2009...

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The morning of the next day I had a quick shower and finished packing and then we got to the station so I could get ready to get on my train. I stood and waited in line for a while and talked to a family who were also waiting to get on the train, the father was putting his two little girls and his mother on the train and he was going to join them a few days later. They were great fun to chat to and it was nice having someone to talk to while we all waited.
We boarded and I got my first real taste of travelling by Amtrak, it was very different to the train I had taken into North Carolina. The seats reclined a long way back, they had leg and foot rests and were wider as well. If only England had such trains. I sat down while our tickets were taken and then went almost straight away to the observation car to have a look around, it was amazing. The observation car is generally the same size as a regular carriage but split in half. One side is made up of booths that seat four people and the other half are chairs facing the windows so that people can see out easily. The seats were pretty comfortable and in the middle of the carriage you can go downstairs to the ‘cafe’ to buy snacks etc. I grabbed a cup of tea and a window seat, having given up completely on American coffee by this point. I had a very good book called ‘Pilgrim’ which I had picked up in Little Rock at the River Market Bookshop and read a good portion of that during the train ride while looking out over the landscape. I had brought a sandwich onto the train and ate that which was good because the food on the trains is beyond awful. The selection is very limited, it’s all expensive and none of it is very appealing. Making sure I had enough food to tide me over was one of the main tasks that I found for the rest of my Amtrak-ing days. I kept running into the family that I spoke to in the line for the train, the girls had made friends and so were dashing about the place but they got off in the early evening. I sat and talked to quite a few different people and when I had something to eat in the evening I was joined by two amazing people. I had a bowl of rice krispies to tide me over as they were not too expensive and pretty good to eat. The couple who sat with me had been married for twenty five years and happily divorced for ten years. They were brilliant fun and knew exactly how to push each others’ buttons. They had been on holiday in New Orleans and been to the casino and looked around the town. Just as I was leaving a guy asked me to join him and we got into a conversation about politics and the political so I was glad to escape and get back upstairs quite quickly as I was far too tired to battle a socialist on a train. I went and got ready for bed when I had finished eating and then almost straightaway we pulled into Houston. I would probably have gotten out and had a look around if I had not been in pyjamas but it seemed pretty sketchy outside so I was quite glad to be safe inside. It seemed like a pretty busy city but not all that friendly. I slept for about two and a half hours that evening on and off in very small bursts. It is hard to tell people who have not slept on a train how uncomfortable it actually is. You can recline but not turn because there is a complete stranger sitting very, very close to where you are. The gap between the leg and foot rest is just the right size to get your ankle wedged in without realising it (and break your toe as I found out much later on…) and only become aware of the position you are in when you have pins and needles with cramp at the same time. Your neck is either tilted back at an angle reminiscent of ‘The Exorcist’ or twisted to the side so that when you try and turn it again in the morning you can hear every single bone pop and muscle creak then reverberate around in your ear-drum. So, to summarise - it damned well hurts. I woke up pretty early, partly to try and count how many new muscles ached and also to see the sunrise. Sunrise over Texas was something that is going to stay with me for a very long time. It was wonderful, to look at but also to feel the change of the situation from night into day. Although there was no change in temperature there was a palpable difference in the demeanour of the atmosphere. I went and got a cup of tea and when I got back sat down next to a woman who I could hear had a British accent. Her name was Sandra and she was sitting and talking to a woman called Kelly. They had both gotten on the train overnight and I sat and talked to them. It is hard to narrate a train journey because really nothing ever happens. It is a brilliant form of tourism which I would recommend to absolutely anyone but apart from the view nothing inside changes. Or rather, you hope it doesn’t. We spent the day in Texas. Vast, completely massively vast. We were soon joined by someone that Kelly had met last night, a woman called Regina who was on the train with her two boys. Kelly’s husband, Joel also joined us later on and the five of us chatted the day away. When we were travelling through Amistad a group called Trails and Rails came aboard and talked to us about the area and showed us artefacts so we could see what the native peoples had used in the past. We went over the tallest bridge in the USA (which none of us had ever heard of) and that afforded us amazing views of the area which we were in. We saw a lot of the desert and most of the day was completely flat with a couple of mountains thrown in to make sure you were still watching. I treated myself that day and had lunch in the dining car, I was determined to have one meal there before I finished travelling so that I could have done that. The lunch prices were much more reasonable and their steak burger was really good and only about $9 as opposed to dinner which started at $15. It was lovely having a real meal and filled me up for the rest of the day, which was fortunate as my food had run out at this point so I was down to M&Ms. Our last stop before dark was El Paso and the sunset was pretty lovely there, we had a while so we all got out and stretched and had a quick look around. The smoking congregation that was sitting around me ordered food and one of them went in a cab to collect it for them all to eat on the train. We ended up sitting back in one of the booths in the lounge and talking before Sandra had to go and have dinner (she was in the sleeper car so food was included) and Kelly and Joel had a packed lunch. I had a few slices of their apple which about saved my life as I was craving fruit and had eaten all of mine which I had brought on. Sandra sat and talked with us for a while afterwards but Joel, Kelly and I stayed up chatting until quite late and then I tried to sleep. My eye-mask had vanished, and I am certain I wasn’t imagining it so I ended up getting maybe an hours sleep the whole night. Not a happy bunny at all. The other thing is that the cars tend to be pretty warm and so it’s even harder to sleep.
I woke up a little late for the sunset because I finally got to sleep at about half four and so was still dosing but I did get some lovely pictures of Palm Springs when we got there before my camera battery gave out. It was a lovely morning. Palm Springs is incredible, the mountains in the morning were red and tinged with snow. There are acres and acres of wind farms there which look so very beautiful in the morning all lined up in endless rows. The day before, Sandra and I had arranged to spend our few hours in LA together. Everyone had told us that we should spend the day in Santa Monica. We got out at the station earlier than we had anticipated, shockingly, and then I put my bags into store for the day and we got on a 45 minute bus to Santa Monica. It was good to be on the bus because we could see more of what was going on, just like being on the train really. Santa Monica was a huge disappointment it was like Skegness with Americans. The highlight were the pelicans which were incredible and something that I would never tire of watching. I went down to the shore so that I could tell my mum that I had done both oceans and we took pictures of Forrest Gump and then walked up to 3rd Street. On 3rd Street there was a long series of shops, lots of chain stores but in a more friendly, very European setting. The main thing about Santa Monica was that it felt more British than most of the places that I had been and certainly more than the rest of Europe which was the only thing that we could think of as to why people recommended it so highly. The main slur on the trip was that the bus back took us over two hours at 2.00 in the afternoon and so it was a rush to get Sandra on the correct bus to get her to the airport in time for her flight. Traffic was awful but it was New Years Eve. Once Sandra had left I got my bags and checked my suitcase in for the next leg of the journey.
I met up with Wendy and her boyfriend, Brian, outside the station. It was great to see her again. I met Wendy through a mutual friend who had been staying at my house in London prior to Wendy’s arrival in the UK. We went back to her house so that I could have a shower and then Wendy’s friend Stephanie came over as well so we could meet. I got to meet Wendy’s parents who are wonderful, wonderful people and I had a great conversation with her father about politics. He has the most incredible collection of political buttons dating all the way back and I was completely in awe. Wendy, Brian, Stephanie and I went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant that was close by, the food was great and it was so much fun spending time with them all and getting to chat to new people as well. We grabbed some supplies from the market and then went back to Wendy’s to make smores. Most amazing thing ever. I thought I was going to dislike them or that they would be too rich but it was outstandingly good and I am going to try and bring home supplies to show people what they taste like. I got the details for my hostel in Portland and showed Wendy some of the photos that I had taken, I was going to go to bed but decided to stay up for the new year. They played on the wii while I messed around writing and then we watched the last ten minutes or so of a countdown to the new year. And at 12.03am on January 1st 2009 I went to bed. Exhausted.

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