posted 02-27-2004 12:51 PM            

We were almost two hours late boarding in Salinas. The dining car was still open for us. We anticipated that there might be delays, so we packed some sandwiches which we ate in the station. Once on board we also took advantage of the late diner service, but we skipped the salads and dessert.

I woke up in the middle of the night and we were crawling through the central valley. Every now and then we'd get up to a good speed for ten minutes or so, only to drop back to a crawl for even longer periods of time. But I must say, that when we were going fast, the tracks were in amazingly good shape and the ride was quite smooth. But I knew we were in trouble time-wise when we arrived in Redding at 7:00am. I've never been there that late, and I had visions of not getting into Salem until 9:00 or 10:00pm Thursday.

The delays did allow us to have breakfast in the upper gorge of the Sacramento River, which is normally not seen during daylight hours. The river was quite swollen with water, and very turbulent. It might have made for good photos, but the windows were covered with raindrops.

I had planned to meet a well known and very active Amtrak advocate, Doras Briggs, for a brief visit on the platform at Emeryville. We met for the first time on the California Zephyr in 2000, and kept in touch ever since. But we arrived too late, well after midnight. I did call her around Gilroy and she told me to look out for her friends, Walter and Millie, who were boarding at Emeryville. But by that time I was ready for bed so I didn't see them.

The next morning when we went to breakfast, I was kinda groggy, so my wife introduces us to our table companions. "I'm Heidi and this is Jim."

"Nice to meet you," came the reply, "I'm Walter and this is Millie."

Walter is a geology professor at Berkeley, and we had a very nice chat over excellent French toast.

Both sleeping car attendants were blonde women, which is unusual. Ours was Angela, and she was extremely efficient, friendly, and competent. She really looked out for her passengers. But she seemed a little high-strung. Not as calm as other attendants we've had.

The dining experience was mixed. For dinner we both had lamb. It had a nice sauce, but it tasted kinda gamey, and more like beef than lamb to me. Breakfast was excellent French toast for me, and quiche for Heidi. Very good on both counts. I had a burger for lunch. It was excellent, probably the best meal of the trip. We topped it off by splitting a large piece of equally excellent chocolate with whipped cream on top. We had the same server for all three meals, Juan. He treated us like special friends.

We managed to make up a bit of time north of Mt. Shasta. We arrived into Salem at 6:45pm, four hours and 45 minutes late. Not the worst I've had, but a far cry from last year when we were almost right on time.

We return home Tuesday, and I'll check back in then.

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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy

posted 02-27-2004 07:20 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by City of Miami:
I got off at Oakland 2 yrs late

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posted 02-29-2004 10:41 PM            

I was in the Parlour car reading from just south of San Jose almost until Oakland. By my notes we were in San Jose about 10:30pm, but I didn't note the departure time. There were only three other people in the car, and I ended up talking to them. It was pouring rain outside, and somewhere before Oakland we saw some spectacular lightning. I wrote in my log book that we left Oakland at 11:08, but I neglected to note the arrival time.

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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy

The Del Monte Club Car