out pretty well. The two of them sat together most of the time so Tim could give her tips on which Pokemon were worth catching and how to do it. This left Bill and me free to veg on the other side of the aisle.

Our conductor was really a hoot. He was a big guy, and obviously thought Tim and Miranda were brother and sister. After Miranda had gone upstairs to get something from the snack bar, he told us that he had 'kept his eye on her' to make sure she didn't get into trouble. He seemed quite surprised to find out that she's 34!

I think the most irritating thing was the constant intercom messages about the dining car and reservation times. Just as you were starting to drift off to sleep, you would hear "This is Timothy from the dining car. Please do NOT come to the dining car until we have called your reservation time. We are now seating all 1:00 pm reservations for lunch. I repeat, all 1:00 lunch reservations are now being seated." There were also intercom messages about the wine and cheese-tasting party for the sleeper car people. Oh - and the intercoms about the upcoming stops, although they did stop those in the middle of the night. I guess they went around and woke people up who were getting off.

I think a train trip for up to half a day would be great - but two days is way too long (especially if you don't have sleeper cars, which we couldn't afford). Even Bill has said that next time we should fly rather than taking the train (although he's actually pushing for us to drive instead).