Amtrak to california

Friday 10/3/08 – Riding on Amtrak from Boston to Albany, NY

Noon time departure… We are on the very last car in almost the last seat.

The sun went away around Framingham, it is very dark and cloudy.

At 1:30PM we arrived in Worcester, MA. Had a bit of a wait in a large train yard there.

Thomas and I played 45’s. He taught me some finer points of strategy and bidding. My partner and I won 2 games with his help. In Worcester, I walked up to the dining car and got us some lunch. Thomas has a half warmed thru cheeseburger and I had a hot dog with a very tough roll. We are now full though, and looking forward to the train ride through the Berkshires.

2:30PM A fellow passenger just bent down into my face. She has a sweet British accent, and she asked me to guard her things with my life while she attends to the bathroom. She is very cute. Of course, I agreed.

The atmosphere on this car is very quiet. Most of the people are reading, sleeping or playing on their computers. The woman and girl behind me are having conversations off and on. The woman is from Michigan and is heading home from a visit with her sister in Boston. The young girl is from Connecticut and she is heading to Springfield to visit a friend.

Thomas is playing a computer game on my laptop from home. He is listening to his IPod, too. The train ride is quite bumpy and wavy. I don’t much like being on the last car. The movement is enough to make one queasy.

Another train yard. Strange cars to the left, that say CSX.. they are slotted metal sides, yellow and silver in color. I wonder if they are for hauling animals???

4:00PM So, CSX is a name of a train company. I saw a manual on one of the dining car tables where the conductors are sitting and it had the same logo on it.

We are in the Berkshires now. The trees are very colorful and the scenery is pretty in the dappled sunshine. People are more awake now around us, and there is more conversation. Thomas is sleeping off and on. His headphones a permanent fixture on his head.

We arrived in Albany on Friday afternoon, and got our baggage off the train so we could get our pjs and a few other things out of them. I was hungry, so I grabbed a tuna sandwich. Thomas was smart and waited until we got on the train. Of course, they were serving a nice meal which was included in the price of the roomette. Speaking of the roomette. That is a polite way of saying, you are going to be inside a sardine can where 2 people can barely move. They actually even fit a toilet in the roomette. Of course, there is no privacy to use the toilet.

Saturday- 10/4/08 Sleeping did not occur all night due to the noise and jerky motion of the train car. Even my Tylenol PM didn’t help me. They seem to accelerate to a frightening rate at night which causes the train to jump and jerk and slide in all directions. For a side sleeper like myself, I was constantly being shook awake just as I would barely get to sleep. It was quite frustrating that when they slowed down and stopped I would just start to really drift off, and the train would start up again. Needless to say, we are both very tired today.

When I sat up and opened my curtain this morning, I had the most amazing view. We were in Bryan, OH. The world was suddenly flat and I could see the sky forever! The sun was just making its appearance in the sky, and everything was a warm shade of orange. There was a hard frost on all of the fields, and patchy fog drifted off of all the water ponds. I watched the sunrise for about an hour, and tried to absorb the sites of this strange flat land. Of course there were corn fields too. I noted that the trees were all green. No fall colors here. We had a nice breakfast of French toast and sausage, and got ready to arrive in Chicago. Even though we were very tired, we made the best of things and walked around Chicago for a couple of hours. I really like the city. It feels like a cross between Manhattan and Washington D.C. I would love to come back to explore it in more detail. We walked down to the shore of Lake Michigan, past the Sear’s tower and many other beautiful old buildings. We saw window washers hanging by ropes on the sides of many of the sky scrapers. They are brave souls! The lake is, of course, amazing! We had lunch at a place called B&Bs. It was simple and inexpensive. We then raced back to union station for 1PM as we had been instructed. We waited in the metro lounge until almost 2PM and boarded the train. It is now 3:50PM and we are still sitting in the station. They have announced that they have a mechanical problem with the engine and they are getting a new one. We just had power and air back for about 5 minutes, and it appeared that we would be getting underway, when we lost power again! I am glad we are not stuck out in the middle of Nebraska, but this doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies about getting to CA on time. I am sure they will have to accelerate to break-neck speeds once again tonight. I doubt sleep is going to come easily for us again tonight. The roomette on the Zephyr is not as nice as the one on the Albany line. We don’t have our own toilet. But there is a shower room on our floor. Now if I could just get a towel, I could have a nice shower and try to feel like a human being.

I finally got a towel and we also got underway, 2.5 hours late. I am not sure at this point if they can make it up by Monday. I hope so, or else we will miss our connection to San Jose. My shower was refreshing, and I do feel a bit better. I just hope I get some sleep tonight.

We are going thru more corn country. Illinois still, I think. It is fascinating and I find myself having all kinds of questions about corn farming, that I never thought of before.

Like, how do they get the rows so perfectly straight? And how do the farmers know where their land ends and where the neighbor’s begins? I see no obvious markers, but there are clear lines in the corn where one farmer has harvested and one has not. And speaking of harvest, how do they pick all that corn? I am seeing some still green and other fields completely brown. Is the corn still on the stalk? Do they cut down the whole stalk and rake the ears off with a machine? I will have to ask Dawn these questions. I am also fascinated by the people perspective of this landscape. They are all growing corn, I imagine for money, but they don’t obviously compete with each other. I mean, I doubt you would see one farmer mow down his neighbors crop so that he would make more money. So, how do they get along so well when money is involved? What communal agreements exist to allow such a peaceful co-existence?

The train whistle blows almost continually through this part of the trip. Every farm has a road that crosses the tracks, so the train whistle must blow at every crossing.

I like the way the farms are setup on the landscape, but I don’t like the clusters of housing developments, where every house is identical to the next one, and there are no trees. I could not live out here in one of those cookie-cutter neighborhoods.

It’s 6PM, and the sun is getting low in the sky. I bet the sunset is going to be a pretty one. The sky is so big and there are very few clouds today.

We have dinner reservations at 7 tonight. They are serving salmon.

Dinner was good. We came back to our roomette to find the beds made, so we had little choice but to go to sleep very early. I took the top bunk and knew right away that I would not sleep well because I was feeling very anxious.

Sunday 10/5/08 – Today has been amazing! When I woke up we were leaving Nebrasks and heading into the badlands of Colorado. So much sage brush! It is the most amazing color of blue. We have been traveling through the Rocky Mountains since about 9 this morning. Right now we are looking down about 100 ft below us at the Colorado River. We are in a canyon in the mountains and it is just about the most stunning thing I have ever seen! There are many tunnels here too. The aspen trees are in full color, and the river current is running very strong! Brave souls in kayaks are actually in the water. We are so lucky to have a very clear day, but it is snowing at the highest peaks. We are suddenly in the clouds, surrounded by a hazy mist. I am in awe of this place.

We progressed through the Rockies and just before they ended, we had some black clouds move in with rain. It didn’t last long and we got a full arch rainbow where we could see both ends. It was vibrantly colored. Darkness fell and we had dinner and went to bed early once again. I slept really well for the first time on the train.

Monday – 10/6/08 The day of reckoning! We started the trip 2 hours behind and never made it up. We were in Nevada when I woke up at 6:30am. We had lost time during the night due to some traffic and a man who needed medical attention from paramedics. Within a few hours, we were sitting in another train yard because of a broken rail ahead. The conductor announced that we would get permission to go on a different rail which was proceeding toward oncoming traffic so we would be able to keep moving. The rest of the trip was pretty slow and frustrating. We did pass through the Sierra Nevada mountains and Donner pass, so there were some awesome sights, but the end of the trip was a nightmare. Thankfully, I met some great people and will keep in touch with them. I even got to play bridge for a while with some women from CA, who had gone to Reno to canvas for Obama. We had some interesting debate over the most qualified person to be president. The train ended up being 4 hours late getting into Emeryville. We arrived around 8:45PM instead of 5:40PM. We missed the connection to the train to San Jose, so Amtrak put us on a bus to Oakland. Little did we know that once there, we would have to wait another 25 minutes for another bus which would eventually take us to the San Jose Amtrak station. The second bus went first to San Francisco and waited for almost 30 minutes for other passengers to show up. I was surprised to see and go over the Bay bridge on our first night in CA, and I did not feel any bridge anxiety. I just wanted to go to bed. The ride on the bus down the freeway from San Francisco was tense. We had some heavy fog roll across the road and the bus’ hydraulics were quite unstable. It bounced like a car with broken springs. Once at the Amtrak station in San Jose, which was closed, we found a cab to drive us to the San Jose airport to pick up a rental car. From there, at 11:50PM, we drove to Sunnyvale, and finally at about 1:15AM we went to bed.

Pictures: http://marlenespics.shutterfly.com/?role=-2
We ended up flying home first class on Northwest Airlines. I believe this train trip cured my fear of flying. At least when flying first class! :-)