Here We Go

I didn't have any Wi-fi connection along the train ride, so here's a running account of the 3 days spent going across country via rail:

Tuesday night...
My brother (Kurt) came to pick me up at 9:00, to go to the Amtrak Station. The bike box fit perfectly in his minivan (this is a huge box!). I said my goodbyes to my family, loaded up the other bags that I'm bringing, and we were off.


Here's my bike, packed up in the Amtrak bike box.

We arrived at the train station, picked up my tickets, checked the bike box (it only costs $5 to ship this baby across the country!), bought some extra insurance (just in case...for $7.50, I'm covered for $2000), and then found out that my train was running 45 minutes late. I try to be early for almost everything I do, but I now had a 2-hour wait. No matter. Nothing can dampen my spirits, at this point. I can't wait to get this show on the road.

The train finally showed up at 12:10, and we we're on our way by 12:15. I'm booked on coach for this leg of the trip (Rochester-Chicago). The seats are roomier than coach class on an airplane, but I couldn't get comfortable. I slept on and off for most of the night.

Wednesday morning...
Instead of arriving in Chicago at 9:45am, we rolled in at 11:15am. My nephew (Ian), was waiting for me in his Ferrari. He brought me to a great place to eat brunch, and we had a chance to catch up. Ian is going to join Karl and I on this ride, from San Francisco to Carson City, or some location further down the road. He flies out to SF on Friday morning, then meets us at the train station in Oakland on Friday night.



Ian's fish tank...built into the wall.


Ian, in front of his 70" TV. I know...it's a bad picture.


Here's the view of the Chicago skyline from Ian's posh apartment.

Wednesday afternoon...
One thing I failed to take into account was the weight of carrying my bags around the train station. This proved to be a challenge as I got off the train in Chicago, and then got back on the train, later in the day. I'm carrying close to 50 pounds of "stuff". After a while, the weight starts to take a toll on your hands (from the straps digging into your skin) and your arms ( from holding the weight high enough so you can walk without the bags hitting your legs. I'm going to try to stuff more items in the bike box, on the way home from KC to Rochester (one month from now).

I'm in my roomette on the train from Chicago to LA, and it's much, much nicer than sitting in coach! I can stretch out, close the door, take a nap, watch the scenery go by...it's going to be hard going back to coach on the LA to Oakland leg.

Wednesday night...
I was seated at a table with three other people, for dinner, Peggy (from Ojai, California), and Catherine/Hendron (from Queensland, Australia). We enjoyed some great conversations over an excellent meal. I mentioned the tour that Karl and I were embarking on, and they were very interested in hearing all about it. There were many sincere well wishes from each of them. It's people like this that give you hope that there's still a lot of good in this world. The media spends so much energy focusing on the negative, but if you push that aside, you'll see that there's a great deal of kindness out there. They all want to meet Karl and Angela (who are due to get on this train at 10:15 tonight!). Hendron said he's going to stick around in the dining car from 7 to 10 in the morning, so he doesn't miss us!

Thursday morning...
Karl and I met Alvin T. Miller (self-proclaimed father of the ATM!), who is a retired Amish farmer/deacon. Alvin and his wife were on their way down to Mexico, to get a knee replacement operation for his wife. They can get this operation at a total cost of $9000 at a clinic in Mexico, versus over $50,000 in the US. The Mexican doctor can do it this cheap because they don't have to carry any malpractice insurance. Alvin's wife was working on a quilt to give to her doctor and everyone in the clinic, to show her appreciation for what they were going to do for her. She included every person's name, right down to the driver that takes them from the train station to the clinic! Alvin told us about his life as a farmer (never using any automated machinery), raising 9 kids, and performing his duties as a deacon in the Amish community (in Coloma, Iowa). When I shook his hands, I could tell instantly that these were the hands of a hard-working man. Karl asked Alvin if he could take his picture (for our blog). Alvin declined. He explained that it would be a demonstration of vanity on his part, something that is not part of the Amish culture. He felt that posing for a picture would be a form of bragging. I hope all goes well for Alvin's wife. This will be the 2nd operation on the same knee.

The scenery as we enter Colorado improves dramatically! The mountains that make up the Front Range are amazing. I can't get enough of the postcard picture perfect scenery that unfolds before us, as we get deeper into Colorado and then New Mexico. This is worth the price of admission, all on it's own.


The wide-open prairies in Eastern Colorado gave way to the...


...mountains that make up the Front Range.


We were being chased by a rainstorm in New Mexico.

Karl and I talked over the sequence of events for the upcoming days. We're very similar in that we like to plan out everything to the smallest level of detail. We explain to others that this is due to our German heritage. (I think there may be some degree of OCD contributing here, as well ;-). As we pore over the maps for the first couple of weeks worth of riding, we attract the attention of people walking by. One woman (who was working on a large glass of wine at 10:30am), asked us if we were close to Alamosa, CO? She owned a piece of land there, which she has never done anything with other than pay yearly taxes on it. She wanted to sell it, and use the money to help her in her retirement. I don't know if she was trying to drum up an offer from one of us, or anyone eavesdropping on the conversation, but there were no takers!


Karl, sitting across from me, in my roomette. It's a great way to travel on a long train ride.

Thursday afternoon...
We hung out in the Observation Car most of the day. It's a great way to see the sights and it's a place where all 3 of us can sit together (you can only fit 2 people in a roomette). We were approached by a gentleman who asked if he could join us, to which we agreed. He explained that he was Joe Mayer, one of the twins that had a role (as Little Ricky) on the I Love Lucy show, back in the 50's. He was a toddler (along with his brother, Michael), from the age of 18 months to 5 years old. He was promoting the 100th year anniversary of Lucille Ball's birthday (which happened on August 6th), traveling to various cities on the train. We talked quite a bit and then I got an autograph card for my mother.

Thursday night...
We seem to be falling behind schedule. Amtrak rents time/space on the tracks around the US, so they have to go to a side-track whenever a freight train is coming the other way, or needs to get by us. Once you fall outside of your planned time frame for each section of the track, the delays start to snowball. We have 2 hours to spare in LA, before we catch our final train to Oakland. Right now it's looking very tight. We're keeping a positive attitude, knowing that worrying won't do anything to help the situation. Regardless of what happens, it'll all be part of this great adventure.

Friday morning...
I woke up at 4:00am to the sounds of the conductor asking for a defibrillator (over the trains PA system) to be brought to the Lounge Car. The train was stopped and we didn't start moving again for over an hour. We found out that a 14-year old boy was found in the Lounge Car, unresponsive. His heart actually stopped, but he was brought back to life through the use of CPR. Scary stuff. Apparently, he's a diabetic and he wasn't taking his medicine. He was taken off the train and driven to the nearest hospital. I hope he's okay.

We are now 3 hours behind schedule. They claim they're going to try to make up some of the time and we still have a chance of catching our train in LA. I'm sure everything will be fine. What could possibly go wrong?!

I told Karl that I was going through withdrawal, from not being able to ride my bike. I want to get off this train, get to Oakland, and start riding. He said I was starting to scare him and that he was just fine sitting/relaxing on the train :).

Our train was supposed to get in at 8:00am, and our next connection was due to leave LA at 10:05am. We didn't get in until 10:45am, but since there were 90 people that had to get on to that Coast Starlight train, from my current train, they held the train for us! How often does that happen with an airline these days...it doesn't! We were thrilled, of course. The alternatives were going to be painful. We're not sure if our bikes made it on yet, but we'll find out when we get to the Jack London Square Station in Oakland, at 10:30 tonight.

If you ever have a chance to take the Coast Starlight train from LA to at least San Luis Obispo (it goes all the way to Seattle), do it! The scenery was spectacular. The train literally rides along the coastline for 50 miles, before heading inland. We were lucky enough to have some members of the Santa Barbara Historical Society along with us, and they gave us a verbal tour of the sights as we went along. Angela was instrumental in securing the 3 best seats in the Observation Car, so we sat there soaking in the sights, drinking wine, and listening to cool facts about the areas along the way. If you ever go on a train, find out where your seat is, drop your luggage off and then race to the Observation Car. You get a 360 degree view of the country side. It's the only way to travel!


We travelled up and over the Santa Lucia Range, via a series of switchbacks and tunnels. Pretty amazing!

Friday night...
We got into Oakland at 11:00, about 90 minutes late. The first thing we did when we got off the train was look for our bikes. Eventually, we found a luggage carrier that had 2 bike boxes...containing the bikes that Karl shipped (one for Ian, and one for himself). I started to panic and went to the luggage claim window to talk to someone about searching their back room again for my bike. The search came up empty! I made it clear to the nice gentleman, that was waiting on me, that this was unacceptable. I rattled off the entire saga about how I was early to check it in, how they had plenty of time in Chicago to get it on my train, etc. Then a light bulb went off with him. He called the Emeryville train station (about 20 minutes away) and sure enough, my bike was there. They sent it over to me in a cab and we rolled out of the train station, after setting all 3 bikes up, around midnight. We then rode to our hotel, went to our room, got cleaned up, and hit the pillow at 1:15. Our wake-up call was for 6:45... It was a long, but very successful day.