Los Dias de los Waiting

Amtrak called last night to let me know the train would be an hour and a half late. Which meant that I did not have to get up at the crack of something or other but I did anyway. Twice. Three times. Finally headed for b'fast at around 8, but the only place open at Harrah's was the buffet and the line was long and slow. So I went down the hall the Fauxbucks and had a chai and cinnamon roll. It says Starbucks on the sign, but the don't take Starbucks cards but did let me charge it to my room.

Back to the room, read, watched TV, called Amtrak, new time was later - after 11 am for an 8:30 schedule. Typical. At the station they still had 10:45 posted, which is also typical. The 800 number is always more accurate than anything they tell you at the station or on the train. Matter of fact, they rarely tell you anything on the train.

So, at 11:25 some asshole shouts "woo woo" and rushes for the door, followed by 80% of the lemmings in the waiting room (no offense lemmozine). First of all it was going the wrong way. Second of all it was a freight train. The right train didn't show up till 11:40-something.

And then there was the lemming thing all over again, despite the local Amtrak guy announcing 15 minutes earlier that no one could board until them what was getting off got off. And to add to the fun, a young woman who had just gotten off the train collapsed on the platform, and was swarmed by paramedics almost instantly. I guess they know all about altitude sickness in Reno.

As soon as all that was under control, the conductor for the Sacto/Emeryville car boarded folks by size of group. Being single, I was one of the last, but got a window seat which was good, with tons of leg room, closest to the stairs (and therefore the loo). But as in an airplane that meant no tray. Fortunately no one was seated next to me so I was able use the seat for that.

Also, I was on  the same side of the train as the one I rode up on, so got the other view.

Dire predictions of snow and rain did not come to pass, or rather had come and gone - it had snowed a bit, maybe 6 inches, but thanks to being 3 hours late, it was already beginning to melt. Took lots of pix of trees with snow on them, fields of untouched snow, icicles on rocks, deer tracks in the snow, and so on. Just as I was thinking that I had not seen any wildlife, blaming the noise of the train, we passed a young doe nibbling shrubbery. This was on the west side of the crest, well past the snow. As on the trip up, as soon as we were west of the summit there was no more snow and no traces that there had ever been any. Amazing how that works.

When we got to Roseville, one stop before Sacto, they said it would be faster to switch to the Capitol Corridor train in SAC instead of waiting for Emeryville. I confrmed with the conducor that it wouldn't mean paying another fare, and made the switch. The weirdness is both trains follow the same route, but the CC trumps the CZ. Weirder because the CC makes more stops. We'll see. The theory is the CC will arrive in SJC at about 7:40, but the CZ won't make it for another half hour. CZ is way more comfortable, but since CC is a local there is more eye candy. I am surrounded by UC Davis students.:-0

So, despite all the ads saying CC has wi-fi, this train, like the one on the way up, does not. Will have to inquire about that. And will have to shoot this onto the Internet from home. Probably no time for *bux tonight. But one never knows.

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One thing I did this morning early was pull up the furball cam and check on the kitties. Domino was sprawled out on the big sofa cushion and Pumpkin had squeezed himself into the little cat bed. Amusing.

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Plans for tomorrow: TBA

Reno Ad Hoc

For most of the two hours lf while I was at the Reno station waiting for the train, my Kindle was out and I was reading from G. K. Chesterton's What I Saw in America. Credit smallship1 for mentioning the author enough times for me to get curious enough to want to read him. Chesterton has a way with words. Several ways, in fact. I found myself laughing out loud from some of his lines, some from a clever turn of phrase and others from references which we seem to share, despite the difference in era. There is a small section about reporters vs. headline writers which was very astute, and impressed me. I did both jobs for several years, and yes, thanks to the agenda of the publisher, sometimes a headline screams something very different from what the article says.

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When I entered the waiting area, the first thing I saw was a very large but shapely leg, in a black nylon stocking. The leg was so prominently displayed it appeared to be roughly the size of Oklahoma. Or perhaps Nebraska. Continuing the line of sight, it was attached to a woman in a simple yet fashionable dress, a sort of understated Harlequin design, grayish white with a pattern of black dots on the top left and bottom right, with the opposite coloring on the opposite sides. A very well-endowed pair of attributes were obvious under the dress, and the whole thing was topped off by a woman's head with fashionably short dirty blonde hair, brilliant green eyes, and a face that was a bit more tan than this past winter could have achieved naturally, and more pronounced lines of weathering than one would expect on a woman who appears otherwise to be trying to look 20 years less than her 40-something. She was with a man of about the same age, and except for a potty break each, she sat close against him, looking up at him (which is a neat trick because they are the same height) with the most energetic "this is my best I Want You expression" evah. It was totally wasted, because he obviously was thrilled to be with her, he looked like he had just won the lottery.

She kept looking over at me, and I know I know her from somewhere. It is probably a good thing that I have such a lousy memory for faces and names.

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I should have stayed on the Zephyr and changed at Emeryville. The CC cars are nowhere near as comfortable, it was packed full thanks to Friday Night UC Davis kids going home for the weekend, and the Zephyr got a 20-minute start, so it did arrive there first.