bbaggins

Most of the people in my sleeping car were also bound for Pittsburgh, so the sleeping-car attendant simply banged on our doors to wake us up, calling, "35 minutes to Pittsburgh!" I thought it seemed a bit early, and it was; the train was ahead of schedule. That was only appropriate, I suppose, considering how very late it had been when I set out. I dressed and packed my suitcase quickly enough, and then spent all the rest of the time looking frantically for my CozyWinters scarf. Eventually -- but not before I had searched every inch of the roomette and gone to check the restroom and shower room -- I found it in my jacket pocket. I stepped off the train into predawn darkness, and there at the station door was Jim. He took my ... read more

Today dragged by. For some reason my shoulder seemed to hurt a lot more when I tried to get to sleep, though I did sink into my first really deep sleep on the train later in the night. Of course, then when I woke up two hours later I had, initially, no idea at all where I was, except that my bed was definitely moving. Earthquake! I sat up, intending to run to the door, and, even more surprisingly, the door was right in front of my nose. Then, fortunately, I woke up all the way. I made the mistake of getting off the train at a 45-minute stop in Kansas City, Missouri to try to find a pay phone. As far as I could tell, there were no pay phones anywhere in the station, and ... read more

I woke to a lovely sunrise over the Mojave. Breakfast was an omelet and sausage patties. So far, my collarbone does hurt, but painkillers are keeping the pain well within bounds. Sometimes, if I'm well braced, the pain actually lets up entirely. The new sling helps, too; it's better quality than my old one. I met Nicole in the hall and invited her to come up to my roomette to enjoy the view; she'd said that her bedroom was roomy but the windows were smaller. I believe she had the Family Bedroom. She came and spent about an hour with me. It was a pleasure to talk with her, and we exchanged e-addresses at the end, when she got off at Albuquerque. We had an hour-long rest stop in Albuquerque. I tried twice to call Jim, ... read more

I spent a pleasant night at the La Quinta, did laundry in the morning, checked out, and prepared to spend three hours or so in La Quinta's lobby. But I still didn't have a sling, and I wanted a few other items from CVS. So, on impulse, I stored my luggage with the front desk and caught the Ocean Express to Manhattan Beach. I walked down the steep slope to the boardwalk and said goodbye to the Pacific. I thought about going to the aquarium again, but a group of kids were there on a field trip, so I didn't. That only took ten minutes or so, but then I had to wait twenty minutes for the next bus. I went on to the shopping mall, bought my CVS items, and argued over the price ... read more

I spent Day 93, Wednesday, resting, reading quietly, and willing my collarbone to heal. The only noticeable effect was that, on Thursday morning, I noticed that the "Vampire's Kiss" blisters had broken open and scabbed over. My sling broke, but Kevan bought me an Ace wrap. It'll do until I can buy a proper sling again in L.A.. Then came Day 94, Thursday, the longest day of my life. I'd be flying out of Auckland at 11 p.m. on Thursday, and landing in L.A. at 2 p.m. on that same Thursday. Time travel! I rested and read until it was time to go to the airport. Kevan and his son Alex drove me there. Kevan had suggested that I ask for assistance at the gate, and I wish I had. But I had a particularly clueless ... read more

Today I really didn't want to go swimming again, so I tried to go to the Auckland Museum instead. It didn't work out. It really didn't work out. Every gallery in the museum except the special exhibition of early botanical texts, "Illustrated Leaves," and the small rock collection had a multimedia component. On the top floor, the World War II gallery featured Churchill's speeches; the World War I gallery was filled with orchestral music of some sort, and the two clashed and echoed in the central war-memorial gallery. On the middle floor, there were many small TV screens showing presentations about the various stuffed animals. And the ground floor had a "Maori Culture" exhibition with music that echoed through the entire floor. It hurt my collarbone so much I couldn't focus on the exhibits. I spent ... read more

I spent today as Kevan's guest. I rested until early afternoon, when I went swimming again. This time I tried to swim in the main pool, which meant that a lifeguard had to lower me into the water in a pneumatically lifted chair. The chair was, it said, rated to 250 kg., but it stuck two-thirds of the way up when they tried to lift me out. I was stuck there for at least five minutes, with my feet dangling, which, after about a minute, hurt my thigh muscles a bit. The first lifeguard called a second lifeguard, which did very little good, though the second lifeguard was able to raise the chair manually a few inches. The two of them called an older person, presumably the manager, but just as he arrived the chair suddenly ... read more

I took quite a psychological risk last night. I had verified on Friday night that when people played the DVD in Cap'n Bob's common room, it now really hurt my shoulder even if the piece didn't have drums. I'd finally gone out on Friday and begged them to turn it off, and they had. Anyhow, I decided to write a little note and put it on the DVD explaining the situation. I did, and I signed it and put my room number. Now, the last time I chose this method of trying to solve a problem was back in 1983, when I was staying with a bunch of other teenaged workers while doing a summer job. That attempt just got me laughed at by everyone else in the barracks. But something had to be done ... read more

I have definitely hurt my collarbone. The whole top of my shoulder is swollen and tender to the touch, and the area around the pin has a ring of bright red blisters that I immediately dubbed "The Vampire's Kiss." I've never seen blisters like that before, but then I've never had an injury exactly like this before. There were no hard jolts, only twenty minutes of smallish jolts just hard enough to hurt. It's a steel plate; it's a steel pin. The effect of the jolting was like hitting myself with a steel-headed hammer for twenty minutes. It's not surprising that my shoulder is so badly bruised. I am frankly afraid of how much the trip to Auckland may hurt, to say nothing of the trip back home, especially the three days on Amtrak. But I ... read more

The Great Sights bus picked me up at 7:25 a.m., and I was off to Cape Reinga. To my surprise, the bus was completely full. I was very lucky in my seatmate, a petite Japanese woman who was very nice about the fact that I was taking up part of her seat. It meant that I had to hold the pizza bag on my lap, but that helped to brace my shoulder, which turned out to be a very good thing. Our driver was Maori, and he sang us a song of welcome as we began our trip. It was odd; occasionally, as when he sang and talked about Maori culture and legends, he was very interesting and well worth listening to, but in between the interesting bits there was a non-stop stream of annoying jokes. ... read more