The Fiords of the Northwest

Washington State is being pulled apart, not by two, but by three different continental plates sliding and crunching past one another. This is my first thought when I see the oceanic blue water on our left that tells us we have reached Tacoma. Yes, I know this would not be among the first dozen thoughts of most people. The grandeur of any view is not lost on me. It is perceived almost instantly then quickly supplemented by, not replaced by, the question “How”? How did this come to be. Geology has been a fascination since I moved from “why” to “how” as a young child.

The land north of Tacoma is shredded into roughly north/south strips of alternating land and water. The land is bunched up into mountains to the left, mountains to the right, and hills between. The water runs deep. Deep enough to conceal submerged naval submarine bays. Deep enough to make some shorelines vertical. Deep enough to make traditional bridge building impossible.

The preponderance of waterways rather than roadways makes the Seattle/Tacoma/Vancouver area the ferry capital of North America. Oh and by ferry, I mean big water taxis not other homonyms that middle-earthers or conservatives associate with this neck of the woods. In fact, new and used ferries come from all over the world to be commissioned in this waters.This ragged segregated land is a transportation nightmare. Just because you can see your destination does not mean you can get there easily.

Luckily the Seattle Sound region has a transit system that is getting better every day. A real subway, expanding light-rail, regional trains, long-standing electric buses, and large articulated buses that run express routes well into the surrounding suburbs. Density and higher than average costs are driving a greater proportion of folks to join the dedicated commuters and those with no other options that use transit elsewhere. This makes Seattle an appropriate node on a circle tour of America.

The Willamette Valley Offers a Data Cell Signal

For half the day on the train, there is no reliable data quality cell signal. The initial posts of the day were written offline to be posted after we descended the 4000 feet from the southern Oregon cascade highlands. Breakfast around Mt.Shasta then no signal until Klamath Falls. The intermittent mostly absent signal was voice only for the next for hours till Eugene. From half past noon to 4:30 will be be progressing north through the Willamette River Valley to Portland Oregon.

Our longest break of the entire pacific coast trip will be in Portland, almost 40 minutes. Now that there is nothing I can do about it, I long for a layover in Portland. I lived there for a few years not so long ago. It was a bleak time despite the city rather than because of it. My residence was actually in a RV Park in Troutdale, Oregon at the east end of the metro area right at the beginning of the Columbia River Gorge wilderness area. The spot was nestled in the bottom land of the Sandy River that marks the western boundary of the gorge.

Portland has everything I seek in a city: a vibrant downtown with close in neighborhoods of radically diffrent and intriging characters, a dramatic landscape carved by one of the most climactic floods in North American history, a viable and varied public transportation system with one of the most effective light rail systems in the USA plus a downtown trolley, and a wide spectrum of entertainment and dining options.

Note: This post was published the day after being written.

The Senior Citizen Car Discusses Brazil and Bolivia

A little old lady who joined our group in the middle of the night just told me: “You know you are in a senior citizen car. Look around. This is for disabled people.” [For the record, I reserved a lower level seat intentionally and there is no such thing as a senior citizen car. There reportedly is a "quiet" car that you have to ask about but this is not it.]

The reason she got into my face, literally not figuratively, was that I was talking for the last 20 minutes with a young exchange student from La Paz Bolivia who recently graduated from high school in Montana. Our voices were moderate. Still we could be heard throughout our little space. The others were either listening or managing to sleep through it. She was calm not strident but clearly spoke for herself, particularly in how she ended the exchange. “Some of us need to sleep. I have not been able to sleep for three nights because I sat with a talker like this one (pointing to but avoiding contact with my exchange student companion). Her voice added the italics (like this one) not I.

The truth is that I woke him by accident and I started the conversation. He told me about going to school in lily white Montana then spending time in Los Angeles on the other side of the ethnic spectrum. My initial contribution was my one and only trip south of the equator to Brazil. In 1997, the Brazilian government invited me to come down and give a seminar on Data Warehousing. They flew me into Sao Paulo onto Brasilia where the seminar took place and out via Rio De Janeiro where I stayed for 3 days before flying home. The most memorable event of my trip was neither the seminar nor Rio, it was being accosted at night in the artificial capital city in the heart of the Amazon.

Exhaustion overwhelmed me when I arrived in Brasilia. The timing was bad. I just finished a four city speaking tour in Europe with only a few days turnaround before heading south. I needed to shop for something I no longer recall so I asked for recommendations. “Go right across the street but be aware they close by 6PM. You want to be back in the hotel by then anyway”. So I went up stairs to splash some water on my face … then woke up 3 hours later from a nap I did not plan to take. Heedless of the full extent of the message, I walked across the mall after dark to another location that was still open. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as I crossed the grand via. I almost turned back. Before I reversed course I was hemmed in by two scrawny young boys with the crudest gun I have ever seen and the first one I saw down the bore of the barrel.

They were more scared than I was. Probably because it all happened too fast. My seasoned traveler instincts kicked in as I enacted the ritual suggested by our state department. I did not protest, remained still, lowered my eyes, and opened my wallet to present the money to them. Unfortunately, these street urchins had not read the same state department directive and did not seem to have a script.  Maybe the needed me to hand the money (or the whole wallet) to them. As I just started to act on this new impulse, the older boy, no more than 15, pistol whipped me in the head while the young one grab the money that had fallen to the grass. They ran. I staggered. All the short but interminable way back to the hotel.

The ornate five star government run tourist hotel had mirrored columns and marble floors. This served to recreate a scene from Carrie. My bloodied and bedraggled visage was visible in each and every reflective surface. Time stopped and so did everyone in the lobby. When time started again, the conference coordinator and two of his female assistants were escorting me out to a black government sedan. Next began the comedy of errors part of this story.

They cleaned me up as they hurried across town to their private client for government officials. The clinic was populated by salaried administrators but no medical personnel at this time of night. We were advised to go to the public clinic back the way we came. Brazil is arguably a second world country but it helps to recall a mordantly inefficient 3rd world hospital you may have seen in a movie. To my utter humiliation, my benefactors hustled me past queues of people forced to stand in order to retain their place in line.

I was treated immediately and competently. And incompletely as it turns out. I needed a tetanus shot that could only be administered at a third clinic. The doctor’s instructions were clear. A shot, some food and, he stressed, a watchful eye. He got the full attention of my hosts when he warned of some of the more dire outcomes of a concussion.

Before I could finish recounting this story for you, the I-gotta-sleep lady shifted seats again. She has the only double seat left available since last night. Somehow this is not enough. When someone gets up for any reason whatsoever, she darts in for a change of view or a visit.   I have it on good authority that she has not tried to sleep for more than 15 minutes since she boarded. Not while I was aware. Somehow I managed to sleep for around seven hours.

OMG. She is back wearing dark sunglasses in our dim chamber. Luckily it is almost time for my lunch reservation.

Water, Fire and Ice

Waking up to Mt Shasta out the window is one of the best things about the Coast Starlight. The name  of this train is a not entirely appropriate. There is very little coast to be seen except for the run up the beach during the first short segment. During these days with northern California fires, the normal brilliant blaze of starlight is muted or gone entirely. Luckily for this trip, the air this morning is clear and the sky is a deep azure blue as we circle round the western and northern flanks of California’s most majestic, and possibly still active, volcano. My impression is that no other mountain of fire in North America stands out so emphatically in solitary glory as does Mt. Shasta. It stands alone dominating the primary transportation corridor between California and Oregon. By contrast, the peaks of the Cascade Range are connected by the  Pacific Crest ridge line stair stepping up to Mt. Rainer near the end of today’s travels.

You will notice something startling if this is not your first time past this monolith. The newbies marvel at the snow and ice streaking the peak a couple of weeks past summer solstice. The frequent admirers have a more emphatic reaction: Where did the crown go? The ice coverage seems close to extinction. Never have I seen the mountain so colorful; forrest green,  bushy brown, charcoal grey, and obsidian black. The white is nearly gone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Shasta

My breakfast is shared with a BMW riding, world traveling career entrepreneur taking time out during his company’s worst recession and a fellow IT tech with similar database roots venturing north of Sacramento for the first time with his wife who is still in full repose in their roomette in the forward part of the train. Me and the other beemer guy are toughing it out coach style in the last two cars.

I learn that chemicals to produce a clean water supply are in high demand in the petroleum industry. The peaking demand for oil should make this a banner year for his company. Instead the concomitant doubling in transportation costs is eating up the profits. It has not been this bad for him since the 70’s. For tech guys, the worst recession was 2002/2003 when information technology purchases nearly stopped and more than 230,000 consultants lost their jobs, permanently. My next new field, Cloud Computing, may well be the death nell of in-house glass room operations spiriting far more people into early retirement. I intend to be on the right side of this cathartic transition.

By the time I get back to my place (car 13 seat 77), we are entering Klamath Falls. The lakes here are breaming full and crystal clean unlike the dirty bathtub ring look of southwestern reservoirs. We have clearly crossed the divide into the great northwest. To my left is the first Oregon resident volcano. I will have to look up its name later since the data connection will not fire up in a roaming area.

I await my next sighting of water, fire, and ice.

Will There Be Fireworks?

The sun is finally going down after blinding me for the past hour or so. The couple in front of me are gregarious and feisty in a good sense helping entertain our some contingent on 13 lower level. Between dinner and a beer and the sun, I needed the distraction. Afternoon is my worse time of day.  For me it extends from 3-7 or until the sun goes down in the summer.

San Jose is just  now receding as we begin our eastern passage of the bay through former marshland still to dicey to reclaim. The orange limb of the sun is gone leaving beautiful banding probably due to the smokey air. The question is: Will there be fireworks? The observation lounge is full of travelers hoping our timing is right as we glide up the bay slower than a skateboarder for reasons unknown. Most of them are looking to the left towards the bay. My bet is our best chance is to the right as we pass the stadiums and universities and public parks inland.

My thoughts turn to the other form of fireworks that happen when tired people in a confined space can’t get enough (or any) sleep. Our little enclave downstairs just expanded from five to eight in San Jose. That is nothing like the 30+ upstairs in this car alone. We are due to add more than 120 up and down the 14 cars of this train around midnight in Sacramento.

—–

Ah yes, there they are off to the right: a whole series of lowrise fireworks. They look like the block party style fireworks we used to do in our cul de sac rather than large scale professional gigs. And we have not even made it to oakland yet.

Water Flows and Divides

The rivers of California provide access to all habitable areas of the state even the massive LA basin. The rivers also divide the state by carving valleys segregated by steep ridges and isolated plateaus. Paso Robles is one of those in-between places in chaotic terrain that provides passage between the agricultural valley north of San Luis Obispo and the verdant farming land around Salinas.

Between river valleys and crisscrossed by dry waterways, the area looks like the highlands of Marin County but without any real mountains. A little more arid and a lot more desolate. Stark is a word that comes to mind but not inhospitable. Isolated  trees dot the beige brown hills with stands of trees only on the lee side of inclined ridges except where water flows freely a few times each year. The soil is chalky grey with small rounded stones embedded. The soil looks like loose sediment and the stones like like river rocks. And you wonder, how did they come to be a part of these rolling rounded but steep hills.

One answer may be that this fault county. The San Andreas fault lies on one side and the rift that leads towards the ultra deep waters of Monterey Bay are on the other. The faults intersect here before fanning out into the northwesterly array that trisect the Bay Area. The San Andreas goes up the peninsula from San Jose to San Francisco and on to Point Reyes. The Oakland/Fremont east bay complex threatens to be the epicenter of the next big quake since it has been dormant for too long. Down the middle is the gash that forms the lower bay with only inconsequential water flow origins. The north bay is feed and gouged by the great Sacramento river that drains the Imperial Valley. The south bay is the result of fissures and plates.

The valley widens enough to allow furrows to spread between the ridges fed more by local water supplies than its overwhelming water sucking cousin in the center of the state. This land is higher in elevation than the former sea bed to the east and the former estuary north of here and east of Monterey that surrounds Salinas. The vines here are more likely to be olives than wine. The scattered farms even have the look of Italian villas; not in architecture be in the look of being independent compounds.

Earlier in the day, an attendant mused that there may be fewer freight trains today because it is an all-american blue collar holiday. Maybe so since I have no experience to gauge. We did just pass the first freight train so far or rather it passed us. We are on the sideline again.

Butterflies

The flighty crowd of tourists are now disembarking in San Luis Obispo along with a bunch of short haul passengers. This is a long stop. I have not been out so far and it looks like I will not make it this time either. I am to busy typing away while watching the second season of Wire in the Blood (a BBC production) on my Archos PMP. If anyone can tell me what Wire in the Blood means, I would appreciate it. Having read the novel that inspired the series and all of season one, I still don’t know.

About 10 minutes ago, we passed the Monarch Grove at Pismo Beach where the large squadron of Monarch butterflies living west of the rockies come to winter. Nothing to see given that this is mid-summer. I’m not really much for butterflies anyway, particualrly the ones who flap their wings and cause typhoons on the other side of the world.

I got to get back to Wire in the Blood.

Waiting, Watching, Remembering

The train stops for the first time between stations on a side railing to await clearance to reenter the mainline. The wind is blowing at 15-20 mph in a circumscribed valley that is half as hazy as the parts of California I have seen over the last two weeks.

Before starting Clockwise Around America, my brother and I drove from Phoenix Arizona to San Jose California via Yosemite. For those of you who have not entered Yosemite from the east, I strongly recommend traveling up or down highway 395 to Lee Vining and turning west. You will rise up just shy of 10,000 feet to one of the highest road accessible mountain passes in the USA. The High Sierra country of the Tuolumne Valley is much more vast, and arguably more picturesque, than the much more frequented lower valley of El Capitan and Half Dome fame.

This year the high valley is also the only place in mid-California that isn’t covered in smoke. Not smog. Not haze. Smoke. We saw our first actual fire in the Hetch Hetchy valley where a dam built in the 20’s and raised higher for more capacity in the 30’s stores most of the water used by San Francisco. This reservoir is the width of California away from the city by the bay. If you have not been to Hetch Hetchy, this is the second best rarely visited Yosemite site. The hiking opportunities are fantastic. There are a range of local loops of varying difficulty and range and you can gain access to the Pacific Crest and John Muir trails.

Hetch Hetchy is lower than Tuolumne and the Merced River Valley that forms the most famous part of Yosemite National Park is lower still. The scenic vistas were almost completely obscured by the smoke from the bottom looking up and from the top looking anywhere. You could see some blue sky looking straight up from Glacier Point Overlook but the mighty Half Dome looked like a faint charcoal rendering.

Here in this valley where the lettuce grows you can see the sky briefly.

The First Bit of Flat Land

The California coast north of the San Fernando Valley is a partially submerged mountain range running east and west out to the channel islands. You can’t see inland more than 50 feet except in snatches until you are well north of Vandenberg Air Force Base. The isolated base is the headquarters of the west coast missle command and the launching point of most of America’s military satellites. They leave here for polar orbits that allow them to view most of the Earth from about 200 miles overhead. It is also the location of the other Space Shuttle launch site that was never used despite the insistence of a West Wing story arc that a military shuttle actual made it into space.

Here in this first stretch of flat land is a river valley that will take us away from the shore for the first time since Los Angles. We need to get around the rugged Point Conception penisula that jots way out into the Pacific and is reasonably impassible. It does take us into an agricultural valley that offers the best cell signal during the last hour and a half. Enough to get a couple of posts out.

Losing Signal for the First Time

Before turning the corner at Point Conception, we were offered an obscured view of the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. There is rarely much to see of these islands that form one of the least known and visited National Parks.  That might be because you can’t drive to this park. You can fly over it or take a boat… which I have several times on diving trips. Yet even I have still not set foot on one of the islands unless you count the walls and floor of a sea cave I explored under Santa Rosa once.

What I also quickly lost sight of was a cell signal. Neither T-Mobile or Sprint showed any bars. My T-Mobile Dash kept searching and my Sprint PPC6700 ranged between zero and an occasional one bar. So I am typing this post into OpenOffice while awaiting my ability to connect to WordPress where my blog is hosted again.

It’s 1:39. Do you know where your signal is? Mine be lost.

Our First Sight of the Oil Platforms

The refinery came first; all tan and streaked brown intending to fade into the shoreline hills. As we emerge from a trench supporting a bridge above us and the ocean beside us, we see the first of the Santa Barbara area off-shore oil platforms. They are less visible due to the dense fire fostered haze. They are a reminder of one of the many reasons I am on this journey exploring forms of transportation that few in America use even as fuel prices hit new highs everyday.

My intent was to fly in to Burbank Bank (Bob Hope) Airport then take the Metrolink regional train to downtown Burbank. The idea was to get up today to take the Metrolink the rest of the way down to Union Station. Best laid plans. When I get to Bob Hope yesterday around 7:30 AM after already being up for 4 hours, I collect my ever so heavy bags and wheel out diagonally across the parking lot towards the Metrolink station I can see in the near distance. The temperature is already 90 degrees and I sweat with far less prompting. When I get what seems like half a mile out, near the barrier fence, a parking bus driver on the other side rolls down his window to say: “You can’t get out this way”. Now I knew I was taking a risk going the direct way rather than following the narrow California style sidewalk directly out to the frontage road. But this was too much. This required me to haul all my gear 90% of the way back to the terminal. I hate retracing my steps and the way to the Metrolink station required more physical investment than was merited before my trip really got underway.

So I took a cab. No problem, I think, I will just take the Metrolink as planned tomorrow.

This is where all my prior planning showed its first flaw. Part of my grand plan was to start my trip on the 4th of July celebrating Independence Day on the train. The Metrolink runs every day of the year except for 5 holidays; one of them being the 4th of July. So now I must take a $35 cab ride from Burbank to Union Station in an ignominious start to my alternate transportation foray.

The oil derricks remind me of my cab rides rather than just the shocking cost of oil.

Did you know that the Santa Barbara oil platforms now use directional drilling to extend in multiple directions at diverse angles to collect oil from multiple pockets? A volunteer from a national rail guide organization just made that annoucement over the intercom.

People Still Wave at Trains

Believe it or not, but we are on the beach. Below Santa Barbara the main rail line is between the highway and the breakers. There is nothing closer to the water except where we rise up about 8 feet and move just far enough in to allow an unending string of RV’s to crowd in.

Opps, I spoke too soon. The road just went overhead to land closer to the shore providing access to the first row of primo beach houses to replace the previously public access sand strip. Just as quickly the RVs are back. The road to our left is not the main highway but rather a coastal access road.

The folks we pass on our right are waiting on their bicycles to gain access to the beach paths. They wave. All of them, young and old. Mostly boomers with their kids.

One Reason I Hate Group Travel

My accommodations are perfect as they can be when I first get on car 13. My seat reclines as far as they go (about 30 degrees). The miniature 4-way power strip I use for travel fits perfectly in the space available. My laptop is running. The GPS unit is getting a good signal and so is my modem phone. We are still in civilization having just moved on from Simi Valley where we stopped for an unscheduled smoking break. You cannot smoke anywhere on Amtrak trains but you can get off temporarily at any of the stops to smoke. The normal smoking break in the first 2 hours of this journey is in Santa Barbara. Due to the far greater the usual outbreak of forest fires in bone dry California, Santa Barbara is on the strictest fire alerts calling for no outside smoking. The conductor even warned that you might not even want to get out to stretch your legs given the bad air.

So why do I hate group travel? That is the title of this post. For one, I am not a lemming. In fact, I am an anti-lemming. The crowd goes left, I go right. What I really hate is the lowest common denominator outcomes. One errant traveller can blow it for everyone. As it turns out this group had several. The coordinator did not register his group with Amtrak so they could accommodate them better. He then proceeded to hand out 52 seat assignments as best he could to keep traveling companions and families together. Yet when they get on board, a large number of them refused to sit where they were assigned.

All of a sudden our semi-private 12 seat lower level coach was filled with overflow passengers from the chaos overhead. Even the adults had to be told to sit down in specific seats while they worked things out up stairs. Of course, the two kids that came down sat behind me and preceded to bang the seat repeatedly while lowering and raising and lowering and raising their tray tables. There was a sliver of good cheer I picked up through the overlapping strains of Japanese: This group was only going as far as Saint Luis.

As it turns out, lucky 13 already dealt me a favorable hand. The coordinator did manage to find seats for everyone in little more than 15 minutes. I feel sorry for him since it must not have been fun and his trip with this stubborn crowd had only just begun. Now it is back to just Eula and me downstairs in car 13.

Whew.

On the Way on the Coast Starlight

I am already behind in my “live” blogging since we are now already 30 minutes down the way. When I first arrived …

Where is car 14? I was assigned to car 14 but there is nothing between 13 and 16. So to guarantee a lucky trip, I talk my way onto car 13 hosted by a lovely young moderately experienced attendant. I say moderately experience because she first directed me downstream from 13 in my search for car 14. Then she was not sure where that one power outlet was in the coach. Given that this is becoming a frequent request, I assume she is new at the job. Friendly, helpful and attentive though.

Yes, I did get that one outlet. Horay! Now I do not have to rely on that 18 pound 400 watt main battery that took half the room in my carry-on size rolling bag for the laptop or the two 100 watt mobile batteries for the many usb equiped devices. We will see if I need them on other segments.

The Coast Starlight will take me from LA to Seattle over the course of the next two days arriving in the evening on Sunday Juy 6. Along the way, we will pass through numerous tunnels (like the one we are in now) and even more bridges as we parallel the 101 highway in the south and interstate 5 north of San Francisco.

My Sprint PPC6700 phone has been running in modem mode for 1 hour and eight minutes now despite numerous signal outages. We are about to see if I can get this post out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Starlight

Arriving at the Station

Los Angeles Union Station Entrance

Union Station in Los Angeles is one of the grand old train stations in America. It went into decline after World War II like all forms of rail transportion. Yet now it is experiencing a rebirth of sorts. LA, of all cities, now has an extensive and growing metro rail station and a network of regional and suburban trains. I do not know if the station was renovated or just well maintained but it looks great considering it’s age.

The Coast Starlight is a classic mixed mode train with staterooms, roomettes, and coach seats on the both upper and lower levels of bi-level cars. First class has dedicated parlor and dining cars. Everyone shares access to another dining car and an observation car with an (almost) always open bar.

My choice is a lower level coach accommodation for several reasons. The entire cost for train travel around the USA on my route is only $863. A small roomette suitable for two in moderately cramped quarters would be about that amount for the just the Los Angeles to Seattle segment. The idea is not just to go cheap but to experience the trip from a window in an open car with other travelers. Yet I do not want to be bundled in with the (mostly exuberant Asian) tourists in the packed upper level seats. My social sense has its limits. Plus the lower level has a more “you are there” feel. Oh and it sways less.

I decided to ignore the guidance to wait till the 9:45 AM boarding annoucement. Avoiding the herd is a driving principle for me and I want to find a seat next to the one 120 volt outlet in the lower level. Since a key element of this trip is live blogging from the train, I need power. For the Macbook. For the mobile phone that will be my modem. For the other phone that will be my phone. And for the 5G iPod for my tunes, the Archos 704 portable media player with a 7 inch screen & a ton of movies in AVI format, the Kindle for daily subcriptions & the 17 or so books I have already download, and chargers for everything including my cameras. I feel that I am forgetting something …

Well let’s see how it goes when I get to the train.

Before the Beginning

The Residence Inn in Burbank California is my staging area for Clockwise Around America. Independence Day is the perfect time to begin an election year tour of America from the windows of a series of Amtrak trains starting at Union Station in Los Angeles baring clockwise around the United States of America.