Day 4

Day 4 - aboard the Southwest Chief, number 3, to Los Angeles - I've long-since given up on what calendar day of the week it is.

I opened my eyes and we were not moving. Shocker. Where are we? Why are we not moving? Why is the air conditioning not conditioning my air? There's nothing worse than un-conditioned air and it's getting hot in here. Where did I put my glasses? Oh, yes, in that convenient little mesh thingie Amtrak provides for just this reason... things in trains don't always stay where you put them. Sliding my curtain back slightly revealed we are in Needles, California. Another one of those mythical stops in the middle of the night. Good. We must be really late. We still have at least 8 hours to go. The air comes back on. We start moving again. I roll over and go back to sleep.


The next time I woke up there was no WiFi and my phone has no bars. That's probably because we are in the middle of nowhere. It is 6:15 am, but in what time zone? Pacific is my guess. Ok, then the dining car should be open. There's nothing worse than getting to the dining car expecting to be fed only to be told, "Oh, we're still operating on Mountain Time, it'll be an hour before we start serving breakfast."


This section of the track seems to be pretty smooth. I think I'll attempt a shower. I gather my shower accouterments and make my way downstairs. To the credit of Armona the shower area on our car is clean and not even a little bit disgusting, as they can be if you have a lax attendant. My shower is relaxing and I only nearly got killed once when we slowed suddenly from the speed of light to the speed of sound. Now all pink and wrinkled I head back to my room.


My electric razor broke on the first day and I haven't shaved in 4 days because I keep picturing that scene from Airplane! so my face is starting to look like it's impersonating a hedgehog. And it itches. Man, does it itch! Ladies, you'll never know how much it itches when you start a beard. And the more you scratch it the worse it itches. The only thing you can do is divert your mind from it with something else.


Should I have breakfast or should I just wait until lunchtime in L.A.? I decided that since I did pay for it I might as well eat it, got dressed, brushed the mop on top of my head, brushed my teeth and made my way to the dining car. They don't usually make announcements during what they call "quiet time", between 10:30 pm (ish) and 7:00 am (ish) unless there is an emergency. I found the dining car to be full, but they fit me in and I had my standard on-board breakfast: coffee, O.J., scrambled eggs, hash browns or as they call them, Potatoes O'Brien, bacon and a croissant. This is more food than I would eat for all breakfasts in a week at home. The croissant gets wrapped up in a napkin and stashed in my bag, in case I get the munchies later on during the interminable period that will pass before my next meal.


The train gods must have been smiling on the poor, late, Southwest Chief this morning and we streak across the high desert at realistic speeds for a change... bound for Barstow. When running on schedule, Barstow, California is a 3:44 am station stop. This is a pity because one on the old Harvey Houses is located there, Casa del Desierto, or House of the Desert if you are Spanish-impaired. It's not open but is being refurbished, so perhaps some day... There is also a railroad museum located there. Some neat old rolling stock and a few locos outside, Gaia only knows what's inside, and I am not going to find out, at least not on this trip. A toot of the horn and the "All Aboard!" and I hustle my buttocks back to my room. It is 7:45 as we pull out of Barstow. We are exactly 4 hours late. My lucky day.


About 2 hours later we are approaching San Bernardino. I notice a bank of clouds rolling along at ground level which has the peculiar effect of making it seem like the mountains are floating on top of the clouds. I later learned, thanks to my friend Chuck, that this is due to something called the Marine Layer. Here's how Wikipedia explains it:

A marine layer is an air mass which develops over the surface of a large body of water such as the ocean or large lake in the presence of a temperature inversion. The inversion itself is usually initiated by the cooling effect of the water on the surface layer of an otherwise warm air mass. As it cools, the surface air becomes denser than the warmer air above it, and thus becomes trapped below it.

The result is fog. It's what causes San Francisco's famous fog. And apparently it happens in San Bernardino as well. What I didn't expect was how cool it would be when the train entered that layer, about half an hour after I first noticed it. The fog was sufficient to deposit moisture on the outside of my window. This must be how the plants that live on these mountains manage to survive in a place with a paltry amount of rainfall. After about an hour we emerged back into full Southern California sunlight.


We finally pull into Union Station at 11:55 am. A mere 3 1/2 hours late, thanks to some serious padding built into the schedule. Since I never check luggage when I travel I grab my stuff and head for the exit.


Union Station has to be one of the most amazing stations I've seen so far. Built in what they call the Mission style, it has intricate tile inlaid floors, high vaulted ceilings with ornate wood work and chandeliers that must be 30 ft in diameter. The now defunct Ticketing Room is a sight to behold in and of itself! Nothing that I can say here will do it justice. You can read all about it here.


I am staying at the Metro Plaza hotel, literally across the street from the station, so I make my way in the sweltering heat of the last day of spring, 2016, to my accommodations. I am pleased to find that my room is ready and by 12:15 pm I am safely in my room.


I rested for a while because doing nothing is exhausting. Later in the afternoon, the aforementioned Chuck picked me up (he lives in Long Beach) and we went on a short driving tour of Los Angeles, seeing many of the iconic buildings and bridges we've all seen so many times in movies and TV shows. We decided on sushi for dinner, and I've never had it before. It's not bad. It's more of a texture thing than a flavor thing, I'm convinced, but it's surprisingly satisfying. We walked around in the art district and during our walk, passed through 2 active movie sets. In one of them we walked right through the shot. Chuck says as long as they don't show our faces they can still use the footage, so who knows, we may end up in the background of some movie yet to be released!


Back to the Metro Plaza and off to dreamland. Tomorrow is a busy day!


Continued on Day 5.