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Published: June 10th 2008
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Righto then, lets finish this thing and get on home!
When I first had the idea of writing a blog, I didn't really think it through at all. All I was going to do was write a few words, add a couple of pics and there you have it. How hard can it be? Mmmm, well...
I'm going to cover this topic further in the wrap up, end of trip review, so I'll leave it for now and get back to the across America train trip I promised all a yous in the last entry.
A 50 hour train trip across 3 time zones no less. You just don't realise how big a country the USA is until you spend an entire day travelling through cornfields, occaisionally broken up by little towns, flags waving with patriotic fervor, and the obligatory water tower in the background. This first leg, on what is affectionately known as the Californian Zephyr, travels from Chicago to Denver, crossing the upper reaches of the Mississippi, in about 18 hours. We are fortunate and wise enough to pull off an upgrade from our seated coach to a sleeper cabin, because this is memorial weekend in the States,
and the train is packed with vacationers heading to the "Mile High City" (Denver) for a Rocky Mountain high...The other good news is that the meals in the diner car are now included, however this is tempered somewhat by the meals themselves, and although Amtrak is certainly not in the same league as Lufthansa with their limited choice of eel on rice, or eel on rice, there is the usual overabandance of High Fructose Corn Syrup in everything.
Sorry, this part isn't supposed to stray into negative territory, I'll just change back to a positive tack again...
The absoloute best thing about the dining car is that there is limited seating, and so the staff make you sit with complete strangers. We met and had political discussions with a wide cross section of American society in our 6 meals onboard, and I'd have to say that Obama came out on top, easily.
So from Denver, the train takes on the Rockies and the upper part of the Colorado River heading towards Utah. The incredible iconic scenery had me sitting at the windows of the scenic car, camera in hand, for hours. Both Lindo and I had to do some
fairly hefty picture deleting after nightfall though, 3 cheers for digital cameras! The next day had us going through yet more of America's finest, this time it's the Sierra-Nevada Ranges, which takes us up to above the snow level, and then it actually starts snowing! Hang on, isn't is meant to be summer? Oh well, it's very picture-scue and makes for more furious camera action and subsequent deleting.
We arrive in San Francisco, well Emeryville actually, at about 6:30 pm. We've just taken one of the world's
best rail journeys, possibly slightly less intrepid then the Trans Siberian, but if you want to avoid having to dance with the Devil, oops I mean fly, then I'd strongly recommend it.
I'd quite like to talk in depth about our time in the San Francisco Bay area, but I can't really, thanks to the superb efforts of our friend and host, Matt Bullimot, and the members of his band. We arrived on Saturday, 24 May, and this being a long weekend, Matt was free to make sure we had a couple of days that are somehow proving more difficult to remember than even the days at the very beginning of this
trip..
We finally got into San Francisco City itself on the Tuesday, wandered around all day in the sunshine, taking the odd picture for proof, and then ended up at a Beruit gig in the evening. It just so happened that The Brunettes were the support act, which is how we all got our names on the door.
Wednesday morning, and we have to get up at 6am to begin our trip to Southern California. Somehow we did it, and next thing you know we're on an Amtrak connecting bus, travelling down the Salinas valley towards a town with a pretty name, San Luis Opisbo, where our mighty steel horse waits. Now this train hugs the coastline all the way to L.A. Pretty incredible views of Pacific beaches for about 7 hours. I just wish that Amtrak would clean the windows more often, they were filthy and therefore the sights looked a little streaky.
We arrive in LA around dusk, and then have to catch yet another train 2 hours further down the coast to a beach resort town called Del Mar, just north of San Deigo, which is where we have lodgings with Aidee Walker, our last
stop before leaving the States. I got up in the morning, went for a walk, and there it was, The Beach Boys' version of California! Lindo and I actually went surfing a couple of times, but we wore wetsuits to cover our pasty white, out of shape and hairy torsos from the buff, bronzed and waxed young males strutting around in their board shorts, because we didn't want to show them up.
We stayed with Aidee at her house, not more than 150 yards from the beach, for 4 nights. I think there was a competition between her and Lindo to see who could out indecisive each other! Not sure who won, I couldn't decide.
Recently, we have been discovering how good real Mexican food is. It's nothing like the overpriced nonsense masqerading as Mexican in NZ, and not at all like the sanitised franchise versions either, but real, just over the border, I can hardly speak Engleese, goodness. On our last night, Aidee insisted we get a fish taco from a restaurant up the road from her house, and it was practically a life changing experience!
And then we're off. Back to LA to have a good
look around for a day and then we fly out of LAX at about 11:30.
It's an absoloutely stunning day when we get off the train in Union Station (is it just me or are all the main railway stations in the US cities called Union...?), so we stash our bags and take the Metro to Hollywood. Where else would you go?
Here's a thing, several people who we have met on this trip have told us "you got to hire a car man, there's no public transport in LA" or words to that effect. To that I'd like to say this:
BULL-SHIT! The Metro is awesome, it's cheap, and where it doesn't go there are busses. People in LA just love their cars too much, but that's all changing rapidly as gas just keeps on going up...
We had a great day walking around the streets with
those names, and for dinner we got Mexican again.
Than we flew to Rarotonga.
O
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Haydn
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am I right in thinking...
In the lounge car photo, is Lindon really sitting next to a mannequin?