Missing Dyke March Picture

This is the picture that was supposed to go with the post down below (the one that has no photo). I'm going back through the postings and cleaning up the typos. It was a little hard to type it all on my cell phone. I didn't always have time to proof it. Getting a signal wasn't always reliable, and there were times that I could see that we were heading to a canyon or tunnel or whatever, and that I was going to lose the signal and had to send the post ASAP.

So...... I will try to make note of what I went back and changed.

Moffat Tunnel

We are about to enter Moffat Tunnel. We are not allowed to move about while we are in the tunnel. If we open any doors between the cars while in the tunnel, it will let in diesel fumes and soot. It takes about 15 minutes to go thru. Last time, I was caught in the restroom when we went thru.

Winter Park

Winter Park and it looks like rain ahead. Our estimated time of arrival is now 9:30pm, which is an hour and a half late.

Carlos gets the tip

This is Carlos taking the order from Paul. Gabriel is sitting next to Paul, but you can't see him. I decided to give RJ's tip to Carlos. He has done far more for me than RJ. He even remembered what I order and was concerned that I wasn't getting enough. I bet he is the reason that I am getting salad and bread and extra vegetable with my meals now. So I gave him a large tip with dinner tonite.

To Tip or Not To Tip

That last photo was our coffee station. No R.J. in sight. No coffee either. . .

Uh oh. Sudden stop on the train. We are in Glenwood Canyon past Glenwood Springs. Hmmm.

Okay . . . now we're moving again. No idea what happened. I should be in Denver in about 5-6 hours tho.

[edited to add punctuation and formatting]

R.J.

Our car attendant from San Francisco to Denver is R.J.. You haven't seen much mentioned about him, because he really hasn't been around. He has pretty much avoided anything that might involve effort. He did not help anyone get their luggage aboard, just told us where to put it. (Reggie had carried it all the way up the stairs to my room, when I boarded in Denver.) We never got a newspaper yesterday. He pretty much suggested we make our own beds, which I did. The toilets have pretty much not worked the entire trip (only in our car though) and it doesn't seem that he has done anything to get them fixed. (When our water ran out in Reggie's car, he badgered about it at every stop until it was fixed.) Our ice in the ice station melted yesterday. When I asked RJ about it this morning, he complained about all the beds he had to make and that someone wanted him to bring their breakfast . . . if he had filled it last night he would just have to refill it today. Just now I checked - no ice. For everything we ask, we are told
to use the next car. He spends most of his time in the diner or hiding somewhere. Should I tip him?

[edited for clarity]

My Last Lunch.

This is Carlos, my favorite waiter in the dining car. He is standing at the wait-person station at the center of the dining car. When you enter the dining car, you have to wait to be seated. Since I am traveling alone, I am often used to "fill in" a table. Once seated they ask you to sign an order form including your car and room numbers. These 2 things are important to know. They will constantly refer to you as your car & room number. After taking your order (and everyone at your table) they clip the order forms together by table and stick them in a slot that drops them to the chef on the lower level. The food is prepared by the chef, who then places all orders for your table on a tray that is then put in a dumbwaiter. Our waiter, up above, opens the door and has everything for our table on a tray and ready to deliver to us. Condiments and drinks are prepared separately by our waiter. My lunch today was Morrocan Vegan Chicken, salad, and a roll. I also got a diet pepsi.

[edited for punctuation]

Grand Junction

We are now pulling in to Grand Junction. We have made up some time and it looks like we are about 30-45 minutes behind now.

Thompson UT

Thompson UT, where we are stopped again for that disabled freighter. Interestingly, this is where they filmed the majority of Thelma and Louise.

We Were Doing So Good Too

Somewhere in Utah - and we have just had a symphony of announcers over the intercom alerting us that a freight train has broken down ahead of us. We are stopped and they are letting people out for a smoke. I'm not sure what city this is. It might be Helper, UT.

Utah and ON Schedule

Good morning, Utah! Somehow we are back on schedule. Over the night we must have hauled ass. I woke up at the Salt Lake City stop around 4am. The smokers all set their alarms and hopped out to grab a quick smoke. I spotted the unsociable woman who had dinner with us last night. So now I know why she was so standoffish. She must have been suffering nicotene withdrawal. I am at breakfast now. I was seated again with Paul and Gabriel. And we were joined by a woman heading to Boston.

[edited to correct woman's destination]

Sunset

The sun is going down in Nevada and I am having another glass of that wine I brought from home. There's not much to see out here except the scrub brush and occassional surprises of small creeks of water.

Nevada

The word on the streets is that we are now 3 hours behind schedule. I had dinner with Paul and Gabriel again, and a very unsociable woman who would have probably been more comfortable ordering room service. This is a photo of somewhere in Nevada around 6:40pm.

Winnemucca Again

Winnemucca Nevada - 7:15pm - and we are only 2 hours behind as I can see from the schedule.

Toilets

There are NICE toilets in the car next to ours. I know this because the toilets in our car have a vacuum leak and are not functioning. I don't remember if I mentioned that they flush by forcing high pressure air. In any case, we are forced to use the restrooms in other cars. The one shown above is definitely nicer than ours.

[edited for clarity]

A/C Stuck on High

I have had to make an alteration to my room. It's freezing in here. I tried setting the thermostat to the warmest setting. I've tried closing the vent. Finally I rolled up some napkins and the tissue-like headrest cover from the other seat. This seems to have done it.

Reclining Seats

Enjoying the ride.

Amtrak Breakfast

This is this morning's breakfast on the train. I ordered the Continental. It came with cereal or oatmeal. I chose oatmeal (sans milk). It also came with a croissant, a fruit bowl, and yogurt. I gave the yogurt to a man named Paul, who sat with me and his travelling partner, Gabriel. Gabriel might be his son. Gabriel is also blind and we had an interesting conversation about the new iphone and how it is impossible for a blind person to use.

Sunburn

It looks like I got a little too much sun. Yes, Mom, I had on sunscreen. It was SPF36 even.

Leaving San Francisco

Finally catching up on my picture posting. This is from this morning as the train heads out of San Francisco. I had to catch the Amtrak shuttle bus at 5:30 this morning at a bus stop on a city street. Picture downtown Denver (for those of you who know Denver) and what that is like at that time of the morning. I got up with Joan and Debbie at 3am. They wanted to be on the road by 3:30am so that they could make it home in one day. They had driven out. I got up with them so that we could all check out together. But this meant that I had nowhere to go for an hour and a half. I was told to arrive for my bus at least 20-25 minutes early, but this is no place to be hanging about if you don't have to. I waited in the lobby of our hotel. I ventured out once at about 4am to walk 2 blocks to the all-night Starbucks and quickly returned. I left my bags with the lobby security man and the
bellman, which made it easier to scoot past the sleeping street people and the police investigation.

Pride Festival

Sunday we went to the Pride Festival. We lucked and arrived just as they closed off our street and we took front row viewing. The parade was long. We were probably there a couple hours before we wandered off and the parade was still going strong. My friends, Joan and Debbie, went back to our room. I went to the Civic Center where the rest of the celebration was going on. Street after street were blocked off for the vendor booths and stages. I saw at least 4 stages and I am pretty sure there were more. We had all visited the booths the day before, but there were definitely more on Sunday. On Saturday I bought myself a bracelet. I didn't find any tshirts that I wanted. Sunday I bought a couple things for the people back home, had lunch and a beer, and visited with some people. Then I headed back to the hotel to see what Joan and Debbie were up to. We rested a little then went out to dinner before showering and packing to go home.

[edited for punctuation]

Subway

The continuing tale of the transportation system. I have no idea why, but my friend Joan has a problem with subways. After the Dyke March though, we tried to catch the trolley to take us back. We stood there for a while and as others began bailing out and wandering off to the subways, Joan finally gave in and agreed to try it.

Dyke March

Good gosh. Let's try this again. I don't know what happened, but the phone suddenly sent that last post and I wasn't finished. What I was trying to say was that I went to the San Francisco Dyke March. This photo and the one previous are from there.

[missing photo from previous entry is now posted on June 27, 2007, above]

Transportation and Dyke March

After Chinatown we rode an old fashioned electric trolley car. These are powered by electricity with big poles sticking up on top that connect to the criss cross of wires strung above the streets. They can only travel on the streets with those electrical wires. There are a lot of those streets though, because a lot of the city buses are electric. Now the cable cars are run by cables strung UNDER the streets. The cars have large levers that work the wooden brakes and release the cable for maneuvering and speed. Since the brakes are wood, you can smell it heat up whenever they are applied. It smells like a small wood fire. I wonder how often they replace them. Cable cars also have the right of way and rarely pay attention to traffic signals. The cable cars, electric trolleys, electric buses, and some of the subways are run by MUNI. The buses and some of the subways are run by BART

[edited to add missing photo]

Chinatown

The next day we went to Chinatown. All of the walking is starting to take a toll on me now. We didn't stay long. We walked up and down the main thoroughfare, bought a couple items, took some photos, then headed back to the cable car. Our 3-day Muni Pass was starting to pay off.

Pier 39

Sea Lions at Pier 39.

Sourdough in Fisherman's Wharf

Here I am at Boudin Sourdough Bakery having a beer and a terrific sandwich. Joan and Debbie had sourdough bread bowls filled with clam chowder.

Fisherman's Wharf

Fisherman's Wharf was our next stop. We saw the Sea Lions sunning on Pier 39. There weren't as many as I had expected, but they were still quite entertaining. I took short videos of them that I will share later. We could also see Alcatraz from there and both bridges. We checked out a submarine, some ferry boats, and some private fishing vessels at dock.

Scary Steep Streets

After Haight Ashbury, we took a frightening drive down "The Crookedest Street in the World." This is on a section of Lombard Street. After driving up and down terrifyingly steep hills to get there, we slowly made it down the hairpin curves, crying and laughing and hysterically happy to have survived. I took photos, but I used the camera. I'll post one later when I get home. In the meantime, after that ride we took the car back to valet and decided to let the cable cars take us around town.

[edited for typo]

Summer of Love

Haight Ashbury is known for the "Summer of Love". In 1967, 40 years ago, the hippies of the time envisioned a world of peace, and imagined a way to get there was by spreading love - freely and unconditionally. It wasn't meant to be necessarily free sex, even tho there was certainly a lot of that. It was more meant to be the spreading of the connection and emotion of love. To be genuinely concerned and nurturing to everyone you come in contact with. The idea is that sending out love would cause others to send out love and so on and so on. Food was given without asking for payment. Poets gathered. Concerts were given freely. One famous musical group from this era and this area is the Grateful Dead. They lived in this house at 710 Ashbury.

[edited for typo]

Crazy Haight-ians

Things get really wild on Haight!

Haight Ashbury

Our next stop was the Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

Pacific Ocean

Let me catch you up to what has been going on since that last post of a few days ago. . . . . Following our drive around Golden Gate Park, we took a walk along a beach and got our feet wet in the ocean.

[edited for typo]

Looking for the Head

Today started with a Starbucks and a little walkabout in the neighborhood of our hotel. Then we collected Joan's car from the valet and set out to do some sightseeing. After drinking those large latte's, one of the first things we had to do when we came to Golden Gate Park was to find the head.

Cable Cars

Today we explore the city! So far we walked down to a Starbucks, found the subway, and located the cable car. It is cold, so I went back to our room to get my sweatshirt. Now we are driving around town to check out where everything is.

Here at last

I am finally here! It is a little after 1:00am and I have had a quick shower. I'll write about the bus ride tomorrow. Nitey nite!

Palm Tree

A palm tree - I must be in California.

Sparks Nevada

We have stopped to get water and all the Service Attendants have gathered together to help.

Mustangs

My window is getting very dirty from the desert dust. I hope you can see this. They are wild mustangs! We are getting near to Sparks, Nevada now. We are having delays due to construction. When we hit Sparks they are going to manually switch us to another track. Then we will back in to a watering station and finally fill the back 2 sleeper cars with water. Then it's off to Reno where we can get out and stretch our legs for 5 minutes.

[edited for punctuation]

Mystery Soy

Today's lunch was different. No idea what they call it, but it was some spiral pasta with some large breaded soy patty thing. I am guessing that it might have been the vegan veal. It was kinda shaped like a pork chop. Well, in any case, thankfully it didn't taste like either of them. It was pretty good and a nice change from the Morrocan Vegan Chicken. This afternoon, I am going to get out one of the beers and have it with the pretzels that I bought at the snack bar.

[edited for typo]

Toilets

This is the toilet 2 doors from my room. It is across from the coffee station and the stairs to the lower level. Next door to this toilet is Reggie's room. The next room is mine. Reggie gave every one of us the same speech when he showed us to our room and explained how everything worked. He pointed out this bathroom and made a point of telling us there were 3 more bathrooms downstairs. He said this one here "is what we call the quicky. If you need to take some time and read the newspaper, you need to go downstairs." I think Reggie has a sensitive nose. I heard him twice grumbling about someone not using the spray. Come to think of it, this is the only toilet that I have seen with air freshening spray. I also wanted to point out that window. Its a strange feeling to sit and pee while watching the scenery go by.

Lunch at 12:30 today.

Interesting development. After our very short stop, they came thru our car to make lunch reservations. Only this time they didn't ask us what time we wanted. They only asked how many in our party. Shortly after that they came across the intercom system and said lunch would be late at 12:30 and that it was completely booked. Everyone riding in coach is out of luck. They are only going to be able to serve those in Sleepers. By the way, this is a picture of the Winnemucca train stop.

[edited for clarity]

Stretching my legs.

11:00am and our first smokers stop. I was brave and stepped off too. We are in Winnemucca. Not much of a train station. That is Reggie on the right. He's fully dressed now as you can see. We only stopped for probably 5 minutes. I seriously doubt if anyone finished a cigarette. And we still don't have water on our car.

Grandpa's little tv

I managed to get tv reception today!

CONTINUATION

. . . DON'T READ THIS TIL YOU READ THE ONE BEFORE THIS! . . . . . . . . . as he stood just outside the shower with nothing but his pajama bottoms on. You should have seen the surprised look on his groggy face as he backed into a doorway, all the while trying to explain the situation with the water. Our car has run out. I was told that I couldn't use the restrooms. Not on this car. Not anywhere. I could tell he was flustered. I left and went to another car. It turns out that we can use the toilets. They are flushed with high pressure air. We just can't wash. The sleeper car behind us has water but toilets won't work. We were told that we would stop in Elko and get water. However, as I sat in the diner having breakfast, I saw Elko pass by. We the passengers are assuming they need to make up some time and chose not to stop. We are now 4 hours behind schedule.

Somewhere near Ventino but what state?

Day Two and the day started with a little surprise. I had spent the night in the upper bunk, much to the bewilderment of my car attendant, Reggie. I woke many times during the night. Not because I was necessarily uncomfortable, but more because I didn't want to miss anything. I kept looking for daylight. Finally I could see the sun coming up. I unhooked the straps that were supposed to catch me if we had any crazy rocking during the night. Then I tried as gracefully as possible to climb down. I have to say it was MUCH easier getting up than it was getting down. But what was the suprise you might ask. Well, as most people, the first action upon waking involves finding the toilet. And, due to a tip I found online, I have made it my habit to always go to the ones downstairs. I tiptoed as quietly as I could since it appeared that everyone else was still sleeping. Apparently I was successful. Not even Reggie heard me, which, unfortunately for him, meant that I surprised him as he stood

Morrocan Vegan Chicken

Doesn't it look much nicer when it is presented on the plate?

Dinner

This was how dinner arrived. It was the same thing as lunch, but they added a salad.

Ruby Canyon

This is Ruby Canyon. We are west of Grand Junction and near the Utah border. We just passed 3 eagles and their nest, and a flock of wild turkeys. No phone reception here so I'll have to send this as soon as I am able.

Grand Junction

I have finally made it to Grand Junction. Not much to see out my window. The fire that held us up was right up next to the tracks.