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Travelogue:
West Coast by Train,
March 2010
By
Roger W. Reini
By
date:
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Prologue
It is time for another cross-country trip by
rail. There are three trains that travel from Chicago to the
West Coast: the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles, the California Zephyr
to just shy of San Francisco, and the Empire Builder to either Seattle
or Portland. Now I have taken the first two trains already,
the Southwest Chief in 2000 and 2006 and the California Zephyr in 2004,
trips recounted in previous travelogues. Now I would like to
add an Empire Builder trip to that list. I would also like to
take a trip to someplace warm in March. But the Pacific
Northwest is not warm in March; in fact, it’s actually farther north
than Detroit, and it tends to be damp there, so it doesn’t seem like a
particularly inviting place to visit in late winter and early
spring. Now how do I reconcile this conflict? I
could have taken the Empire Builder in the late summer or early fall,
but that didn’t seem very appealing in mid-winter, and I really wanted
to travel in March. Southern California in March sounded
extremely appealing to someone living in Detroit in mid-January –
sunshine, bicycle tours, whale watching expeditions, and more – and
what’s more, I’d really enjoyed my previous trips out there, but that
trip would not give me the novelty of train travel across the northern
states – the northern Rockies, the Cascades, the Big Sky country.
Here is how I resolved the conflict: I found a way to do
both. By traveling on the Southwest Chief to LA, I could
spend a week in San Diego and LA. Then I could travel on the
Coast Starlight up the coast to Portland or Seattle, spend a night in
either city, and then catch the Empire Builder back to
Chicago. I’d be experiencing a wide range of scenery from the
train, and my cameras would be getting a real workout. With
that trip, I would spend time in warmer climes, and I’d also visit five
states I have yet to visit or pass through on the ground (only South
Dakota, Alaska and Hawaii would remain unvisited). I could
say that I had traveled on every train heading from Chicago to the West
Coast, leaving only one West Coast route left: the Sunset Limited from
New Orleans. But that could wait for another time.
With train ticket effectively (though not yet officially) in hand, I
needed to determine where I would stay, how I would get around and what
I would do. My schedule gave me a few hours layover in
Seattle and around ¾ of a day in Portland, so I wouldn’t be able to do
much more than walk around in those cities. As for the week
in Southern California, most of that would be in San Diego, a city I’d
visited once before 10 years ago. And there was so much I
could do….
Top
January 18, 2010
As of today, I’d decided where I would be staying
every day of the trip. Seven nights in San Diego, one night
in Arcadia/Pasadena, one night in Portland, and of course five nights
in sleeping cars on three trains. Still needed: a rental car
for LA and San Diego. I would not need one in Portland, as I
would be staying just one night, and in the downtown area as
well. I also started making reservations and getting tickets
for certain attractions, such as a whale- and dolphin-watching cruise
out of San Diego Bay. I’m contemplating a second
whale-watching trip out of Newport Beach to Catalina Island, as well as
a return visit to the San Diego Zoo and some special events at the
zoo’s Wild Animal Park.
February 5, 2010
Today I attempted to pick up my train tickets at the
Amtrak station in Dearborn after work. The station now has an
automated ticket kiosk that lets you print your tickets after
displaying a bar-coded printout. I started to do so, but the
ticket agent suggested that I not do so today. I didn’t need
to print my tickets until I actually needed them, he said, which would
be on the day I started to travel, some five weeks away at that
time. If I needed to make any changes to my travel plans, I
could do so without incurring a 10% penalty if paper tickets had to be
changed. And so I left without claiming my tickets.
My travel plans have indeed changed slightly: I won’t be spending as
much time in San Diego, and I will be spending time with a former
classmate in LA. More on that later.
March 2, 2010
In 11 days, I will be on the train heading to the
West Coast. Earlier today, I made reservations for a
whale-watching trip to Santa Catalina Island, which I will be making
with my former classmate and friend David and his girlfriend.
Other than possible bicycle tours in San Diego, I’ve made the
reservations I’ve needed to make. I’ve stopped papers and the
mail. And soon, I need to pack.
Top
Friday March 12
Today was my last day of work prior to my vacation, and it was a very
busy morning. It was so busy, in fact, that it extended into
my lunch period. I didn’t eat lunch until 2:30 PM (an aside:
due to medical reasons, I am not able to observe the Bahá’í
Fast). Things did slow down in the afternoon,
thankfully. I had a meeting with my boss at 3:30 about the
items I was working on (quite a few) and what would be due while I was
gone (very little, as it turned out). Then there was the
daily 4 PM call-in meeting with one of our suppliers that has
experienced a problem (I’ll not mention the supplier or the
problem). Those meetings were scheduled to continue in my
absence.
And so at 4:30, I was able to head out the door and into my
SUV. On the way home, I stopped for gas at Kroger.
The sign said $2.67 a gallon, but the pumps were actually set for $2.62
a gallon (that was on the sign earlier this morning), and with my
KrogerPlus card, I actually paid $2.59 a gallon. That’ll be
the last I see of those prices; they’ll most certainly be higher in LA
and San Diego. When I got home, I got the mail (a Goldmine magazine
and a flyer for SAE seminars) and started final packing. At
times, I got concerned that I wouldn’t able to fit everything I’d
wanted to fit. I think I did.
Later on, I went out to supper at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Ford
Road in Dearborn Heights, having hummus with chicken shwarma.
The meal was good, but the portions were just too much for
me. I’d have taken a box home if I weren’t going on my trip
tomorrow. Then it was back home to continue packing, to watch
Michigan State lose to Michigan in college hockey, and to go to bed.
Top
Saturday March 13
It was important that I be awake early for the train’s departure, and
so I had set the alarm for 5:15. But I was up before 5 on my
own, no help needed from the alarm. I checked my e-mail,
downloaded the Saturday papers, and finished packing. My
carryon bag (the one that would be slung on my shoulder) ended up being
heavier than my wheeled bag. That didn’t seem right, but I
had no time to fix that now. I looked out the front door to
see how the weather was (it was raining), and I saw the Saturday Wall Street Journal
on my porch. I had put in a vacation hold that was supposed
to have started today, and clearly it hadn’t. No harm done,
not yet anyway, but if one were delivered on Monday when I wasn’t there
to pick it up, I would be a bit concerned.
When I was done using my MacBook, I shut it down completely rather than
put it in sleep mode. Doing so would use less power, which
was important because I’d have no way to recharge on the
train. Also, I’d have my iPod touch with me, and I would be
able to recharge that. I took two of my morning medicines but
held off on the two that should be taken with food; I would not be
eating breakfast before leaving the house, and I wasn’t sure when I
would be eating.
By 6:10 AM, I was completely packed and on the road to the Dearborn
train station. As I’d said earlier, it was raining, though
that didn’t keep me from making good time on Ford Road, hitting most of
the traffic lights while they were green. I was flipping
around some of my favorite satellite radio stations on the drive: the
Underground Garage, the ‘60s, the ‘70s, and Old Time Radio, hearing
such songs as “Bell Boy” by the Who, “SOS” by Abba, “Ding Dong The
Witch Is Dead” by the Fifth Estate, and the start of an episode of “The
Life of Riley”. And soon I was at the Dearborn train station.
Recall that I had attempted to print out my train tickets at the
Quik-Trak machine some five weeks earlier, only to be dissuaded from
doing so. Well, it was time for me to print them out for
real. It wasn’t difficult at all: just scan in the receipt
for my online order, and then command the tickets to be
printed. And soon I had six tickets, one for each train I
would be taking. Two would be used today; the other four
would wait until later. I sat down and waited for the
boarding call. That arrived at 7:05. The train
pulled in at 7:06, just as I was going up the steps to the
platform. The business class section was at the rear of the
train, on the other side of the café car. I struggled a bit
climbing up the steps with my luggage, but I made it on board and found
a seat. Only one or two others were on board in this section;
that would change later. A New York Times was
waiting for me on my seat; combined with my Wall Street Journal
from home, I had some high-powered reading ahead of me.
The train pulled out of Dearborn on time. I was on the left
side of the train, meaning the south side for most of its run, and so I
had a view of Greenfield Village, the old EEE building at Ford, and
other neighborhoods on the south side of the tracks, all familiar to me
from previous train travel as well as living and working in the area
for some 25 years. Our stop in Ann Arbor was a long one; many
people were getting on board. I suspect most of them were
college students. I decided to get some breakfast from the
café car, choosing a cinnamon bun and a bottle of apple
juice. As we traveled westward, I noticed that the streams
and creeks were running rather high from recent rain and especially
from snow melt. I didn’t see much evidence of flooding,
though. As the train rolled onward, I recalled the time in
2004 when I was doing some actual work on the train, working on an SAE
paper on which I was a co-author.
The train slowed down east of Albion for a time; signal problems, the
conductor said. Soon, we were back on our normal
pace. That pace proved too fast for me when I tried taking a
picture of the statues of Tony the Tiger and Tony Jr. in front of the
Kellogg’s headquarters in Battle Creek; the picture turned out
blurry. Onward we went through Kalamazoo and southwestern
Michigan, and then northwestern Indiana. Michigan City had a
new casino and large hotel. If there were any changes in Gary
or Hammond, I wasn’t able to see them, as it had become foggy
outside. That fog and mist lasted all the way into Union
Station in Chicago, where we arrived on time.
After visiting the men’s room, I went inside the Great Hall and took a
few pictures. One picture took a long time for me to take:
one of the entrance leading to the train platforms, as I was trying to
avoid having anyone in the picture. I didn’t succeed, but I
managed to minimize the number of people in it. Then it was
off to Amtrak’s Metropolitan Lounge, the waiting area for anyone with a
sleeping car ticket. My train’s departure was a few hours
off, so all I wanted to do now was to drop off my bags, get some lunch,
and perhaps do a couple of things outside the station. Lunch
consisted of an Angus burger at McDonald’s; I should have stuck with my
semi-traditional Filet-O-Fish (see previous travelogues involving Union
Station), for I didn’t really care for the burger. I stepped
outside the station and went to the CVS drugstore down the block for a
nasal inhaler. No, I didn’t have a cold, but I remembered
catching a cold while on the train in 2004 and being without any
medicine for it, and I did not want to repeat that experience.
Back at the station, I visited one of the newsstands. There
were no newspapers that I wanted to buy, but two books did catch my
eye: the official companion to the HBO miniseries The Pacific, and a
book by conservative talk-radio host (and former co-star of Babylon 5)
Jerry Doyle. I didn’t get either one, but I did get the
latest issue of Analog science-fiction magazine. Then it was
time to go back to the Metropolitan Lounge and wait for the Southwest
Chief to depart. I retrieved my bags, found a chair, and had
a seat. One TV in the lounge had on the Illinois-Ohio State
game; the other one had on CNN. The basketball game ended in
a tie in regulation, so overtime was necessary. But I never
got to see overtime and so didn’t get to find out until later who won,
for our boarding call came just at the end of regulation.
We were escorted out of the lounge and onto the platform for our
train. It was a long walk to reach the sleeping cars at the
front of the train. At least I was able to roll one of my
bags there. For the next two days, my home would be room 6 on
the upper level of sleeping car 0331. The porter for the car
would be Fred. I stowed my wheeled bag in a rack on the lower
level, then brought my other bag with me to my room. It was a
bit large for the room, but no one else was in there with me, so it
didn’t really matter.
The train pulled out of the station right on time. There was
no opportunity for a scenic picture of downtown Chicago today; it was
hidden by fog and cloud. I did take a few pictures along the
tracks in the western suburbs of places that looked interesting to
me. I also started to read one of the Bahá’í books I had
brought along, one that demonstrated the prophecies in the Bible that
pointed to the advent of both Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb (that’s a subject
for a different discussion, not a travelogue). Later on, I
started to listen to a Great Courses lecture on Buddhism.
My dinner reservation was for 5 PM. My seatmates were three:
a woman who lived in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, only a few blocks
over from where President Obama used to live before entering the White
House; a man who had also lived in that area but now lived in Old Town;
and a woman returning to her home in suburban Kansas City.
The two Chicagoans were the chattiest at the table, frequently talking
about conditions in the city or in the Hyde Park
neighborhood. The woman from Hyde Park had some rather
liberal political opinions, I noticed. For dinner, I had
shrimp scampi (I’d had better), with chocolate peanut butter pie for
dessert (very good).
Back in my room, I listened to more of the Buddhism lectures.
I finished three of them before noticing I was getting quite
sleepy. I called for my bed to be made up, traveling down to
the café car for a snack while that was being done. When I
came back with my snack, my bed was all ready for me. Soon,
I’d nibble on some chips and cookies before putting them away for later
and going to sleep.
Top
Sunday March 14
For those who are mathematically inclined, March 14 was Pi Day
(3.14…). But that plays little part in my travelogue, so I’ll
continue: In the past, I have had difficulties getting a good night’s
sleep on the train, mainly due to the rolling motion and the
clickety-clack of the train. Overnight was no exception, as I
did pop in and out of sleep frequently. One thing was
different: unlike my last train trip, I did not have to get up
frequently during the middle of the night and use the bathroom.
I woke up around 6:30 according to my watch. Now thanks to
the time change from standard time to daylight time, there was no need
to reset the watch when traveling into the Mountain Time
zone. I went for breakfast down in the dining car and had
some good French toast. One of my seatmates this time was the
woman from Hyde Park I’d met last night; the other one was a man from
Cleveland on his way to Las Vegas to start a medical billing business.
When I returned from breakfast, my bed had been turned back into seats,
and so I settled in for the long ride. It turned into a foggy
ride later on, as I noticed after a trip to the restroom. The
fog persisted through our stop in La Junta. I got off the
train there but didn’t bother taking any pictures, unlike on the
previous trips. I stopped inside the station briefly to check
on the tourist literature, and I recognized many of the sites being
advertised; I’d visited them on my Colorado trip in 2008.
There wasn’t any need to pick any of it up. After getting a can of Diet
Dr Pepper, I got back on the train, and we continued onward.
It remained foggy and cloudy all the way to Trinidad, so I never saw
that large mountain in the distance I’d seen last time. I
still had no way to confirm if I had seen Pikes Peak from the train in
2006. The porter brought newspapers from Pueblo; they had
intensely local news, which wasn’t of much interest to me. I
had my iPod touch and MiFi, as well as my MacBook, which I started up
when I wanted to do some major mail retrieval.
At one point past Trinidad, I saw a horse running off in the
distance. I wanted to take a picture of it, but my camera
wasn’t handy, and we were moving too quickly; we’d be out of range
within seconds. So there was a lost opportunity.
The dining car steward came by for reservations for lunch; I chose
11:45. At 11:45, my seatmates were two high school girls on a
class trip to the Grand Canyon and a woman from El Paso returning
home. Today’s meal was an Angus burger, which was actually
much better than McDonald’s version. Then it was back to my
room for more reading and more looking out over cloudy
scenes. It actually started to snow for a while!
But I could take comfort in knowing that there would be no snow where I
was going.
Around 4:45, the train pulled into Albuquerque for a major service
stop. As I had done in the past, I got off the train and
walked around. I didn’t leave the station area this time,
unlike last time. No, I just visited the restroom inside the
station. Why do that, when the train had toilets of its
own? Well, let’s just say that the toilets in the station
were more comfortable to use; I won’t be more specific than
that. After my business there, I went back on board and
downloaded the men’s NCAA tournament bracket in prelude to my playing
in this year’s Vegas Dave tournament. Michigan State was in.
We were on our way west when dinnertime came around. I’d
selected a 5:45 reservation. When I got there, the dining car
was mostly empty. For more than half of my meal (steak), I
was by myself. Then came later seatings, and I was joined by
my male dinner mate from last night, the resident of Old Town
Chicago. We talked of our train experiences over the years,
and he pointed out that the train we were on was consistently among the
best on-time performers because the BNSF railway took care to give it
its proper due when scheduling its freight lines. Other
railroad companies did not give sufficient respect to passenger lines,
he said.
Back in my room (more like a roomette – in fact, that’s what it was
officially called: a Roomette), I spent some time taking pictures of
the scenery. The clouds and fog had vanished, and it was
sunny out, at least until the sun set. The red rocks looked
magnificent in the golden sun of late afternoon. I went to
bed somewhere between Gallup, New Mexico and Winslow, Arizona.
Top
Monday March 15
Once again, my sleep was fairly light, although I thought the first
part of my night had a rather sound sleep. When I opened my
curtains, I could see stars out, many more stars than I was accustomed
to at home. The Big Dipper was clearly visible, and I
actually thought I saw the whole Little Dipper as well.
Around 4:15, I woke up again; this time, I had to visit the restroom,
and so I had to put on all my clothes in order to go
downstairs. While I was down there, I noticed the
shower. I thought to myself, “I’m here; why not take a
shower?” It was my first time using the shower on the
train. There was plenty of soap available, and the water
pressure and temperature were reasonable. I did try to limit
my use of water, and so I concentrated on cleaning certain
areas. I dried off, put my clothes back on and then went back
to my room to lie down.
Breakfast opened at 5:30; I was there at 5:45. My seatmate
told me that the train had been stopped at Flagstaff for around 3 hours
last night; apparently, there had been a linkage that broke and needed
to be repaired. I was asleep during all of this and didn’t
notice a thing. Hm – if I was asleep during the time the
train was stopped, perhaps that was why I thought I slept well the
first part of that night. This morning’s meal was bacon and
eggs with home fries and a croissant that looked more like a bagel; it
was very good.
We pulled into Barstow at 6:45; yes, we were indeed three hours
late. Would we be able to make up the time? Would I
still have my rental car available at Union Station? As we
proceeded onward through Victorville and down the Cajon Pass, we were
not picking up any time. Nor were we losing time, for we were
arriving at stations almost exactly 3 hours late. Onward we
rolled, through San Bernadino, Riverside and Fullerton. At
last, downtown LA came into view. I could see its tall
buildings in the distance – the shorter City Hall off to the right – a
Sears warehouse and a Sears store (both somewhat older) somewhere in
between (2555 E. Olympic Boulevard, according to the Web) – and as
always, the mountains in the distance. Now the schedule had
some padding in it, for we pulled into LA around 10:15 AM, only two
hours late. I got my bags and went down the stairs towards
the train station, walking with Mr. Old Town Chicago. Then I
had cause to think about my cell phone, which was in my jacket – which
was still hanging in my room on the train! I rushed back to
the train to collect it, only to see Fred the porter coming toward me
on the platform with it. What a relief!
While I waited at the Hertz rental counter, a woman was kind of talking
to me about tea: what her favorite kinds were, how cream would curdle
up immediately when poured into certain teas, and how she didn’t care
for that, etc. I was partially listening, but I was also
waiting for the rental clerk to handle my reservation.
Eventually, my turn came, and soon I was in temporary
possession of a silver Toyota Camry with no floor mats (removed in the
wake of the acceleration problems, no doubt). I drove off,
got on the 101 headed south, and I was on my way to San Diego!
There was no satellite radio in the car, so I put the radio on KNX and
listened to the news and traffic. I had no problem driving on
the 5 toward Orange County; people on the other side of the freeway
could not say the same thing, though, not north of the 91 they
couldn’t. I stopped briefly in Anaheim at the Ham Radio
Outlet to pick up an Extra Class license study manual (I’d mislaid my
copy at home) and the newest issue of CQ Magazine (it would arrive
while I was gone), and then I got back on the 5 and proceeded to South
Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. This was near where I stayed on my
first trip to LA back in 1998. My purposes in visiting today?
One, to eat lunch, and two, to stop at the Borders for a recent
California atlas. Lunch consisted of soup and salad at
California Pizza Kitchen ASAP (a satellite of their main
restaurant). The soup was tomato basil bisque, and the salad
was their Original BBQ Chicken Chopped. The combination was
very good.
It took me a little while to find the maps inside the Borders, but I
eventually found the Thomas Brothers atlas for California.
GPS devices are fantastic, but they aren’t particularly suitable for
browsing or easily looking at wide areas, which is why I wanted the
atlas. And now, with atlas in hand, I set back out on the
road. Well, I had to visit the Apple Store first (I didn’t
get anything there) and walk all the way back over to my car before I
could set out on the road. I had parked at the Sears store,
and the Borders was about as far away from there as you could get and
still be on the grounds of South Coast Plaza.
Traffic on the 405 and then on the 5 was moderate as I went through
southern Orange County down to San Diego. I pulled off at a
couple of vista points during the drive so that I could take in the
views. The first was on the grounds of Camp Pendleton and had
a great view of the ocean. From there, I could see well up
the coast and well out to Santa Catalina and San Clemente
Islands. I could also see a Marine ground vehicle on the roll
on the land between the freeway and the ocean (it wasn’t the
beach). Whatever they were doing couldn’t have been secret,
else they wouldn’t have been doing it in plain view. The
second turnoff was near Carlsbad and one of the lagoons, although the
“lagoon” was mostly dry. You could see the Coast Highway in
the distance, hugging the shoreline very closely.
I drove onward. Past the south end of Camp Pendleton, there
was an official California Welcome Center in Oceanside, right along the
old Coast Highway. I stopped there for some San Diego and
general southern California tourist information, and the man at the
welcome center was very happy to oblige. If I’d had time, I
might have taken old 101, the Coast Highway, down the rest of the way,
but I didn’t, so I didn’t. As I was leaving, another
Michigander entered the welcome center (he was from the Holland
area). Back on the freeway I went, heading south towards San
Diego proper.
Eventually, I found my way to downtown San Diego and figured out where
the Hampton Inn was. I had to make a couple of U-turns to get
there, and I also had to contend with road construction in front of the
hotel. This would be my home for the next four
nights. Parking was slightly underground, beneath the hotel;
it also cost $12 a night. I wasn’t too thrilled about that,
but that was one of the prices to pay (literally!) for staying in such
a convenient area. And a convenient area it was, for the
hotel was on the edges of the Little Italy area and two blocks from the
waterfront. There was also a trolley stop nearby.
Unfortunately, the tracks for Amtrak and Coaster service passed close
by the hotel, and the trains passed by fairly frequently – and they
blew their horns as they passed. I didn’t care for that.
My room was room 348 on the third floor. It looked out onto a
courtyard that was open at one end facing east, toward the train
tracks. So I wasn’t going to have much of a view from my
room. But a short walk away were many opportunities for
tremendous views. I did go on a short walk that afternoon, in
part to determine where I needed to go tomorrow for the whale-watching
cruise. There were quite a few people on the Embarcadero,
walking, skating, or bike riding, and some of them may have been
admiring the artwork along the pathway. A camera crew from
channel 8 was set up, most likely for a live weather report.
I walked up to where two Hornblower boats were berthed, and then I
walked down to the Hornblower ticket booth. That was where I
needed to go tomorrow, to the ticket booth, not to where those two
boats were.
Next, I went east a couple of blocks and arrived at San Diego’s
historic Santa Fe railway station, still in use today by Amtrak as the
terminus for the Pacific Surfliner train, the Coaster commuter rail
line, and as a station for the local trolley service. The
inside and outside had been well preserved, and they made good photo
opportunities. Then I walked back to my hotel room; I figured
I’d walked about a mile in all. I rested for a short time,
and then I proceeded to make my entry in this year’s Vegas Dave NCAA
tournament game.
Now where would I have supper this evening? What was close
by? I’d seen an advertisement in my hotel directory for a
steakhouse up Pacific Highway. I wasn’t really in the mood
for steak, but I walked up toward that steakhouse, figuring I’d see
something else along the way. It wouldn’t be the Jack In The
Box across the street from the hotel, that was for sure! It
ended up being a Denny’s in the same building as the
steakhouse. I had one of their grilled chicken skillet
dinners, and it was very good. Back at the hotel, I
downloaded photos from the camera and started to identify them, and I
also looked at some of the tourist literature I’d picked up
today. But I started to feel sleepy, and so I went to bed
shortly after 9.
Top
Tuesday March 16
My sleep wasn’t particularly sound this evening, for I recalled popping
awake four times. The last of those times was just before 4 AM; I
don’t think I fell back asleep after that. I may have lie quietly
in bed and been in a borderline sleep state, but I am pretty sure I did
not fall asleep.
I got up for good before 6, took a shower,
checked my e-mail, and did the usual things I do in the morning when on
vacation. Then it was time to head to the lobby for the breakfast
bar. It turned out that this breakfast bar had something extra:
waffle-making machines. Was I going to make my own waffle?
Yes, I was. I took the cup of batter that had been provided, and
I poured it into the griddle. But I recalled my previous
experience with a waffle maker where the batter overflowed, and so I
didn’t pour it all in. That was another mistake, as the batter
didn’t quite cover the griddle. There must be a fine line between
too much and too little batter. But that didn’t keep the
resulting waffle from being good, and so was the rest of the breakfast.
Back
in my room, I read the rest of the paper (or at least skimmed it) and
got ready for the whale-watching cruise. Camera and batteries
ready? Spare batteries charged and available? Access to extra
memory cards? Jacket, hat, sunscreen? I had all these things, and
so I was ready. By 8:35, I was on my way to the waterfront and
the booth for Hornblower Cruises. Ten to fifteen minutes later, I
was all checked in and waiting to board. I walked down to take a
look at the USS Midway, which I planned to visit later in the
day. Then I walked back to get in line to board. As we
boarded, a staff photographer had us pose in front of the boat for
souvenir photographs (more on those later).
The boat had three
decks, of which two were available for passengers. I chose to go
up to the top deck and sit on the starboard side, mid-ship. While
in dock, it was a very sunny and warm position, but after we got under
way, it would be in shade most of the time. As we waited to
depart, I was looking over the side when I saw something gray and
moving in the water. It turned out to be a baby ray. I got
out my camera and took a couple of pictures of it. One of the
naturalists on board said that was indeed a baby ray, hanging out by
the dock to keep from being eaten.
The boat was a little late
departing the dock, but once it was under way, we were treated to the
wonderful sights of the north part of San Diego Bay. Some ten
years ago, I’d been on a harbor cruise that concentrated on the south
bay, and now I’d get to see the rest of the bay from afloat. My
camera was busy as we passed downtown, the airport, Harbor and Shelter
Islands, North Island NAS, and the submarine base. I could hear
the guide’s commentary about the sights on the port side of the boat
(North Island), but I couldn’t see them; I would get to do so on the
way back. I could overhear a young man talking in detail about
the Navy vessels; it turned out he was an ensign on leave and showing
his family around. Point Loma came into view, and we traveled
down its full length. The skies were blue, and the haze content
was low, a great day for viewing whales – or sea lions, as it turned
out: we saw several sea lions resting on the many buoys in the channel.
At
last we arrived at the tip of Point Loma. Once we were past that,
we had left San Diego Bay and ventured out into the Pacific
Ocean. Our speed increased. Seas were calm with occasional
swells, which made it difficult at times for those who hadn’t found
their sea legs yet. Ahead lie the Coronado Islands, which were
Mexican territory. A number of other boats were ahead of and
behind us; it looked to be a great day. Everyone was on the watch
for whales, especially their plumes whenever they would blow on the
surface. I thought I saw a whale well in the distance, but as we
got closer and I could zoom in on it, it turned out to be a buoy.
The
captain announced a sighting of birds near the water off our bow.
That was a sign fish were near the surface, and it was also a sign that
dolphins were nearby. As we approached, we saw the dolphins
leaping and swimming. They weren’t terribly active, the captain
said, because they were too busy feeding. Still, I tried to get a
few pictures. When I’d taken pictures of dolphins before, I was
somewhat disappointed with the results because I would find myself
taking the picture after the dolphin had gone back into the water, for
the most part. And that turned out to be the case here as
well. It seemed like I’d have to take a picture a second before I
realized I wanted to take a picture (not possible) or shoot continuous
video (too low resolution). I would find a solution to my
dilemma, but not until Sunday the 21st.
The boat went
onward. Eventually, we did see a whale blowing in the 1 o’clock
position off our bow. We moved closer; it continued to
blow. The engine cut way back. Everyone got very quiet so
as not to spook the whales (there were two, said the captain).
Minutes past. Then one blew again, and then that one actually
breached, leaping out of the water. Everyone ooh’d and ah’d
at the sight, but I didn’t get to see it that well. In fact, I
thought I’d missed it altogether, for my view was blocked. I was
holding my camera up very high and shooting video, and later I’d
discover that I did capture the whale breach. I was not zoomed
in, and so it didn’t look very spectacular on video, but I did get it.
Those swells made it hard to use an extreme zoom lens setting on the
camera, but I managed.
Other boats were converging on our spot;
they wanted to see the whale, too. However, it seemed that the
whales weren’t too keen on seeing us, so they were heading out to sea,
gradually pulling away. We’d see them everyone once in a while,
getting farther and farther out. I did get a couple of pictures
and some more video, but there were no more breaches like that first
one. My batteries ran out on me during the trip; fortunately, I
could change over to my spares. We ended up some nine miles
offshore before we had to turn around and head back to port: we were
out of time. But we had seen whales! It may not have been
as striking or as spectacular as we would have liked, but we had seen
them.
The captain announced that souvenir photos taken when we
boarded were available downstairs. Two prints for $20, the man
said. The one of me turned out pretty well, so I thought, why
not, and sprung for them. Unfortunately, I had no good place to
store them during the remainder of the trip, and so I had to awkwardly
hang onto them. We saw more dolphins on the way back, and I took
a few more pictures and some video. There was an incident on the
way back: an older woman slipped and fell on the deck. She didn’t
appear to be hurt, though. I was still on the starboard side, and
as we entered San Diego Bay, I could see the sights of North Island,
such as the USS Ronald Reagan and USS John Stennis in port and a huge
cargo plane about to take off for parts unknown (to me, anyway; I’m
sure the pilots knew where they were going). Finally, we pulled
back up to the dock around 1, right on time. Our cruise was
over. As we left, we all received stickers saying “I Saw A
Whale!” I wished I’d gotten a better look at the whales, but I
still enjoyed the trip.
I knew it would be too warm to wear a
jacket on shore in the afternoon, and I also wanted to put away the
souvenir photographs, and so I walked back to the hotel and back to my
room. On the way there, I saw a group of four men in
yellow-orange robes. They were Buddhist monks, and they appeared
to be visitors to San Diego. It’s not every day that you see
Buddhist monks, not in this country at least. After dropping my stuff
off at the hotel, I went back to the waterfront. Now what would I
do for lunch? Two answers were ahead of me: the Elephant and
Castle at the Holiday Inn, or Anthony’s Sea Grotto on the water.
I wasn’t in the mood for pub food, and I’d heard good things about
Anthony’s, so I went there. As I sat overlooking the bay, I had some
clam chowder, a salad, and fish and chips. Everything was pretty
good. I made some notes in my notebook about the whale-watching
cruise. I would have checked e-mails, but my MiFi was out of
power and needed to be recharged. And so I looked out of the
window and saw lots of boat traffic: two kayakers, people being taken
from ashore to their boats docked offshore, people visiting the
Maritime Museum, and so on.
When I was done with my meal, I
walked down to the Midway. When I signed up for the
whale-watching cruise, I’d bought a package that included a ticket to
the aircraft carrier, now permanently berthed in San Diego Bay as a
museum. I went on board, presented my ticket, picked up a headset
that served as a personal tour guide, and started my tour. Now it
was nearing 3 PM, and the Midway closed at 5. I would not have
time to see everything here, unfortunately, and so I limited myself to
a few choice sights. I went forward and toured the crew’s
quarters, the fo’c’s’le area, and the officer’s quarters. I saw
several of the ready rooms used by the pilots; the ready rooms shown in
Battlestar Galactica were modeled on these, I have no doubt (I’m referring to the general layout of the ready room, not these specific rooms).
I
then moved up to the flight deck and observed the several models of
aircraft on board: several fighters, a few helicopters, one or two
trainers, and more that I can’t remember. One exhibit was devoted
to the tricks of landing with tailhook and restraining cable. I
saw a sign for tours of the conning tower; the last one would be at 4,
and so I hurried up to wait in line for a tour. The volunteer who
spoke to us in the waiting area was a WWII veteran who had seen action
in the South Pacific but had not served on the Midway. As he
spoke, I thought he sounded a bit like Sonny Eliot, the longtime
Detroit weatherman (and former WWII pilot and POW).
When the
time came for us to go up, I had to watch my head and lean forward a
number of times so I didn’t get conked. We first saw the air
traffic control area, and then we went up to the bridge. There
was a duty chart up there set up as it was on January 16 or 17, 1991,
the day the Persian Gulf War started. That was the Midway’s last
conflict; it had been in active service 47 years, the longest of any
Navy ship. The views from the bridge were tremendous, as one
would expect. But I bet it could have been a bit rough up there
during rough seas! The sailors were undoubtedly used to it, I
imagine.
After returning to the flight deck, I looked over more
of the planes and helicopters on the deck. One of the helicopters
had helped recover five Apollo missions; whether it had recovered the
astronauts or brought the command modules on board, I don’t
recall. I took a picture of the wiring in a couple of the
choppers; it would not meet 2010 automotive standards (I wonder if it
would have met 1960’s automotive standards).
5 o’clock was fast
approaching, and I would have to leave. I took a brief pass
through the gift shop but didn’t see anything I wanted. I felt
like I should have spent more time touring the ship, but that wasn’t
possible, not today. Looks like I have a reason to return to San
Diego!
After I left the Midway, I walked to the south a short
distance, for I wanted to check out something I’d seen from the
ship. There were a number of sculptures in the area saluting the
Greatest Generation, showing various World War II related scenes.
The one that had caught my eye was a huge sculpture of a sailor kissing
a nurse, a recreation of the famous photograph from Times Square on V-J
Day, when the war was finally, truly and completely over. A short
distance away was another sculpture, or I should say sculptures: it was
a memorial to Bob Hope and the shows that he would give for the
servicemen and –women around the world and at home. Bob was at
the radio mike, and his audience consisted of men and women from all
branches of the service, including some who were wounded and
recovering. There was a dedication plaque sunk into the ground
nearby, along with a time capsule from the dedication in 2006; I
noticed Connie Stevens as being on the board of the memorial committee.
It
was a tiring walk back to the hotel. Having been on my feet much
of the day, my feet were quite sore, and I was glad to take off my
shoes in my hotel room. And since I’d had a late lunch, I didn’t
really feel like going anywhere for supper. I just went to the
vending machines and got some chips and a bottle of Diet Coke, and that
was enough for me. I downloaded my pictures from today, and that
was when I learned I had caught the whale breach on video. Around
10:30, I called it a night and went to bed.
Top
Wednesday March 17
As I’d mentioned before, my hotel room was located close to the trolley
tracks and the main tracks between San Diego and Los Angeles. One
of those trains awakened me in the middle of the night; I was not
happy. I did go back to sleep, though, awakening for good around
5:30. One of the first things I did (besides my normal e-mail
check) was to take the camera memory card I had been using to date,
locking it off, and setting it aside. There was no way I was going to
erase the pictures on the card until I was able to return home and
backup my photo library.
For breakfast, I stayed away from the
waffle maker today and had Special K, some muffins, and peach
yogurt. It was still good. And then I proceeded to get
ready for my big event of the morning: a bike ride. One of my
purposes in deciding to visit San Diego was the opportunity to do some
bike riding, either on my own or as part of a tour. I couldn’t
decide what tour to do, though, and so I contented myself with renting
a mountain bike from a business along the waterfront (Wheel Fun
Rentals) and pedaling around for a few hours.
I arranged for a
half-day rental of a 7-speed mountain bike; that included a lock, cable
and helmet. The cost was merely 1 ½ times the cost of a one-hour
rental. I had to leave my driver’s license behind as a security
deposit. And so, with instructions to be back by 1:30 PM, I was
on my way. I set off to the south, towards areas I had not yet
visited. The path along the waterfront went through Seaport
Village, but bicycles were forbidden there, and so I had to get on the
roadway to get past it. I couldn’t find a good place to get back
to the path, and so I went past the Convention Center and all the way
down to Petco Park, the home of the San Diego Padres. There, I
found a way to get back to the shore. I then started back along
the shore path, making a detour through Embarcadero Marina Park and
making a second detour around the Seaport Village. I saw several
bike riders on the street, including one on a recumbent two-wheeler.
Back
on the path, I proceeded north toward and past the Midway, past the
Maritime Museum, and around the curve. I was now heading towards
the airport. I stopped several times for taking pictures, for
there were plenty of opportunities for picture taking. One of the
buildings at the airport had a large painting of a pilot, vintage
1920’s or ‘30s. It took me a while to figure out it was Charles
Lindburgh. San Diego’s airport is known as Lindburgh Field, and
so paying tribute to him in this way was appropriate. I pedaled
to the end of the trail, but it was possible to get over to another
trail and cross a waterway, thereby getting onto the Point Loma
peninsula. I was entertaining some thoughts of pedaling to the
Cabrillo Monument but decided not to. Instead, I’d follow the
trail up this waterway, which was very close to the Marine Corps
Recruiting Depot. The trail along the Esplanade went past some
very nice parks that were being used by parents with their young
children. There were some benches a little farther on; I stopped
there for a rest as well as relief, for I had realized that the bike
saddle was irritating me rather badly: the horn was pressing on nerves
in my groin, and I didn’t care for that at all.
On the return
trip to downtown, I had to stop several times in order to obtain relief
from the saddle problem. At one stop, I stopped to obtain relief
in another way: I removed the pants legs from my pants, which turned
them into shorts. I had to apply sunscreen to my now-bare legs,
but after that I continued back towards downtown. By 11:45, I was
back at the rental location. I had enjoyed the ride, especially
toward the beginning, before the saddle started to bug me. Then
it was back to the hotel to rest and to cool off before lunch.
Now
I was staying in the Little Italy neighborhood, but I had yet to have a
meal at one of the Italian restaurants in the neighborhood. It
was time to take care of that today as I walked over a couple of blocks
and looked for places that appealed to me. Several places were
available, and I had a hard time selecting one. But finally, I
chose one: Zagarella Italian Restaurant on India Street. They had
a small outdoor section, but I wanted to eat inside, having been
outside most of the morning. For several minutes, I was the only
one eating inside until a larger party arrived. I had fettuccini
Alfredo with chicken along with some garlic bread, and it was good!
Now
what else did I want to do today? I had not driven anywhere since
arriving on Monday, and there were some sights in the outlying areas I
wanted to visit. And so, I got out my GPS equipment and attempted
to program the Mount Soledad Veterans’ Memorial as a destination.
I had a very hard time doing so; it would keep coming up, Not
Found. Not until I had driven close to La Jolla did I discover
that the GPS had it under “Mt Soledad”, not “Mount Soledad”. Once
programmed in, my GPS device (my iPod touch mounted in a TomTom
accessory mount) pointed me right to it. I had to drive up some
steep roads to get there, but the weather was excellent and traffic was
light.
The dominant feature of the Mount Soledad Memorial is a
tall, white cross that is visible for miles around. The cross has
generated some controversy by being on public land. Over the
years, it has turned into a veterans’ memorial, with plaques
commemorating veterans from conflicts from World War II, Korea,
Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iran and Afghanistan. Some were for those who
lost their lives in those conflicts; other memorial plaques honored
those who made it home and lived full lives. I recalled seeing
plaques for Ernie Pyle and Admiral Stockdale. I took one picture
of the memorial in which the cross seemed luminous.
As you can
imagine, the views from atop Mount Soledad were tremendous. I
walked all around taking pictures. One direction, La Jolla and
Scripps Pier. Second direction, the snow-capped San Bernardino
mountains, the North County area, and a Mormon temple, extremely bright
in white. To the southeast, downtown. To the south, Mission
Bay and Ocean Beach. Elsewhere on the mountain, there were three
radio operators operating. I took a look at one equipment setup;
at first I thought they were operating military spec hardware, but then
it became clear that they were not amateur radio operators at
all. They were at work, and I chose not to disturb their
work. If they had been hams, then I would have struck up a
conversation with them.
After a half-hour to 45 minutes, I
decided I’d seen enough. Where would I go next? How about
the Cabrillo Monument at Point Loma, where I had thought about riding
the bike this morning? And so I programmed the monument into the
GPS and set off down the 5 again. My route took me fairly close
to Sea World and through parts of San Diego I’d never seen before,
through some nice neighborhoods and finally near military
installations. I passed a guardhouse that was currently not being
used, although it could be reactivated at any time. I passed by
the Fort Rosecrans military cemetery and gave a salute to the
servicemen and servicewomen buried there. At the gate to the
monument, I had to pay a $5 fee, which was good for the next seven
days. There was a turnoff leading to the tidepools, but I chose
to go straight to the visitor center at the monument. With plenty
of parking available, I found a spot and went inside.
The
visitor center served as a gift shop, but nothing struck me
there. No, my main interest was the view – and a tremendous view
it was. From here, I could see downtown, North Island, Coronado,
the sub base I’d seen yesterday from the boat, and more. I could
even see Mount Soledad in the distance. Boat and air traffic was
clearly visible. I walked over to the Cabrillo statue. When
I got close, I saw his name was written in Portuguese: Joao Rodriques
Cabrilho. It turned out Cabrillo was really Portuguese but sailed
for Spain. The views from here were slightly different; I could
even see Tijuana. The Coronado Islands were clearly visible, too.
A
short distance away was the old Point Loma lighthouse, built in the
1800’s but abandoned because it was too often shrouded in fog. I
walked up there and took a few pictures, although I didn’t enter the
lighthouse proper. It was certainly not foggy today! The
walkway up there let one see down to the Pacific coast side, towards
the tidepool area. There wouldn’t be time to go down there today,
and so I made a note to myself to go there later in the week.
Elsewhere on the walkway, there was a shaded area that served as an
onshore spot for whale-watching. I didn’t see any whales from
that location, although I was not paying close attention. I did
use that area to take a timed self-portrait with the old Point Loma
lighthouse in the background, and I thought it turned out pretty well.
Back
at the visitor area, I saw a man dressed in conquistador garb. He
must have been on the staff of the memorial. I stayed to marvel
at the views for several more minutes; one of the things I noticed was
a ship that was transporting powerboats. That struck me as
unusual, although in retrospect it probably shouldn’t have. When
I’d had enough, I got in my car and drove back to the hotel.
When
I’d been out today, I had left my car rental agreement in the hotel
room. That was probably not a good idea, as that was effectively
my car registration. When I set out for supper this evening, I
made darn sure that I had the agreement with me. Tonight, I’d be
setting out for the Mission Valley area, home to two large shopping
malls and a number of food options. I didn’t have much trouble
taking the 5 up to the 8 eastbound and onto Hotel Circle. It was
much the same as when I’d stayed in the area back in 2000. The
Holiday Inn Select I’d stayed at back then was now a Courtyard, it
turned out. A loop under the freeway put me in position to pass
behind the shopping centers, and I started looking for places to
eat. I was also looking for a Barnes & Noble I remembered
being nearby. I found the Barnes & Noble on the other side of
the 163, and there were a number of restaurants nearby. I was
beginning to consider Mexican food, but I didn’t see any around.
What caught my eye was an Applebee’s, and I ended up eating there,
having one of their shrimp & spinach salads, along with some tomato
basil soup. Both were very good. I then went over to the
Barnes & Noble, thinking I was going to get something but ended up
getting nothing. It was onto the 163 all the way downtown, then
onto Ash Street over to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, I got some
change for the vending machines and then proceeded to grab a
snack. The hotel’s Internet service was out, so I had to use the
service from my MiFi this evening. By 10, I was tired and called
it a night.
Top
Thursday March 18
My trip would have four significant nature experiences: the
whale-watching cruise in San Diego, a second whale-watching trip to
Catalina Island departing from Newport Beach, a visit to the main San
Diego Zoo, and today’s big event, a trip to the Zoo’s Wild Animal Park
and a photo caravan safari trip through the park. The day started
with my waking around 5:30. An e-mail check found that e-mail was
waiting for me; the hotel’s connection had to have been restored during
the night. I took a shower and went down for breakfast, where I
decided that I would attempt to make my own waffle again. The cup
that had the waffle batter seemed to be filled higher to the top than
on Monday, but I poured the whole thing in; it overflowed. But I
have to admit, it tasted pretty good.
The photo caravan safari
would not be until 1 PM. But I wanted to see the rest of the zoo,
and so I planned on spending a whole day out there. That’s why I
was on the freeways very early in the morning. From the 5, I took
the 8 over to the 15 and up. Yes, I could have taken the 163 up
to the 15, but I wanted to see where the Fry’s in town was located, and
I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I had taken the 163. I
went quite a distance out of town, almost to Escondido. Before I
reached that city, though, I saw a sign directing me off the freeway
and toward the park. The roads to the park had me passing more
than a few vineyards and wineries, and then I was there: the San Diego
Zoo Wild Animal Park. I paid $9 to park, and then I made sure I
had my essentials: camera, hat, sunscreen, 2-day pass for the basic zoo
admissions, and ticket for the photo caravan. Thus equipped, I
entered the park.
My first visit was the aviary, where birds
were flying in fairly close proximity. I saw a couple of birds
fighting or rough-housing; I’m not quite sure how to characterize
it. My camera was always at the ready, and I used it a few times
in the aviary. After I left, I had to decide what to do.
What would allow me to see most of the zoo yet get me back in time for
the photo caravan? I decided to follow the marked Kilimanjaro
Safari Tour, which led one through the majority of the African-themed
exhibits. That took me past an exhibit of gorillas, one of which
didn’t seem too thrilled about being there.
Many of the exhibits
were on a lower level; to reach them, you took the Great Rift Elevator,
which was nothing more than a regular elevator. The exhibits down
below included the lions, giraffes, ostriches and rhinos. All of
the animals had a fairly wide range to roam, although I suspect the
lions would have preferred a larger range: “all of this food is SO
close, and we can’t get at it!” I did get some good pictures of the
lions, both from up close and from afar. And it was from afar
that I saw the flatbed trucks that were taking the morning photo
caravan participants; I could see them feeding giraffes, something I’d
be doing in a few hours. I walked over to the elephant area, but
they weren’t out; keepers were doing some work in the pens, so the
elephants were confined to small enclosures.
I made sure I was
back in plenty of time to go on the photo caravan; I even had time for
lunch. It was a rather messy chili dog and a Diet Coke served in
a huge souvenir cup that I had no place to store, so I didn’t keep it,
I recycled it. I was glad to be off my feet during that time,
after having walked around the zoo. And now it was time to head
to the departure area for the photo caravan.
There were multiple
trips departing at the same time, a longer trip and a shorter
trip. The shorter trip participants got their hands
stamped. There were some fifteen of us on the longer trip, which
would last some 3 ½ hours. One family had been on this trip seven
years earlier. After checking in, we boarded the back of a
flatbed truck fenced to keep us in and most critters out (although as
we would see later, it wouldn’t stop hungry giraffes). We set off
for the first area. Every area was double-gated like an airlock
to prevent anything from getting out that shouldn’t. The truck
would drive to the first gate, open it, and drive inside. Then
that gate would be closed and the next gate opened, and we’d proceed,
followed by that gate’s closing. At our first stop, we were
greeted by a couple of ostriches that our guide described as positively
flirtatious. We also saw some wildebeest lounging around, not
looking very “wilde” at all. We saw a group of Cape buffalo, who
seemed just as not-too-happy with our presence as the ones in Murchison
Falls National Park in Uganda. As we drove along, we encountered
our first group of giraffes, young males eager to be fed. We
stopped here and broke out the leaves for them; they enjoyed those
immensely. I took a few pictures but did not participate in the
feeding this time out. Later on, I did feed some leaves to the
giraffes in a different area.
We saw what may have been one of
the last northern white rhinoceroses; I say “may” because biologists
aren’t sure if the northern white rhino is truly a separate species
from the regular white rhino. We saw some black rhinos (not black
at all), and later on, we saw some regular white rhinos. I got to
feed pieces of apples to those rhinos, which were actually rather
calm. Their eyesight is terrible, and the stories about charging
enraged rhinos are myths, for the most part, fostered by bad Hollywood
movies. One of the rhinos was named Taniya, which struck me as
funny because I know and work with someone named Taniya. I don’t
know how she’ll react when she learns of her namesake rhino in San
Diego.
On our drive around, we saw the zebra enclosure.
They are not allowed to mingle with the other animals because they’ll
be aggressive towards them and do them harm, our guide said. This
way, they’ll just be aggressive to themselves. Photo
opportunities were tremendous, just like on the Ugandan safari
drive. This lasted for the same amount of time, as well, although
there were differences. For one thing, in Uganda, the lions I saw
were not in their own enclosure; they had free rein. For another,
I was traveling with far more people on this ride versus the three on
the Ugandan drive. Now halfway through the tour, we stopped for a
snack break; I had some snack crackers and a diet drink.
Unfortunately, the diet drink caused me to burp rather loudly, which
scared someone as I was walking past.
The sights and sounds of a
tour like this are very hard to put into words; pictures and movies
would do a better job of conveying the experience, I feel. The
combination of all three would do the best job, I imagine.
After
3+ hours, our tour was done, and we were back at home base. There
wouldn’t be time for me to visit some important areas of the park, but
I would be able to visit the elephant area and perhaps see the baby
elephant born on Valentine’s Day. This birth caught the zoo staff
off guard, the guide said during the photo caravan, for the mother
began labor earlier than expected. Someone would have been on
hand at the birth, but that didn’t happen. Everything went well,
though, and the other elephants were really trumpeting the news.
By coincidence, there was a sleep-in taking place on the grounds that
night, and those campers could hear everything going on. And did
I get to see the baby elephant? I sure did, and just in time: not
long after I got there, it and its mother went inside. I did get
a good picture, though.
I went back to San Diego the way I’d
driven up in the morning. On the way, I heard the news that Fess
Parker had died (he’d played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone).
Traffic on the 15 wasn’t too bad. Now I planned to stop at Fry’s
on the way back to check out what they had, and so I exited at the Aero
Road exit. What would I have for supper? How about Mexican
at the Baja Fresh restaurant in the shopping center on the
corner? That turned out to be real convenient. I stopped
there and had my usual meal, a Burrito Mexicano and a taco. I had
to do a U-turn at the light in order to get to Fry’s, but I got there
all right. The store was laid out differently than the ones I was
most used to (the Webster and Austin stores), but I eventually found
the departments I was looking for. They had extra batteries for
MacBooks; after the outbound trip, I thought I might want one for the
trip back. But I wasn’t ready to get one today; I’d have more
opportunities in the next few days. And so I left without getting
anything and then drove back to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, as
I prepared to download my photos from today, I came to the conclusion
that my existing iPhoto library was too large. It had all of the
photos I’d taken ever since I’d got my first digital camera in 2004,
and it was some 32 GB in size. It was time to create a new
library for all of the new photos I’d be uploading, I said to myself,
and that’s what I did. In truth, what I would have liked to do
was to put all of my photos from the start of 2010 in there and have
New Year’s 2010 be the changeover point. I’d need a special
utility to do that, though, and that could wait for later.
Top
Friday March 19
Well, today I would be leaving San Diego for LA. My original
plans had me staying in San Diego through Monday, but those changed
after my high school friend David offered to host me for a few
days. I was not going to turn down that opportunity!
For
some reason, I woke up around 3:20 in the middle of the night and could
not get back to sleep, and so I used that time to check e-mail and
visit some of my favorite websites. I did go back to bed for a
time, but I don’t think I went back to sleep. By 5:45, I was up
for good. I started to pack. I started to charge my cell
phone. I watched the news on channel 6. I went downstairs
for breakfast and had cereal, muffins and yogurt. I made sure I
had David’s address written down for later reference and his phone
number entered into my phone. I even had time to start
identifying the pictures I’d taken at the zoo yesterday.
Before
I left San Diego, I wanted to visit the main zoo in Balboa Park, the
one most people have heard of, and I wanted to pay a second visit to
the Cabrillo Monument and go see the tidepool area. Both opened
at 9; where would I go first? I chose the zoo. And so, when
I checked out of the hotel around 8:30 and left the parking garage for
one last time, I drove over to Balboa Park. My route took me past
many of the museums that are in town, museums I would like to visit on
future visits to San Diego. But there wasn’t time today. I
found the parking lot for the zoo (free parking here, unlike at the
Wild Animal Park), got my camera, applied my sunscreen, and went inside.
After
I got my bearings, my first destination was the panda exhibit.
Recalling how crowded it was during my visit in 2000, I made straight
for that exhibit as best I could. My troubles were rewarded, for
there was hardly anyone there, and three of the pandas were out.
The youngest was sleeping, while its mother was munching happily away
on bamboo. I then walked the tiger trail, hoping to see one of
the animals I missed yesterday at the Wild Animal Park. I did see
him, although he was lying down in a shady area and didn’t feel much
like doing anything. I then proceeded to make a big loop around
the park, catching the koalas, a kangaroo or two, a baby Bactrian camel
born 11 days prior, a California condor or two, a couple more lions,
several elephants, and more. I could not see the polar bears; a
revamped polar bear exhibit would be opening in a week, but I would not
be there to see it.
When I passed the giraffe and rhino
exhibits, I couldn’t help but notice that they were much smaller than
the Wild Animal Park exhibit areas. Quite understandable, of
course, but yet I felt a bit sorry for these animals who didn’t have
the ability to wander as much as their brethren at the other zoo.
I went past the panda exhibit again, and it was definitely more crowded
at this time of the morning; I’d made the right decision in going there
first. I went through the aviary and got some great closeups of
some red and green birds at their feeding dish.
For lunch, I had
a burger at one of the zoo restaurants. There was nothing special
about it; I was hungry, and it was edible. Then I visited the
gift shop and bought some gifts – specifically “poo-paper”, paper made
from elephant dung. It’s not as bad as it sounds, believe me; it’s a
legitimate form of recycled paper that doesn’t smell bad at all.
I’d
spent some 3 hours at the zoo, or 11 hours altogether when counting
yesterday’s excursion, and I was tired. I’d had my fill of the
zoo for a while. Next stop: the Cabrillo Monument. It
wasn’t hard to get there from the zoo at all. My admission from
Wednesday was good today, so I didn’t have to pay again. This
time, I drove right down to the tidepool area and got very close to the
beach. I climbed out onto some rocks but didn’t feel comfortable
going all the way to the water’s edge; that footing looked a bit
precarious for my liking. There were a number of people there,
but I took a picture of some boulders that made it look like the area
was desolate. I could see several surfers offshore; I’m not sure
they were supposed to be surfing there. My phone received a
couple of text messages from my provider; it seems that in the tidepool
area, I was roaming into a Mexican carrier’s area of service. But
I wasn’t going to be calling anyone, not yet anyway. I drove back
to the top of the monument and went back to the visitor’s center, and I
noticed that visibility was definitely poorer than on Wednesday.
I could not see Mount Soledad this time, nor could I see Tijuana.
North Island, downtown and the bay were still quite visible, though.
It
was time to head up to LA. Would there be time to drive up the
Coast Highway through Carlsbad and Oceanside? I didn’t think so;
I’d want to do that on a subsequent visit. But I did think there
would be time to drive up Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, from
San Clemente to Harbor City. Bad traffic in Laguna Beach
convinced me that was not a good idea. I set up my iPod touch in
its GPS cradle and asked it to direct me to David’s house; it did so,
telling me to find my way to the 405. I got gas in Newport Beach,
then set off on my way using the GPS’s instructions. They were
quite straightforward, it turned out. Unfortunately, traffic on
the 405 was stop-and-go, as well, at least at first. I saw a
Smart fortwo on the 405 and marveled at either the bravery or
foolhardiness of the driver; that car strikes me as being too
small. Eventually, traffic broke free, and I made my way to the
101 and down to Sepulveda and over to David’s house.
A pork
roast was cooking as I arrived. Dinner wouldn’t be for a while,
so we nibbled on a few things. March Madness was in full force on
the TV; I was able to watch the end of the Michigan State game.
David’s girlfriend Robin arrived a short while later and joined us for
dinner, the aforementioned pork roast; that turned out to be pretty
good. After a brief tour of the house and the guestroom where I
would be sleeping, we pondered what it would take to connect my MacBook
to the flat-screen TV so that I could show my pictures. David had
a cable but no adapters to connect to the TV or to either of our
laptops. I did own the right adapter, but it was back home in
Michigan, of no use to me right now. So we would have to get the
adapters tomorrow.
Top
Saturday
March 20
I woke up once during the night with a stuffed-up nose; adjusting my
sleeping position led to its unstuffing, and I went back to
sleep. Around 6, I woke up for good, doing some e-mail checking
and iPhoto library adjusting. Yes, I now had the software that
would let me move and copy photos from one library to another, and so I
could make my new library hold everything from 2010. I checked
the latest results from Folding@Home, seeing how well I was
doing. But there appeared to be a problem: no results had been
submitted since Wednesday. I tried to login to my iMac at home
using Back to My Mac; I couldn’t. That meant something was wrong
at home; the iMac had either crashed, locked up or not recovered from a
power failure. I was kinda ticked off by that, more so because I
couldn’t take any action to fix it until I got home next week.
By
8, I’d gotten up and taken my medicine, and then I heard David
awaken. Our plans today were fairly minor. We’d go for breakfast
at Ruby’s in Redondo Beach, head up to the Santa Monica Pier, look for
the proper adapters for connecting our MacBooks to the flat-screen TV,
then head back home for doing who-knows-what. We set off in
David’s Camaro, a very nice vehicle, even if it does come from GM (I’m
a longtime Ford engineer, remember). As we got ready to leave, we
saw a cat prowling around. It was Greystoke, said David, a
neighborhood stray that seemed to be reasonably healthy. He was
also a bit skittish, as he scampered off fairly quickly.
Ruby’s
was on or near PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) in Redondo Beach. This
was the nicer section of Redondo, the part that was actually near a
beach. I remember staying at a hotel in the inland part of
Redondo 10 years ago. The neighborhood was OK, but the hotel had
seen better days. It turned out that Ruby’s was across the street
from a hotel and had a nice view of the waterfront. We could see
kayakers pedaling in the harbor at times. David mentioned that
the Pirates of the Caribbean ship had pulled into or close to the
marina located nearby during the filming of one of the movies.
Nothing like that happened today; all we did was enjoy our breakfast of
French toast made with cinnamon rolls along with scrambled eggs and
turkey sausage. The sausage was spicy but dry; the eggs were
good; and the cinnamon French toast was very good. Neither of us
could finish, although I ate more of mine.
As we made our way
over to the 405, David pointed out the Northrop Grumman offices where
he works. Traffic wasn’t too bad on the 405 over to the 10, the
Santa Monica Freeway. Now the plan was to park near the Third
Street Promenade, visit the Apple Store first and then hit the
pier. But we missed the exit for downtown and had to get onto PCH
heading north. A U-turn had us positioned for parking in a lot on
the beach, close to the pier, and so we went there first instead.
There was a lot of activity at the pier in preparation for tomorrow’s
LA Marathon; the finish line would be at the pier. Good thing we
were going today, then! The pier was one of the LA attractions I
had yet to visit, which is why I wanted to see it on this trip.
Yes,
it was a tourist trap – a scenic one, yes, but still a tourist
trap. There were a number of gift shops, an area of amusement
park rides, a few restaurants, a carousel, and plenty of places to
fish. There was a sign saying “66 End of the Road”, commemorating
the western end of Route 66; I had David take my picture there.
There was a pigeon resting on the rails, unconcerned about what was
going on; we took some closeup photos of it, some of them with downtown
Santa Monica (such as it is) in the background. Thanks to zoom
lenses, we didn’t have to get too close to it. Then along come a
couple of young men, and one shoos the pigeon away. Why did he
have to do that?
The famous Ferris wheel now had advertisements
in it, we noticed. That didn’t keep me from taking a couple of
pictures. We heard and saw a couple of street musicians; one of
them was playing steel drums (and doing a good job of it!). We
walked over to the carousel. David mentioned having taken some
pictures of carousels in the past with slow shutter speeds to get
blurred motion. We both decided to try that. In David’s
case, he had me pose in front of the carousel and remain still while
the shutter was open for a fairly long time; that effect turned out
well.
After seeing the pier, it was time to go in search of the
Apple Store. It was a bit of a climb to get from pier level to
street level, but that put us at the entrance to the pier and its
famous sign. This opportunity for a picture could not go by
untaken, and so we took some. We even asked some folks on the
street to take one of the two of us. Then onward we went in
search of the Apple Store. It didn’t take us too long to find it,
although it was at the far end of the Third Street Promenade from where
we were. One area had a film crew filming some scenes for The
People’s Court; they were across the street from us, and we didn’t go
near them. We had to cross the farmer’s market to get to the
store. It turned out to be one of the larger Apple Stores; not as
big as a flagship store such as in Manhattan or San Francisco, but it
was larger than the ones I frequent in Michigan. Still, the
stores carried the same stuff. And back in the corner, we found
the adapters we needed, adapters that would allow a 15-pin VGA
connection. I had one at home but had not thought to bring it
with me; now I’d be getting a spare. David would be getting one
for his MacBook air; it has a different display connection than my
MacBook, so we could not use the same adapter. I also had decided
that I would indeed pick up a spare MacBook battery for the train trip
home. I had to make sure I was getting the right model, one that
would work with my white MacBook; I almost got one for a silver
MacBook, and I’m not sure it would have worked.
On the way out,
we popped in at the Brookstone store. They did carry wallets, but
this one was out of them. David did find something for his wine
“cellar”, though. Then it was on to The Puzzle Pit, a place that
is a combination toy store and science-fiction collectible store.
Want a light saber, a Han Solo blaster, or a Buck Rogers disintegrator
pistol? You’ll find them here. How about a Lost In Space
robot cookie jar? Yep, they had one of those too. I think
David was tempted by that cookie jar, but it remained locked in the
display case.
Back to the pier we went, and back to the parking
lot we went. It had definitely filled up since our arrival, and
we knew it was time to head on back. We ran into a big traffic
jam on the 10 that would have hindered our getting onto the 405, so we
got back onto surface streets and tried to plot an alternate
route. But the GPS kept trying to direct us back onto the 10; it
didn’t know about the backup (caused by a wreck), and I didn’t know how
to tell it about that, if I even could. We ended up going back to
Lincoln Avenue (Highway 1, PCH) and down to another freeway (the 90)
near the airport. That got us onto the 405 and on the way home.
While
NCAA tournament basketball played out on the flat-screen TV, we had
grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and then we attempted to connect
my MacBook to the TV. I say “attempted” because the adapter I got
today was only part of the solution. It seems that the cable
David had did not have the right connectors, either, and so he was off
on multiple trips to electronics and video specialists, trying to find
the right cable adapter. What he ended up doing was buying a
whole new cable. That, plus the adapter, did the trick.
Robin had come over in the meantime, and now I was in a position to
show them some of the photos I’d taken earlier in the trip. I had
to be real careful with the adapter; one time, it pulled out partially,
and it seemingly caused my system to crash with a kernel panic.
For
dinner, the three of us went to a Mexican restaurant called La Capilla
in Torrance. It appeared to be reasonably authentic; the room in
which we were seated had a big-screen TV tuned not to basketball but to
Mexican soccer. I got a combination dinner, while David and Robin
got smaller items. They must have known something I didn’t, for
my combo plate was filled, or I should say overfilled. A tamal
(the proper singular of tamales; it’s not correct to refer to “a
tamale”), an enchilada, and a tostada – I couldn’t finish it all!
I had to box up the leftovers and bring them home. Back at David’s,
David and I went to his music room for a little bit of jamming. I
was using his Epiphone Les Paul plugged into a small amp, while David
was going acoustic and unplugged. Later, the three of us watched
a repeat of Fantasy Island for a time, and then I decided to go to
bed. We had an early day ahead of us tomorrow with the Catalina
trip. I didn’t go to bed right away, though; no, I did a little
bit of laptop work and then watched some of the first episode of The Pacific that aired on The 101 Network (a channel unique to DirecTV).
Top
Sunday
March 21
I awoke briefly around 4 then went back to bed; I was up for good
around 6, and I did my normal e-mail check then got dressed. I
wasn’t sure which jacket to take with me, my yellow one or the brown
suede one; based on the experience from last Tuesday, I chose the
yellow one. I also chose to wear my Yaesu hat rather than my Ford
B-24 hat from Oshkosh; the Yaesu one fit better, an important
consideration in windy environments.
David and Robin got up and
got prepared; they packed some extra clothes in their backpack just in
case conditions were cooler than anticipated, and that included a
pullover for me. Around 7:30, we set off for Newport Beach.
It was rather cloudy and foggy outside; that was the marine layer,
David said. We listened to XM’s 60s on 6 as we made our way down
to Newport Beach. Traffic was very light, as one might expect for
this time of day. We were there in plenty of time for
departure. Finding the place to park was not hard; finding the
boat departure point took a little more work, but we found that.
We got checked in, and then we found the public restroom for a
last-minute visit.
Today’s vessel was the Nautilus; it was a
smaller vessel than the Hornblower boat I was on last Tuesday.
Part of me thought we should have a larger vessel, since we were going
farther out to sea. When it was time to board, the three of us
found a bench in the stern area underneath the top deck. It was
sheltered from the wind, but we could quickly move over to the side for
any whale or dolphin sighting. It was still cloudy and foggy as
we made our way down the channel and out into the ocean.
Eventually, thanks to the fog, we were no longer able to see
land. But David’s iPhone with its GPS showed where we were and
how fast we were getting there. He had to download an app to do
so. We were averaging 15 mph, or 13 knots.
We then
encountered the first of two dolphin pods on the outbound trip.
Remembering my difficulties with taking dolphin pictures last week as
well as several years ago, I set up my camera to take continuous photos
as long as I held down the shutter. I’d fill up a card faster and
take a lot of junk, but the chance that I would have a great shot were
much better. And that would pay off big time, for I happened to
get an excellent picture of a dolphin that had leapt completely out of
the water. As I realized what I’d captured in my viewfinder, I
exclaimed loudly, “I got it!” Robin said that people had looked
at me enviously, for I don’t think they got the picture. There
was one man there with a DSLR (Pentax?) and a large telephoto lens (not
sure if it was a zoom); I don’t think he got it. And if I hadn’t
been in continuous mode and already taking pictures, I don’t think I
would have gotten it, either. I was quite fortunate.
Several minutes later, and several miles closer to the island, we
passed through another pod of dolphins. I got a lot of pictures
here as well, including some where much of the dolphin was out of the
water, but there was nothing as spectacular as that one shot.
We
docked at Avalon just before noon and had two hours before the boat
left again. What to do in those two hours? How about walk
around, hit the restroom, have lunch, get a few supplies for the return
trip, walk to the other end of the harbor, hit the restroom again, and
then wait for the boat to arrive some 10 minutes late? That’s
exactly what we did. David, Robin and I ate at a place called
Jack’s. I had a burger made with Kobe beef and topped with Colby
cheese. It was OK, but the bun had been saturated with the cheese
or with a secret sauce, and it tended to fall apart. To be
honest, I’d had better. I treated David and Robin to lunch
today. We saw a dog on the street with some markings on its
spine; we’d learn later he’d been burned there in an accident, and the
hair never grew back. We stopped inside the Vons Express store
for a few items, then proceeded to walk down the main street then back
to the dock. I would check in on the Michigan State score every
once in a while; they were still holding on.
By 1:45, we were
back at the dock, wanting to be first to grab our seats. But the
boat was not there. 2 o’clock came around: still no boat.
What was going on? Finally, we saw the boat come around the bend and
head to the dock, ready to take us back aboard. I also got the
final score: Michigan State had won its game and was on to the Sweet
16. We found our seats, the same seats we had on the outbound
trip. Five minutes later, we cast off. Now I thought we
were going to sail around the rest of the island, for that was what the
website for the trip implied, but we headed straight for the
mainland. Some of the fog had lifted, so we were able to see
Catalina for farther out than earlier. Indeed, around the
midpoint, we were no longer out of sight of land; we could see the
mainland ahead and Catalina behind.
We passed through those
dolphin pods again, and once again I was taking a lot of
pictures. During the second pod, which the captain described as a
megapod, I ended up taking some pictures where the dolphin was up
vertical on his or her tail, just like in Flipper or in sea
shows. I even took some movie footage this time; the dolphins
were really enjoying themselves. David took a picture of three
dolphins completely out of the water, topping my single dolphin out of
the water. Yes, those dolphins were having fun. And if this
had been billed as a dolphin-watching cruise, it would have been
completely successful. But this was a whale-watching cruise, and
we hadn’t seen any whales at all. When we got close to shore, we
started looping around looking for a whale that the other boats had
seen, but we had no luck. By 5:35, we were ashore. Since we
did not see any whales, we were given rain checks good for the next
year for a free 2 ½ hour whale-watching trip with them (Newport
Whales). David and Robin could take advantage of that fairly
easily, but I’d have a harder time doing so. I didn’t know when I
would or could return to LA. Still, I took the rain check and put
it in my pocket, not knowing when or whether I could use it.
On
the drive back to Harbor City, Robin placed a pizza order at Hank’s
Pizza and Deli; it was ready for us when we drove up. We decided
to have a meal at home because we all wanted to see the pictures I’d
taken today. I’d taken hundreds, so I had to step through them
very quickly, stopping when the good ones appeared. And there
were some that would have been good if I had zoomed in some more.
A number of the pictures I took formed time-lapse sequences, David
said, so you could see the dolphins going out of and going into the
water; those might make good slideshows.
It had been a long day,
and David and Robin had to go back to work tomorrow. Robin left
for her home, and David and I picked things up and got ready for bed.
Top
Monday March 22
I woke up around 5 or 5:15 and did an e-mail check, a web check, and
some final packing. I turned on the news to see what the weather
and traffic were doing. By 6:30, I was packed and ready to
go. When David woke up for work, he didn’t have to wake me
up. Through the window, we saw one of the neighborhood cats
drinking from his swimming pool. It noticed us looking at it
through the window and took off. It was a cute kitty, too.
It wasn’t Greystoke; it was a different kitty. And so it was that
we both left at 7:15: David for work, and I for breakfast.
David
had suggested the Spires restaurant up the street at Western and
Sepulveda, and so I went there and had one of their breakfast specials
while reading the morning paper. It was a good meal, but when I
was finished, it was shortly after 8 o’clock. What to do
next? I drove to the Target that was at the corner of Sepulveda
and the 110 freeway; it opened at 8, and there weren’t many people
there at all. It had a slightly larger grocery selection than the
Target back in Westland, but it was not a full-fledged grocery store
like the Super Targets in Texas. I didn’t get anything from
there, not from the grocery section nor from the rest of the
store. That wasn’t for a lack of looking, either; I would have
got some Cheerios bars if they’d had any.
Now I was on my way up
the 110, heading in the general direction of Disneyland. As it
was rush hour, the 110 was rather busy. Once I got onto the
eastbound 91, though, traffic lightened up quite a bit. On the
radio was Morning Edition on KCRW; when I got tired of that, I flipped
over to KRTH, “K-Earth” (I always tend to think they got the call
letters wrong because it’s a transposition of KTRH, a Houston
station). Traffic got heavy again once I neared the interchange
with the 5; it turned out that there had been an accident on that ramp,
and I was caught in its aftermath. Once I got on the southbound
5, though, everything moved smoothly.
Soon I was at the exit for
Disneyland. I had no desire to visit either of the parks today;
no, I was solely interested in visiting Downtown Disney. I
followed the signs for Downtown Disney, but they had me park in the big
(and expensive) Mickey & Friends parking garage. I was on
level 2, or Daisy level. Down the escalator I went, and then over
to the tram waiting area. It took 4 or 5 trams before I was able
to board, and I couldn’t do so without banging my head on the tram
ceiling (low clearance). Off we went on our short ride to the
stop for the entrance plaza and Downtown Disney. I thought about
walking over to the entrance plaza, but there were long lines for bag
checks, and so I didn’t go. Now I’d visited Downtown Disney on my
last trip to LA in 2006; from first looks, it appeared little had
changed. I could see some renovations taking place on the
Disneyland Hotel; the balconies and window glass were being removed and
updated to give the building a more contemporary feel. I suspect
the entire building was being remodeled. It was slightly before
10 when I got there, so very few stores were open. I walked the
length of DD and crossed over to the hotel, then started on my way
back. The Compass Book store was open, and I went in there for a
time (didn’t get anything). I walked through the lobby and
grounds of the Grand Californian Hotel and thought that would be a nice
place to stay sometime, although I suspect I wouldn’t care for the
rates. Over at the huge World of Disney, they had lots of stuff,
as always, including some rare and collectible artwork. I ended
up getting two T-shirts from here, a Goofy one for myself and a Grumpy
one as a present for my uncle.
By this time, it was lunchtime,
and I decided to eat at the House of Blues, for I’d never been to one
before. I wasn’t super hungry, and so I decided to get a bowl of
clam chowder and their Cobb salad. Well, their Cobb salad was
served in a very large dish. It was good, but there was no way I
could finish it all. I saw advertisements for the Gospel Sunday
Brunch and thought it would be interesting to go to one of those.
I liked the HOB’s slogan, “Unity in Diversity”; that’s something you
hear with respect to the Bahá’í Faith, as well. Only when leaving
did I notice the ceiling populated with plaques of the many musicians
voted into their Hall of Fame.
When I was done with lunch, I
took a tram back to the parking garage, for I had completed my visit to
Downtown Disney. Next stop: the Pasadena area. David said I
should get over there in the middle of the day or else face the wrath
of rush hour. And so I set up the GPS and had it direct me to the
Rose Bowl, which I’d never seen for myself. I’d tried in the past
but had been unsuccessful. The GPS did its job perfectly, and
within 45 minutes, I was in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl. I
took a couple of pictures of the famous sign and a couple of pictures
of the surroundings, and then I went back the way I came, all the way
to where I’d exited from the 134 freeway. One direction took me
to the Rose Bowl; the other put me on old Colorado Boulevard. I
saw that this appeared to be a stretch of old Route 66 I’d not been on
before, including an old bridge, and so I took it. I little past
that bridge, I saw the Norton Simon Museum on my left. I then
knew that I was on the stretch of roadway where the Tournament of Roses
parade is held every year.
There was a Ralph’s a short distance
down the road. I stopped there to check on Cheerios cereal bars,
but they didn’t have them either. And so I continued eastward on
Colorado Boulevard, past the Old Town area and past other areas, past
the Santa Anita racetrack and on to Arcadia. It was too early to
check in at the hotel, and so I drove around to the Santa Anita mall
and ended up walking around there for an hour or so. It was there
– more specifically, at the Brookstone there – that I found a new
wallet and another battery extender for the iPod touch, one that was
rechargeable. Hopefully I would have better luck with that
charger than with the one I had earlier, the one that used AAA
batteries.
I’d stayed at the Hampton Inn in Arcadia before,
during my last visit in 2006; it was little changed. It was in
their records that I’d stayed there before, as I was welcomed back at
the front desk. I had room 328, and one of the first things I did
was to take a shower. Did I ever need it! Circumstances
hadn’t allowed for one at David’s. Now once I was checked in, I
didn’t feel like going anyplace else. And I didn’t need to, for
an excellent place to eat was right next door: the Souplantation.
Many other people had the same idea as I did, for it was very busy this
evening, more so than a typical Monday night, I overheard. The
salads, soup, pasta, muffins and dessert made for a very good meal,
hopefully a fairly healthy meal. By 9:30, I was in for the night
and in bed.
Top
Tuesday
March 23
Around 6:20, there was a piercing sound: the fire alarm was going
off! I was mostly dressed, and so I cinched up my pants and
buttoned my shirt. I debated what to bring down with me in case
this were a real emergency; I didn’t want my tickets home to be
destroyed, nor did I want my computer and pictures lost. But just
as I was about to decide what to do, the alarm ceased. I opened
up the door and looked out; so did the guy in the room next to me, who
looked like he’d come from the shower. Nothing visible, so we
went back to our business. A few minutes later, I heard a siren:
it was a fire truck coming to the hotel. I went down to the lobby
for breakfast; I saw the firemen talking to the manager on duty.
It must have been a false alarm. Whew! For breakfast, I had
scrambled eggs, home fries, sausage, a chocolate muffin, and some
yogurt, along with some orange juice to drink. There was one
waffle maker available, but it was in use. I read the USA Today
as I ate.
Back in the room, I continued to work on the
travelogue as I awaited the best time to leave for the station. I
didn’t want to get there too early, but neither did I want to be stuck
in traffic and be late. I ended up leaving around 7:53.
Traffic on Colorado Boulevard was not heavy at all, nor was it on
Arroyo Parkway. It started out moving smoothly on the Pasadena
Freeway, but then it ground to a crawl. Would I make it to the
train station by 9? Traffic inched onward. NPR was carrying
the comments of the Vice-President and then the President at the health
care bill signing ceremony. The clock moved; the traffic moved,
but more slowly. At long last, I saw the exit for Sunset
Boulevard. I knew I could take that to the train station.
Then I proceeded to hit every light on the way to the train station, or
so it seemed to me. I wasn’t too happy about that.
It
turned out I was a few minutes late, but I was within the grace period
for returning the car. And so I looked for and found the waiting
area for Coast Starlight sleeping car passengers. That was
somewhat unusual for LA, for the Southwest Chief sleeping car
passengers have never had their own waiting area. I sat down
there, had a cup of juice, and read a paper I’d bought at the newsstand.
The
conductor came by and collected our tickets. Those who needed
assistance getting to the train received rides from Red Cap
attendants. The rest of us followed the conductor as he walked us
out to the platform. We boarded our sleeping cars: I was in car
1430, room 5. I got on board, stowed my rolling bag in the rack,
and brought my other one up to the room. The room wasn’t any
different from other roomettes except in one way: the head protector on
the seat back had the Coast Starlight logo on it (the one on the
Southwest Chief was pure white). I wasn’t quite sure which way to
sit, for I didn’t know which way the train would be moving. Nor
did I know on which side of the train I would be until the train
started to move. At 10:15, the train lurched into motion, and I
knew then I would be on the east side of the train. I would not
have a view of the coast from my room. I also knew that I wanted
to sit on the other side of the roomette, the side facing
forward. That was easy enough to manage, but what could I do
about the view?
I knew what I could do about the view: go to the
Pacific Parlour Car, that’s what. It was a combination
observation car, lounge and diner specifically for sleeping car
passengers. When I first went inside, I noticed that there were 8
chairs that swiveled, although one of them seemed to be stuck.
There were two rows of bench seats along each side of the car, with
tables in front, and then there were diner seats. Beyond the
Parlour Car was the regular dining car. I would alternate eating
meals in the regular dining car with meals in the Parlour Car, as it
turned out.
As we proceeded out of LA and into the Valley, I
took a few pictures of what proved to be beautiful downtown Burbank
(should I be capitalizing that?). These were some of the stores
I’d visited back in 2006 (a Barnes & Noble, a Best Buy,
etc.). I couldn’t see the NBC Studios from my position (they’re
the ones who popularized the expression). When I was in the
Parlour Car, I saw the Fry’s Burbank store, the one with a UFO crashing
into the front of the store.
At one point, I reached into my bag for the Lord of Lords
book I had been reading. But I couldn’t find it! I knew I’d
had it out last night on the bed in my hotel – and I must have
forgotten to pack it this morning! It must have been hidden under
the covers, which is why I didn’t see it. I called the hotel on
my cell phone and left a message with housekeeping. An hour or so
later, they called back saying they had it. Did I want to return
to the hotel to pick it up, they asked. That was not possible, I
said; I was on a train to Portland. Could they mail it back to
me? Yes, they could; they would charge it to my room. I was
not happy that I’d left the book behind, but I was pleased I would be
getting it back. Perhaps it would be waiting for me when I
returned home (it was). For now, I went downstairs and retrieved
the companion volume, King of Kings, and planned to start reading that later.
I
made a lunch reservation for noon in the dining car. When I went
there at noon, I was seated with two older women who were living in
Oregon now; one of them lived in Albany, Oregon, as I recall. I
had an Angus burger for lunch as the train passed through Oxnard and
Ventura on its way to the coast. And it was during lunch that the
train reached the ocean. This was where the Coast Starlight
really lived up to its name, or at least the Coast portion.
Because
my room was on the wrong side of the train, I spent a lot of time in
the Parlour Car during the time we were along the coast. In the
distance, I thought I could see the Channel Islands, the upper ones
(Santa Catalina was too far away). I could also see the
occasional boat or ship, a few oilrigs, and the occasional group of
surfers. There was even a time when I saw dolphins leaping out of
the water very close to shore with no boats around. The conductor
made an announcement about dolphins playing on the left side of the
train, but I didn’t see any after that announcement. I didn’t
attempt to take any pictures of the dolphins; I didn’t have my camera
ready, and they wouldn’t have turned out well anyway.
The train
turned north, as did the coast; we were now passing through Vandenberg
Air Force Base. I did see a few rocket gantries, for this was and
is the west coast firing range. There was even a launch pad that
could accommodate a space shuttle for being launched into a polar
orbit. The train moved northward and away from the coast for the
duration of the trip. The hills and fields became greener as we
moved northward, in my opinion; I thought my pictures of that area
would turn out very well.
I found the seats in the lounge car
very relaxing, and I found myself getting a bit sleepy. This had
been my longest period of extended rest during the trip, not counting
the journey out from Detroit. Did I mind? No, I needed the
opportunity to rest and relax. Later, I went back to my roomette
and did some reading. There was a wine and cheese tasting party
in the Parlour Car at 3, but I did not participate because I don’t
drink; I haven’t since I became a Bahá’í in 1994. Around 5, I
fired up my iPod touch and my MiFi and listened to some streaming audio
for a time. It was all-news WWJ from Detroit, where the time was
8 PM. With the small speaker in the iPod, it was like listening
on an old transistor radio. It was nice to hear a touch of home
after a week and a half away.
My dinner reservation was for 6
o’clock, but this time I decided to eat in the Parlour Car and try one
of its meals, which were different from the dining car meals. I
arrived a bit early and plugged in the MiFi to charge it while waiting
to be seated. While I waited – not because of crowds, for there
was only one or two other diners; it was just not yet 6 – there was
some commotion: a young man in the sleepers was complaining loudly that
he could not upgrade his accommodations. He was on the phone with
an Amtrak agent, and he was eventually talking to the conductor, but he
never got any satisfaction. I gathered that part of the problem
was that the central office could not officially contact anyone on the
train for this matter, or that no one on the train could officially
answer due to rules instituted after the Chatsworth incident (the one
where a texting engineer caused a train wreck). The guy was
calmer later on during the meal. And speaking of the meal, I
could choose between bison and duck; I chose duck, and so it was that I
had a roast duck meal with mixed vegetables and rice, a salad, dinner
roll, Diet Pepsi and chocolate mousse cake – wonderful! The
tables were a bit cramped for me, though; the seats were closer to the
table than in the dining car, making it very close quarters for someone
who was overweight.
After dinner, I decided to stay in the
parlour car and take some pictures of the sunset. I couldn’t get
the actual sunset because the horizon was blocked, but I didn’t do too
badly. I sent an e-mail to David and Robin telling them they
would enjoy the ride. Later, after dark, I brought out the
MacBook and did some work on the travelogue. I was able to plug
in and so didn’t drain my battery any. There wasn’t much to see
outside now that it was dark, so it was a great time to do some work on
it. When I started getting sleepy, I packed up and retired to my
room. I read for a while, at least until the train pulled into
Oakland. I could see the Oakland Tribune building from my window
as the train pulled into the station. Not long after that, I shut
the curtain and went to bed. I had to have fallen asleep before
the next stop of Emeryville a short distance away.
Top
Wednesday
March 24
I recall popping awake on a few occasions during the night; none of
them were at a station. I woke up for good around 6 and saw a
mountain outside that had to be Mount Shasta, for it looked like the
mountain on the Shasta pop cans. I didn’t take a picture because
it was still too dark outside. Later on, I went to the dining car
for breakfast, choosing to have French toast and sausage; as always,
the meal was very good.
The first stop of the morning was in
Klamath Falls, Oregon, and it was an extended stop; we could get off
and wander close to the train. This was my first time in Oregon;
now, in the next two days, I would be entering several states that I’d
never visited before: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and North
Dakota. The only times I’d been in Minnesota before had been in
the Minneapolis airport; did that count as having been there? I’d
be going through for sure on Saturday.
For much of the day, I
would be in the parlour car admiring the scenery, taking pictures on
occasion, and working on the travelogue. Later in the day, I’d
even have lunch in the parlour car (a sandwich). One of the train
workers stopped by and showed us a calendar he’d had prepared with
pictures he’d taken along the train route over the years. Some of
the photos showed the train plowing through great snowy areas, where it
didn’t seem like any tracks had ever been. They were excellent
shots. One of the passengers commented that the calendar should
be on sale in the lounge car (I’d go along with that).
As the
train continued northward, we passed through Eugene and Springfield and
then Salem on the way to Portland. Off in the east, Mount Hood
came into view, as did what appeared to be a second similarly-sized
mountain. I tried taking pictures of both as best I could, which
wasn’t easy thanks to closer trees and buildings blocking the best view
much of the time. We kept going northward until, right on time,
we pulled into the Portland train station. Here was where I got
off. The train would continue into Seattle tonight, but that
portion of the trip would end in darkness, and I wanted to be able to
see the area in daylight. Also, I was not aware of any hotels
close to the Seattle train station, but there were some close to
Portland’s. And so, I got off the train here in Portland this
afternoon.
The Portland train station was rather elegant inside,
but I didn’t have much opportunity to admire it as I made my way
through to the exit. At the end of the sidewalk, I stopped to get
out my camera and take a picture of the station, which was a landmark
with its clock tower with the signs “UNION STATION” and “GO BY
RAIL”. Then I set my carry-on bag on top of the rolling bag and
walked the seven or eight blocks to the hotel. I was glad that I
could set the bags atop each other and pull them, but it was still a
good workout for me to pull that weight. I had to stop and
alternate arms every once in a while to avoid strain and to reduce the
feeling that I was twisting my lower back. At last I reached my
destination, the Embassy Suites in downtown Portland. It was very
elegant inside, I noticed as I made my way to the registration
desk. The clerk asked for the certificate that said I had enough
frequent stayer points to stay here; it was in my carryon bag, so I got
it out and gave it to her. Then she gave me the key, and I went
up to room 532.
Room 532 was a very fancy room. It was a
suite, of course; the name of the hotel was Embassy Suites, after
all. The hotel had originally opened as the Multnomah back in
1912. The main living area had a meeting table with 8 positions,
making it look like a small boardroom. There were flat screen
TV’s in the living room and in the bedroom, carrying a mixture of HD
and analog channels; one of the channels was an English language
channel of NHK Tokyo called NHK World, presenting news in English at
the top of every hour and other programs about Japan at the bottom of
the hour. The hotel Internet service cost $9.95 a night; I
decided to stick with my MiFi. It would have been tempting to
stay in the room the rest of the evening, but I did want to see some of
the area.
It was a very nice day outside as I walked to the
banks of the Willamette River and the shoreline hike-bike path, which
was seeing some very healthy use this afternoon. I took several
pictures of the area, including another picture of Mount Hood and a
picture of a famous local landmark, the “Made In Oregon” sign in Old
Town. I made my way back to the hotel through part of Chinatown,
dropped off my camera in the room, and then went to the basement for
the daily Manager’s Reception for guests, where one could drink, snack
and relax. Alcohol was available, but I stuck with the Diet Pepsi
or Coke (I can’t remember which one it was, though I lean towards Diet
Pepsi) as I nibbled on popcorn, chips and snack mix of one sort or
another. Two TV’s in the room were tuned to different ESPN
channels, one of which had on NBA basketball; I glanced at them
occasionally.
After the big meals on the train and the snacks at
the reception tonight, I didn’t really feel like supper, certainly not
at the establishments that were close to or inside the hotel. No,
I just got a couple of snacks from the gift shop before going to my
room. I didn’t go anyplace else for the rest of the night,
turning in around 9:15.
Top
Thursday
March 25 When I woke up
this morning and looked outside, it was raining. This was more
typical of Portland weather, I thought. I had packed an umbrella
in my carry-on and thought I might have to use it today, but the
weather forecasts suggested a break in the rain later in the morning,
when I would be walking to the train station. I took a shower,
got dressed, and then went downstairs for complimentary breakfast,
where I had pancakes, among other things.
By 7:40, I was on the
sidewalk (no car, so “on the road” would not be appropriate) headed for
the train station and an 8:30 departure. I had the carry-on atop
the rolling bag, but it fell off twice during the trip, forcing me to
wear it on my shoulder for most of the way. Once again, my
carryon was heavier than the rolling bag; perhaps I should have bought
a larger rolling bag. I arrived at the station just before 8 and
checked in for the train. Just as I did, there came the boarding
call for business class riders, and so I went right from the counter to
the gate and to the train. My bags didn’t want to fit in the
overhead racks very well, but I found some space in racks at the end of
the car. Then I had to move to a different car, for I had not
noticed that the card I thought was merely a discount for food in the
snack car was actually a seat assignment.
The seats in the
business class car on the Cascades train were similar to those on the
Chicago-Detroit train, although the Detroit train had more leg
room. The leg room here was quite sufficient, though. We
pulled out of Portland on time, and within minutes, we were in
Vancouver – Vancouver, Washington, that is. No Olympics had been
here; those were in the other Vancouver, the bigger one, the Canadian
one. We proceeded northward, mainly through cloudy skies.
At some points, we were close to the I-5 freeway. I recall seeing
an exit where the destinations were Longview and Long Beach.
Those were awfully far apart to be on the same exit sign, I thought,
and they were, if you were to think of Longview, Texas and Long Beach,
California.
My seat was on the right side of the train, which
proved to be the less scenic side of the train. I didn’t take
many pictures on this part of the trip; I’m sure I’d have taken more
had I been on the other side. As the train neared Seattle and
Puget Sound, there would have been several opportunities, but I wasn’t
able to take any advantage of them.
We arrived in Seattle
perhaps 15 minutes late. As I entered the King Street Station, I
started looking around for lockers or any place where I could store
luggage temporarily. I never found any (I heard later that there
were lockers or at least a storage area, but I never saw it). I
went outside briefly, allowing me to see Qwest Field. But there
was no way I was going to haul my luggage around downtown Seattle doing
sightseeing. I reluctantly concluded that I would be spending my
4+ hours of layover inside the station. And so I grabbed a seat
and sat down for a couple of hours, getting up only a few times: to
visit the restroom, to take some pictures outside, and to get some
snacks from the vending machine. Those snacks would be my
lunch. I decided to do some studying for my Extra Class amateur
radio license, since I had plenty of time available. The book I
got last week was in my carryon bag, so I got it out and proceeded to
study. Hopefully, the study time proved useful; I won’t know that
until I pass my license exam.
As the departure time for the
Empire Builder approached, the station filled up. Many of the new
arrivals had come in on the Cascades train, a later one than I had
taken. All of a sudden, there was an announcement: due to a
mudslide between Seattle and Everett, passengers on the Empire Builder
would be bused to Everett. And so we got on board two or three
buses and braved Seattle rush hour traffic to venture north of town to
Everett. Traffic was stop-and-go for several miles, but it
eventually opened up. At least I got to see the Space Needle from
the bus.
It was raining in Everett as the buses pulled up and we
got off. We went over to the platform entrance and then split
into two directions: coach to the left, sleeping car to the
right. I found my car: 830, and my room: 3. This car had a
lot of wood paneling in it, unlike the other sleepers I’d had on the
trip. Otherwise, there was little to distinguish it from the
other sleeping cars. Was this an older or a more recent
car? I had no way to know. Gary would be our car attendant
on this journey. Once again, I didn’t know which side of the
train I was on until we started rolling. It turned out I was on
the right side, mostly the south side turning into the southwest and
then the west side. We left an hour later than scheduled, not
surprisingly.
Dinner that first evening was on a first-come,
first-serve basis owing to the delays in departing. For tonight’s
dinner, I sat with a couple who lived near Vancouver, BC and with a
vehicle driver from Mishawaka, Indiana. The driver drove
specialty vehicles and delivered them to customers all over the
continent, and he had a big frequent flyer account with US Air for his
return flights. But he wasn’t able to get a reasonable flight out
of Seattle today, and so he ended up on the train, sleeping up with the
crew in what he called the most expensive ticket on the train.
For supper, I had meatloaf made with bison meat; it was very moist and
very good.
The train did not have a lounge car, at least not
yet; that would not become available until the segment of the train
originating in Portland hooked up with ours in Spokane during the
night. And so I went back to my room and adjusted my watch to
Mountain Time, for when I woke up tomorrow, I would indeed be in the
Mountain Time zone.
Top
Friday
March 26 I
was asleep during the stop in Spokane and throughout our trip through
Idaho. When I woke up around 5:30, I got dressed for a visit to
the restroom. That’s one of the disadvantages of the roomettes:
having the restrooms down the hall. Someone was about to get off
the train; I asked where we were, and she said Libby, Montana. I
had indeed slept through all of Idaho! Breakfast in the
dining car was quite busy this morning, so much so that I had to get on
a waiting list. When I was served, I sat with a family from
Minnesota that had been visiting Montana and had spent some time in
Glacier National Park, which the train was passing through at that
time. It looked very picturesque and worthy of a visit in the
future. Across the aisle, I noticed a young man at a table who
seemed to be wearing earrings – rather large earrings. When I
looked more closely, I saw that those weren’t earrings at all.
No, he had seemingly put discs about the size of Oreo cookies in his
earlobes and turned them into built-in earrings. To each his own,
I thought. The train continued eastward and left the
Rockies; now we were in Big Sky country, although with the clouds, the
sky wasn’t as big as it could have been. I did get a few nice
photos throughout the day. When the train arrived in Shelby,
Montana, I was able to get off and walk around briefly. It was
rather chilly, so I didn’t really want to stand around very long at
all. I walked down to the street in front of the station and then
went back to the platform for a walk down its length and back.
Then it was back on board. At lunch, I sat with a father
and son from Alliance, Ohio who had been hiking in Olympic National
Park in Washington and with a retired hairdresser from Montana heading
back to her hometown in South Dakota for a vacation from minding the
grandchildren. Today’s lunch special was macaroni and cheese – a
penne pasta and white cheddar, not the typical Kraft Dinner style mac
and cheese (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Since I
didn’t feel like a burger today, I had that macaroni and cheese
special, and it was pretty good. It was back to the
routine in the afternoon: read for a bit, work on a travelogue for a
bit, take a few pictures of the scenery outside, etc. Our next
significant stop was in Havre, Montana, and that was where I made my
next e-mail check. The train rolled onward towards North
Dakota. I think we were in North Dakota by the time dinner rolled
around (I had a reservation for 5 o’clock). I sat with a couple
from Williston, North Dakota, who were returning home from a trip to
the West Coast. The vehicle driver/transporter from Indiana was
at my table again, as well. Everyone had steak except me; I
wasn’t in the mood for it. No, I felt like having that bison
meatloaf again, for I had enjoyed it last night. It was still
good tonight, but I don’t think I would have had it again tomorrow
night; three nights in a row would have been too much. Around
9:30, I called for the bed to be made up. After that was done, I
read for a little while and tried to keep tabs on the Michigan State
game. It was a close one – would they win and advance to the
Elite Eight? Yes, they would! I could go to sleep
happy. Their next game would be Sunday, after I’d arrived
home. And so I went to bed, or tried to. When I looked out
the window, I saw that the train was pulling into Rugby. The
station had a sign saying that Rugby was the geographic center of North
America. There was an official monument somewhere nearby, but as
it was dark, I didn’t see it. I didn’t even know if it was
particularly close to the train station. But right then, I could
honestly say that I was in the middle of it all.
Top
Saturday March 27
Once again, I woke up a couple of times during the night but went back
to sleep almost immediately. I decided to get up for good around
6:30. Time to put on my clothes including my shoes and head down
to the bathroom to take care of essential business. Then it was
back upstairs to head for breakfast. There weren’t too many in
the dining car at this time of the morning. I sat with a
university instructor from the UK; he teaches at a university in
Chester, and he was on a train tour of the US, having recently spent
time in LA and Seattle. While we were eating our meal, the train
was passing through Minneapolis; I could see the Metrodome in the
distance, and I saw the new University of Minnesota football stadium as
well. The train station that serves the Twin Cities is known as
Midway Station; it must be on the border of the two cities. It
was a service stop, meaning we would be there for an extended
period. I got off briefly, but I wasn’t wearing a jacket, and it
was too chilly for me to stay out there very long. I fired up the
MacBook to retrieve my e-mail and to charge up the MiFi.
When
the train left, the Mississippi River was close by. Many streets
were blocked due to flooding potential. I saw no active flooding
taking place, but I saw work crews removing sandbags, so any flooding
that had taken place was past. That had to have been the case in
Fargo, as well; the train would have gone through during the
night. The train crept along, and then it came to a halt near St.
Croix. We were there for quite some time. It wasn’t freight
train traffic holding us up; it was public safety officials
investigating a car accident that had taken place on an upstream
bridge, and they were on the railroad bridge as part of the
investigation. The accident involved a car driving off the
bridge, so the investigation may have involved body recovery. We
saw no signs of any investigation when we passed through that area,
although I did see a number of sheriff’s cars parked to the east or
southeast of the bridge.
As the train moved onward, I found few
subjects worthy of picture taking. For the most part, I read,
either from the Kindle app on my iPod touch, the King of Kings book, or
even some of the tourist literature I’d picked up over the last two
weeks. Thinking of my next trip out west, perhaps? I
checked e-mail occasionally, but I found that the MiFi was really
running low on power. I thought I could get some charging from
the outlet in my room, but it turned out that the outlet was really
loose. Any charger I plugged in did not want to stay plugged
in. There was no way I could leave the MiFi unattended and
attempt to charge it; any such attempt would lead to the MiFi running
low on power. That prevented me from eating lunch when the dining
car opened. I went there right at 11:30 and got a spot, but I was
too concerned about the MiFi charging. Also, to be honest, I
wasn’t all that hungry. I asked to be put on the waiting list
instead and went back to my room. It turned out my fears were
justified: the charger had fallen out, and the MiFi was even lower on
charge than when I started. I broke the MacBook out again and
plugged the MiFi into it for charging, and I also did some work on this
travelogue.
Some two hours later, my name came to the top of the
waiting list, and I was called to the dining car. I was hungrier,
and the MiFi had an acceptable level of charge, and so I felt
comfortable going for lunch. My tablemates today were a woman
from Minnesota traveling to East Lansing to visit her daughter, a music
major at MSU; a man from Montana who used to own a chain of barber
shops in central Illinois; and an organic dairy farmer from near Grand
Rapids who was returning from an organic farming conference in La
Crosse. An interesting combination, to be sure. What’s
more, it turned out that the three of us men were musicians. The
Montanan was a multi-instrumentalist: guitar, banjo, mandolin, and a
bit of harmonica. The farmer was a guitarist specializing in
alt-country, Americana styles. And I was and remain a guitarist
who plays classic rock, ‘60s music, a little blues and whatever else I
feel like. All of us had the Angus burger, though the farmer was
the only one who got cheese on his. We all got desserts, although
the Montanan didn’t eat his; he let the three of us split it. And
so it was that I had a slice of cheesecake (very light, and very
tasty), a little bit of ice cream and part of a slice of chocolate
Bundt cake.
We were passing through Milwaukee during dessert
time; the Montanan pointed out when we passed Miller Park, home of the
Brewers. Afterwards, I went back to my room for more reading and
sightseeing. When I saw signs for the Tri-State Tollway, I knew
we were in Illinois. I started seeing signs for train stops and
cities I recognized. The train slowed down and stopped a couple
of times; the conductor explained via the intercom that we were
following a commuter train and had to keep back a prescribed distance
from them. And so it was that our last few miles into Chicago
were fairly slow. It was my first time approaching the downtown
area from the north side on Amtrak, and so I saw things I did not
normally see, such as the United Center.
We pulled into Union
Station around 4:40, nearly an hour late. My suitcase was out on
the platform waiting for me as I stepped off the train; a $10 bill
awaited my car’s attendant when he went through to check the
rooms. On to the station I walked. My first destination
would be the men’s room. That business taken care of, I went to
the Amtrak waiting room and found a seat. It was very busy in
there, for there were two trains in the process of boarding and a third
(the Detroit one) soon to be boarding. The monitors showed
special messages for the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited trains,
something about service disruptions between Chicago and Toledo.
What was going on, I wondered. Time to turn on the iPod touch and
the MiFi and do a search. And what was going on? There had been a
derailment in Waterloo, Indiana, blocking the tracks between Chicago
and Toledo. Good thing I wasn’t going that way!
5:15 PM
came and went; one of the trains that was boarding departed. I
was already in line for the Detroit train. Then came a call:
senior citizens and business class riders, come up to the front and
check in. I got out of line and went up to the front. There
was a waiting area next to the gate where we sat for the next few
minutes. Then came the next call, for families traveling with
young children. A few minutes later came another call: business
class riders, head out to the train. And that’s what we
did. It wasn’t easy lifting my bags up the stairs, but I did
so. I found my seat, stowed my bags overhead, and then I saw that
the seats had power outlets. Hurray! I could charge my
laptop and my MiFi!
The train left Chicago right on time, just
as I was typing an e-mail to family members. The ride started out
fairly smoothly and stayed on time, at least for a while. I did
power down the laptop while I had my supper (a Cup of Noodles), but
then I turned it on and kept it on to finish charging. It was a
perfect opportunity to work on the travelogue. As we neared Ann
Arbor, though, the train ground to a half and didn’t move for several
minutes. A freight train passed, but we still didn’t move.
In fact, for a while we went backwards! Then we started heading
forward again. We were definitely going to be late getting into
Dearborn.
Top
Sunday
March 28
As the train left Ann Arbor, I packed up my laptop, put on my jacket,
and read from my iPod for the remainder of the trip. As we got closer,
the café car attendant offered to bring one of my bags up to the exit.
I sat in the café section as the train rolled through Dearborn and up
to the train station. We stopped, I got off, rolled my bag to my car,
and then – I couldn’t open it. It wouldn’t open via the key fob. That
was odd. I opened it with the regular key: yes, it was indeed my car.
But no lights came on. This was ominous. The door locks wouldn’t
work; this was very bad. My battery had gone completely dead in the
two weeks the SUV had sat here in the parking lot. There had been no
indication of battery trouble before I left. I struggled to open one
of the rear doors in order to gain access to battery jumper cables as
well as store my luggage, and then I walked to the one car that still
had someone there and asked for a jump. He refused, saying his car was
too sensitive to give jump starts. The Amtrak attendant wouldn’t do so
either.
I was an AAA member, and so I called them for emergency
service. The operator said someone would likely be out by 2:15 AM.
That was a long time, and so I sat in a cold car in the parking lot,
waiting for the tow truck to come. I decided to open up my suitcase
and retrieve my suede jacket; it would be warmer than the yellow
windbreaker, for sure. I kept close watch for any movement, vehicle or
otherwise. The parking lot was well lit, and it was right behind the
Dearborn police station, but I still kept a tight hand on the car key,
ready to poke at someone if need be. I did see three or four vehicles
pass by, including a police car; none of them noticed me. Perhaps I
should have attracted the officer’s attention; I vowed to do so if one
came around again. I sent an e-mail to my aunt and uncle in Warren
telling them what had happened in case harm came to me.
Around
2:15, my cell phone rang. It was the wrecker driver saying he would be
there in 15 minutes. And so I waited a bit longer, knowing help was on
the way. I kept watch; I wasn’t sleepy, or more likely, I didn’t allow
myself to be sleepy. Then I saw a wrecker come by, but the name on the
side wasn’t the one I’d been given, and so I didn’t jump out. The
phone rang; it was the wrecker driver, saying he was at the train
station. I asked if he was in the wrecker with the name I saw; yes, he
was. I then got out of the car and motioned him over. A few minutes
later, the hood was open, and he was verifying that the battery was
discharged. Jumper cables were connected, I started the car, and
success! The car started easily, suggesting the battery was
fundamentally OK. All I needed to do was reset the clock. The service
was covered under my AAA agreement, meaning it was no charge to me.
I’d had fears of having to be towed home in case the car wouldn’t crank
(that did happen to me several years ago), but those were unfounded
today. And so, some two hours late, I was able to drive up the
Southfield, over to Hines Drive and then to home. I suspect my blunder
was in not unplugging everything from the power point outlets; I’ll
have to remember to do so the next time I leave my vehicle sit for so
long.
It was after 3 when I made it home. The clocks were all
showing the correct time; there had been no power failure while I was
away. The iMac was running, but it was behaving like it was locked up;
I powered it down and restarted it. Something had indeed happened to
it on March 17; it hadn’t recorded anything since then. And now it was
time to take one bag upstairs, the ones with my essentials. It was
time to e-mail my relatives that I was home, safe and sound; time to
backup my MacBook; and time to go to sleep (I would only get four hours
of sleep, as the daylight awakened me). Tomorrow, time to collect the
mail and wash the clothes, to watch some of the TV backlog and to cheer
Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament (they would win and make the
Final Four but lose to Butler in the semifinals). Monday, time to go
back to work and return to the normal routine.
THE END
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©2010 R. W. Reini.
All
rights reserved.
Written
by Roger Reini
Revised
April 18, 2010
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