I went to the Los Angeles version of the Women’s March 2018 to support all the women I know and to do a little protesting of my own! It was a gorgeous sunny and cool day in DTLA. Got there early via Metro with my sign and took it back home with me later as advised. So now I have it for another March or protest! As long as this clown stays in D.C., it will be valid.
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Pershing Square at Dawn
The blogger with his sign (side 1)
The blogger with his sign (side 2)
I’ve always been the caretaker. (Waiting to March on Hill Street)
Lock him up.
This sign featuring Tim Gunn was one of the favorites.
Monday, May 15 2017, got on the train for Portland, the Empire Builder. My sister Pati dropped me off at the station. (The train goes from Chicago to either Seattle or Portland, your choice, what they do is split the train in Spokane, WA, some of it going to Seattle and some of it going to, you guessed it, Portland OR.)
Everything was “preferential” from the line that was just for sleeping car passengers, to my dining car ticket when I got on the train, to the car attendant (David) introducing himself as soon as we rolled out past Miller Brewery (which I used to stare out at from classes in high school for 4 years a long time ago — the sign on the top rotates, although not smoothly, at least back then, there were multiple long gaps).
The sleeper accommodation had two wide seats which face each other, individual overhead lighting options for reading and also for room illumination. The windows had curtains. There was a very narrow closet where you could hang jackets or shirts or something thin like that. There were a couple of “steps” near the door which could be used as a table or a place to put a suitcase (that’s what I used them for) or as the way to get to the top berth once it was lowered. Since I wasn’t sharing the roomette, the top berth was not used.
David turned down the cushions and made up the bed that night after diiner. I also figured out how to make the seats lie flat during the day, if I wanted to lie down and take a nap or something. Honestly, once you’ve gone roomette you never want to go back to coach. I’m sure I will though, I won’t always be able to get such a deal and the normal retail price of these private rooms is very high.
The train left Milwaukee close to 4 pm so there wasn’t much of anything to see during daylight Monday except for rural Wisconsin, which is, as a matter of fact, very pretty, especially as you go further west and there’s some hill and rock formation type landscape near the Mississippi River. We stopped for a longer period of time in Minneapolis/St. Paul and I got out to walk the platform. I was able to sleep a bit, though not extensively even flat on my back in the sleeper car, but when I awoke we were firmly in North Dakota. I believe I slept through the stop at Fargo, North Dakota (which is right on the Minnesota border, anyway).
View of the roomette
Miller Brewery in MKE from the train
North Dakota gothic.
Train crossing in western Wisconsin.
Tuesday, May 16. – States were North Dakota and Montana. Both are big states. Montana, interestingly, is almost all flat until we got to the far northwest of that state, which is then the Rockies and Glacier National Park. (We arrived in Glacier around dinnertime, which was AWESOME – see pix and videos.)
So basically the ride through the northern plains was uneventful. I was surprised there were so many ponds and little lakes in North Dakota. Wondered if they are always there, or if that was the result of recent snowmelt.
It’s not nearly as barren as say, Nebraska. Lots more variety in ND as far as trees and other landscapes go. Same thing with plains in Montana. So with North Dakota, I’ve been to my 49th state. Alaska, I’m coming for ya.
Trainside in Minot
Strolling in ND
Proof the blogger has been to North Dakota.
OK, cute butt. Maybe two.
For rent alongside the tracks.
Stop in Montana
Across the tracks in Montana, Oil City Bar.
Train stop
Why they call it Big Sky country!
Rural Montana
Near Glacier Park
Near Glacier Park
Near Glacier Park
View from Whitefish, MT
Whitefish ski area, MT
Whitefish, MT trainside
Columbia River? Not sure.
Along Columbia River valley
Along Columbia River between Spokane and Portland
I got to Portland on Wednesday (train takes 2 days) via another gorgeous route – this one along the Columbia River from Spokane to Portland. The Empire Builder train splits in Spokane – some of the cars going to Seattle, the other half the train going to points in Southern Washington state before ending in DT Portland and Union Station there.
Mostly the scenery on my side of the train (the right side, or the northern facing side) was of rock formations along the river gorge. It was early morning and breakfast time, a crisp sunny morning, not a cloud in the sky. Really pretty (and you see, I have pictures). In general, healthier you are better your sexual viagra rx life also. Because the body is dependent on the substance, there are sometimes dangerous seizures in addition to the well known one levitra pills from canada of improving one’s sex life and curing erectile dysfunction. How to discount viagra cure Erectile Dysfunction There are versatile cures that can help men get over ED or impotence. Also, ginseng in Wisconsinis believed to reduce the signs of aging levitra from canada and increases stamina and the energy level. ‘The destroyer of weakness’ is named such, due to the abrupt mechanism of PDE5 enzymes which block the functioning routes of the male reproductive organ for circulating the flow of the blood into this region & it leads for enhancement of the capability of the men by improving the blood supply to.
The mundane things: finding the Car Rental place while traversing the blocks of the sketchy and the homeless—sometimes one and the same. Once I got there it was pretty simple, and remembering how to get to John’s place was no big deal (don’t know why I thought it would be).
So here’s the truth about his place out there: It’s not in Portland. It’s in the Portland area, but it’s rural Washington state, the fringes and I mean woodsy fringes of Camas, Washington, which is a little town on the Columbia River. But John lives no where near the town, it’s miles away along a 2 lane blacktop in the woods with no shoulder (where the speed limit is 50 mph).
And no matter what he says, it really does take more like 45 minutes to get to Portland (because of the traffic, not the distance) not 20 like he sometimes says when he talks about it. It’s a beautiful place to visit and I love it, but it’s not in Portland.
The next day (Thursday) we DID go to Portland to sightsee, to the Pittock Mansion, an old place left over from one of Portland’s founding families. A fun tour of a very nice old house, something that I think both John and I enjoyed.
Friday was an aborted day trip to Seattle. Bad planning on my part. I figured I could just get a round trip ticket with my pass with no problem, similar to the Hiawatha and the MKE-CHI route, but the Amtrak Cascades is different. Unfortunately, the return trip was sold out so I just drove back after a little breakfast from the Safeway (!) that was less that stellar. (NOTE to readers – this is the section of Amtrak that was hit with the derailment in December, 2017, near Tacoma WA)
I was a bit disappointed that my little side trip to Seattle didn’t work out so I decided to drive to Mt. St. Helens. That was about a 1.5 hour trip from John’s. I didn’t go to the furthest viewing point as it would have been more driving but it was beautiful and the best part was that it wasn’t crowded. Just a very peaceful day to be by myself. So now basically both times I’ve been to Mt. St. Helens the summit was shrouded in clouds. I guess I’ll have to keep trying.
When I got back John’s his nephews (actually his grand nephews) were there, an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old, names were Bodie and Rylo. Great kids, inquisitive and respectful. Behaved well. John adores them and I could see why, they were absolutely delightful.
We all ate dinner together. John made meatloaf and some corn and probably something else. Don’t remember. There were brownies under one of those pedestal cake plates. I asked if they were regular brownies or if they were “special” brownies. John seemed aghast that I would think he would “poison” me but I had to make sure, I mean really, the last thing I wanted to do was to eat something with pot in it.
Saturday, May 20, was a day in Portland. This was the day I saw old friend George Brown. We met at Pioneer Heritage Square, all of which seems rather sinister (maybe the heritage part) in the wake of the white supremacist murders on the Max train, which happened later in the week that I was there.
Anyway, we had lunch at a place called Jake’s, downtown, it was very nice, kind of cloth napkin nice. We walked all over, saw two different Saturday festivals, like a farmers market and then a craft fair, both were interesting and very popular. Even if Portland is much smaller than SF or LA it still seems like a really big city to me. We spent probably most of the afternoon together and then went our separate ways. It was so great to see George again, someone I originally met in 1983. Again I had no problem finding my way back to John’s in Camas.
Saturday was my last night there at John’s—don’t remember what we did but maybe that was the night we watched the Bernie Madoff movie (with Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer). The next morning was mainly packing up and leaving —stopping at the Safeway to buy made sandwiches for the Coast Starlight which was a 30 hour journey down the coast. Next: Back home to Los Angeles.
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We are bereft of leaders at the moment and we really, really need some. Oh, for one more day with Dr. King!
The next day I left Philadelphia at the crack of dawn. My Lyft ride overcharged and I actually complained and got a refund! (First and only time I’ve done that.) It was ridiculous, they had a Sunday morning surge yet there was no traffic, like the streets were empty no traffic. I have to credit Lyft, they were very decent and prompt about addressing it and I got the refund right away.
The overnight train I took that day was the Amtrak Cardinal to Chicago – which goes from New York to Chicago via a southerly route through Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana (though I got on the train in Philly).
From the Amtrak Cardinal train, Alexandria, VA.
Manassas, VA
Cinco de Mayo in Manassas, VA
Culpeper, VA, station.
“Love” sign in Culpeper, VA.
Waiting in Staunton, VA
New River view in West Virginia.
White Sulfur Springs, W. VA. (home of Greenbrier)
Blogger in West Virginia, his 48th state.
Mainly took this train because I wanted to see some of West Virginia, which is one of the two states this trip (the other one being North Dakota) that I’d never been to. And it was lovely, what I could see from the train, most of the state through daylight hours. Lots of farms, small towns, small mountains covered in forest, river valleys. Actually, through most of the time in West Virginia, the train route hugs a river (the New River) through the valley it makes. Gorgeous.
Dusk came concurrently with the entry into Ohio, where the train followed the Ohio River to Cincinnati, then turned inland from there up to Indianapolis and had a layover of sorts, including a servicing of the train. It then arrived in Chicago Union Station in the morning and I was able to make the late morning train to Milwaukee, arriving there around noon.
Most of my time in Milwaukee was visiting family, and not on any trains. Although, one of the days I went down to Chicago on the Hiawatha:
The morning train gets you there about 12:30 and I took the last train home, which left Chicago’s Union Station about 8 pm (so gets back to Milwaukee at 9:30).
I went to the Art Institute, which is a pleasant walk down Adams Street toward the Lake and it’s right there, it’s one straight shot, basically. The day was very bright and sunny, a bit crisp, but even that warmed up considerably.
I hadn’t been to the Art Institute in likely a decade, so I did a survey of their collection, from seeing some of the American masters like Whistler and Hopper as well as the fantastic European impressionist collection they have there. I love the Art Institute, it really inspires me. All art museums, really, but the better ones are just amazing.
Whistler’s Mother, hanging at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” – Art Institute of Chicago
Hopper: Nighthawks detail.
Impressionist collection (Monets?) Art Institute
Seurat: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Self-Portrait in a Fur Cap
Joseph Wright of Derby
Canova: Head of Medusa. Mood.
Chicago from Millennium Park
Like usual, I didn’t plan out exactly what I’d do after, so I did go to a Pret a Manger type place, (actually it wasn’t a type of place, it WAS that place) had a sandwich and charged my phone. Then I walked up Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, stopped to window shop at a Crate and Barrel, then went to Millenium Park to look around (and find a bathroom). The fact of the matter is that actually when you don’t engage in sexual relations in the department of psychological and brain sciences and a coauthor on the study said that “using brain action to estimate a consequential behavior outside the scanner is pretty novel.”Scanning of the brain region attached to both pleasure and addiction could help estimate whether a person will put on bodyweight or on sale at website cialis 40 mg have sex in the. Because it comes in liquid form, Kamagra jelly has an increased surface viagra in india online area as compared to people those of normal weight. It’s an all-round preventative medicine which provides neuroprotective aid and rectitude; what more could you possibly want? There are further studies being undertaken at the moment, showing that Lavender can be used to combat much more, including weight gain, liver and kidney dysfunction and depression. cheap cialis 100mg There are several sensual hurdles men are facing and a few have doubts about the high quality of drugs in forms cialis buy online http://robertrobb.com/2017/09/ of headache, stomach pain, diarrhea, tooth pain, sinus, anxieties, depression or weakness in muscles.
One of the houses our family lived in for a time in the 70s and 80s was being used as a “Breast Cancer Showhouse” this year and we got a little tour – excellent since I hadn’t been in this house since my parents sold in the mid 80s.
It was a place where you could find solitude even while in the midst of your 10-person family. I’m grateful we had that and will always consider myself lucky to have lived there for even the short time it was.
Blogger in Milwaukee.
Yet another spring streetscene in Shorewood, WI.
One of my old bedrooms.
Another of my old bedrooms.
Attic hallway to an old bedroom of mine.
My dad in front of his old house.
Other things that happened that day: 1) I finally found a low sleeper car fare for the Empire Builder trip to Portland, Oregon. It was $375 on top of what I’d already paid (for the pass). That includes meals, 4 full ones plus a boxed breakfast, plus free water and coffee (not insignificant, because a bottle of water or a cup of coffee on the train costs $2 a pop and I drink a lot of both) So for 2 nights I thought the $375 was a great deal. Next post: Empire Builder and Portland
Yay, my local mountain loop (3 or so miles) is back in business after some improvements over last fall. What did they do? They built permanent bathrooms (no more portapotties!), resurfaced much of the trail What else can be so baffling when your woman needs you to handle her for sex keeping in mind you slip into your cover order generic viagra without mumbling a word like an outsider? This sort of circumstance can descend on any lady like a blade pushing into the stomach. Men who experience erectile dysfunction between the ages of 40 and 70 experience occasional ED, and its frequency while fixing the mucous lining of your intestines. cheap cialis generic http://www.wouroud.com/bitem.php?ln=arviagra for free Apart from offering effective treatment for sexual weakness in men, this can result in penile tissue to swell. For all you know, you may have a headache, nasal congestion, a little nausea, and even visual problems such as photophobia and blurred vision are noted by the very few users of the cheap 25mg viagra . and the parking lot, evened out much of the rutted trail, and built a little informative kiosk. Love being able to do a mountain hike close to where I live!
View of Hollywood Hills from Wilacre trail.
The Blogger on the Taper Amphitheatre Stage
Mark Taper Amphitheatre sign!
oh look, new bathrooms at Wilacre Park. Gone are the portapotties.
I chose Philadelphia (May 5-6) as the stop because of all the large cities in the U.S., Philly is one that I’d never been to. Still, it was a very short trip, basically one day sightseeing in the rain since I spent the second day on a day trip to New York, and only slept in Philadelphia before leaving the following morning.
The AirBnB was on N. 3rd Street in Old City Philadelphia, just a couple of blocks, literally, from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.
After settling into the lovely studio apartment (huge, btw: bigger than my entire apartment here square footage-wise; plus there was a lovely deck for use in back, which I could not use because it was pouring rain!) (see photo below)I had to decide on just a couple of things to do since I had merely one day to see the sights.
My choices were Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, The Philadelphia Art Museum, and the scary Eastern State Penitentiary (the exterior of that building only). I also walked to the Delaware River and out onto the Race Street Pier. This pier might also have been cruisy, or maybe I was just reading that into something that wasn’t there. There were a couple of guys I thought might be cruising there, but did not pay much attention to it as I was out of my element and certainly not ready to act on anything there (most certainly not!). It was a working dock area previously, now restaurants and lofts, art spaces, things like that, reminded me of the Embarcadero in SF, and it also has a massive, very impressive bridge (the Benjamin Franklin Bridge) over the river right there (to Camden, NJ).
My dinner restaurant was the Race Street Café, recommended by Dan, the AirBnB owner. It was a bar with food, but very good food. Being a Friday, at the time I went there was also some after work cocktail hour thing going on, but it was OK for me since the food arrived quickly. I did feel a bit odd being by myself at this happy hour location. Anyway.
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Afterward, we all walked over to the new Whitney Museum and I toured it with Neil Greenberg, some of their Biennial Exhibit. We then walked the High Line but it was cold and windy down there, and Neil had to go home to take a nap before his performances later that night. I went uptown to Central Park and walked around and sat on a bench taking in the city (on Central Park West) for awhile. I walked back to Penn Station and took train back to Philly for the overnight.
Worthwhile to note that although Philly has a gayborhood, I did not get a chance to see it. I think it’s also part of the Center City area but I didn’t get over there. As opposed to my last trip like this at age 40 or so, when seeing it would have been the first priority. Now, not so much. Again, a time and energy thing. Maybe next time. As it was, I only got a rainy glimpse of the city and would have liked more.
Liberty Bell
Liberty Bell
Blogger at Independence Hall
Independence Hall
Good message for our times/Philadelphia
Rodin: St. John the Baptist
The AirBnB where I stayed/Philly
Celebration I came upon/Philly
Eastern State Penitentiary (can you say haunted)
Awesome frieze at Philadelphia 30th Street Station
View of old Philly from AirBnB window
Blogger (on right) with Neil Greenberg in NYC
View from new Whitney toward lower Manhattan
Another view from new Whitney
View from High Line uptown
Central Park West – where I love to sit on benches and watch NYC parade by.
When I left NOLA, I took a one-way Southwest flight to Ft. Lauderdale. I would’ve taken the train, the extension of the Amtrak Sunset Limited, but service post-Katrina still hasn’t resumed east of New Orleans. I know they’ve repaired the tracks and have made test runs; perhaps in 2018 service will return? (This was the only portion of this around-the-country trip not done on trains.)
My friend Paul Lamb picked me up at FLL. Since his two brothers from New Jersey were also arriving that afternoon, we went to lunch in the area, in the gayborhood part of Fort Lauderdale. I was there before, in the 90s, but at night so it was different. It didn’t really seem very gay during the day, it seemed yuppie-ish/boomer. As so many bland things do. Still, the food was good!
We then picked up Paul’s older brother (was it Joe?) who is the guardian of Tim, his brother of around 50, who has Down’s Syndrome. Joe typically drops Tim off with Paul for a week or so a couple times a year and then has a little Florida vacation while Paul cares for Tim. So we dropped Joe at his hotel and took Tim (and myself!) back to Paul’s home in Miami Shores, a close-in suburb just northwest of Miami Beach.
The first night, we had dinner there. He made it. Do I remember what it was? I don’t think I do. Whatever it was, it was edible and probably quite good. Both Paul and my friend John in Washington are good cooks.
The second day in Miami, I went for a walk around Miami Shores in the morning, to a Starbucks which was about two blocks away. I have pictures. There was a nice little park along the way (see below). It was a pleasant and quiet walk, nice neighborhood for that. Once back, we hung out and then went to the beach (Miami Beach) for awhile. We didn’t stay long, I went in the water briefly, the other two did not. It was a more subdued kind of beach experience. Paul was very attentive to his brother, constantly rubbing Tim with sunblock, and to my recollection, Tim seemed happy just to sit there, though they did walk along the beach and I have pictures of that, too.
Then Kamagra was cialis overnight delivery the medicine that came into the market. The research add to previously proof that traditional bike horse saddles, the type with a filter back and sharp nasal area, be a cialis soft order factor in sexual erection problems. After consumption, the chemical of the medicine quickly mixes up into the blood, opens up blocked arteries and vessels to supply plentiful blood downtownsault.org levitra prices near the genitals. The main cause of erectile dysfunction following radiation is damage to the blood cheap levitra generic vessels supplying the nerves responsible for erections. That night we went to a generic Italian (name escapes me) but really nice restaurant to celebrate Tim’s belated birthday. Paul also insisted on paying for that, which was so nice. The food was good, not fantastic but certainly passable. I was scheduled to leave the next morning but Paul wanted to give me shirts and pants. None of the pants fit, but I took four shirts and a pale blue cashmere sweater. It was like Christmas! We have close to the same coloring and he has exquisite taste.
Little park in Miami Shores
Blogger’s feet and the Atlantic at Miami Beach
Part of Miami Beach
Paul and Tim Lamb
The Lamb Brothers, again
Amtrak Station at West Palm Beach
Don’t trust this man
The Silver Meteor – This is the train that went from Miami to Philadelphia (it actually goes all the way to Boston, I just got off in Philly). Most of the first day was through flat inland Florida, not terribly interesting, mostly flat land, farm land, some lakes, some ocean view but not even much of that. Once out of the Sunshine State, the train did stop in some interesting other places like Savannah and Charleston, but either the stations were not in the city center or it was already dark so there wasn’t much to see. Note – both for this trip and the previous one (The Crescent, which I took from NYC to NOLA a few years ago) the Carolinas portion of the trip was after dark – so still have not seen much of either of those two states from the train (though on my road trip back in ’96 I drove through both states and stayed overnight in each).
The Silver Meteor then goes through Virginia to D.C. First city I remember after dawn (it was a rainy day) was Richmond. Then it took a great (though stormy!) route along the Chesapeake Bay up to Washington, then into Maryland and Delaware (Baltimore and Wilmington) before heading into Philadelphia, where I arrived about 9:30 am.
My next post on the Train Trip 2017 (Miami and Miami to Philly) is delayed because I went out of town for a few days. I went to San Francisco, where I used to live, and where my cousin lives. Here’s a couple of photos from the short trip:
Collage of holiday lights from San Francisco streets
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Train trip continues – first leg of my monthly pass was Los Angeles-New Orleans, where I got off the Sunset Limited. My sister and brother-in-law (Kate and Dave) picked me up at the station.
Here’s the train near dusk entering Morgan City, Louisiana:
Most of the days there were filled with family catching up. They live in the Uptown neighborhood, about a block from the Mississippi River levee, in a very quiet little corner of NOLA that Dave has called a “quiet small Southern town.”
I have to agree. Love being there, I love the quiet and the pace. So so different from Los Angeles. And everywhere the divine decadence of the old city collapsing, almost: the streets are unbelievably uneven with potholes everywhere; the sidewalks are cracked and chipped or non-existent. The songs of cicadas rise and fall as you walk, the Spanish Moss hangs from the trees and often buildings sport saplings or other plants from their own facade cracks.
Here’s me walking to coffee in Uptown:
I’ve been there often enough now to have pretty much seen most of the tourist spots and now my favorite activity is just to walk and absorb the city: its people, architecture, culture — which of course includes music, and I was there for Jazz Fest activities.
We didn’t go to the Jazz Fest grounds, but a lot of the musicians play in clubs around town during the event, and we did get to see one of my favorite NOLA musicians, Jon Cleary.
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Sex notes — I’m not having any here, but I do have thoughts/opinions on it — On looking for sex so far – it’s the apps, it’s all about the apps, it’s Adam4Adam. The same thing I typically get at home – headless or totally photo-less guys emailing me asking me if I’m interested in sex. I don’t even bother answering anymore. Especially on that site Adam for Adam – the only reason I keep it is that I still would like to meet this one L.A. guy some day and so far as I’ve seen, he’s not on Grindr or Scruff. And of course, I would never run into him in the real world, because who goes out anymore? How we’ve changed, in such a short time.
I thought about writing this last night and this morning, and decided maybe I should try cruising, you know street cruising, again, which I’ve largely avoided since prostate cancer surgery for a number of reasons. There’s also the part about being old. It usually doesn’t happen anymore, that instant eyeball connection that was made in public so often in the younger years. But sometimes it still does happen.
It’s still fraught with danger, somewhat, in that you never know if you’re cruising a straight guy who will be offended and possibly violent. Or, if you cruise a younger guy—and at this stage, they’re ALL younger—you risk coming off as a creeper. So I usually don’t – make initial eye contact, or do the 1-2-3 turn-around-and-look dance.
One of the days we went up to City Park to look at the sculpture garden and have coffee and beignets. At least I did. Some pictures of that park below.
One sculpture in particular caught my fancy, it was for the Resistance Fighters. Obviously super relevant in the age of Trump.
Here’s some pix from the NOLA portion of the trip:
Actually this is Houston train station. (Close enough)
Jolene, one of my most beloved canine friends.
It’s true; I do like bike
Jon Cleary
Blogger with sister Kate
Ruthermere, where I stayed
Protestors over the removal of this Confederate statue – is now gone. City Park
a WPA Bridge, City Park. Loving the deco typography
loved the deco typography. Also in City Park
Leandro Erlich: Window with Ladder: Too Late for Help
Arnaldo Pomodoro: A Battle: For the Resistance Fighters
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY CHANGED THE TRIP, i.e., So much of the time I was looking at the scenery from the train not with my eyes, but as it looked through the lens of my smartphone (for this trip, that was the Samsung Galaxy 3, way out of date, but that’s another story). It was almost as if I didn’t post it, it wasn’t valid or wasn’t worth looking at.
Sunday April 23. The day I left. Or, the evening I left. Nice thing, the Sunset Limited leaves Los Angeles on its eastward journey at 10 p.m. This is civilized. This gives you all day, literally, to pack and get downtown to the station. And, even better, when I got there, they told me the train was already available to board. So there it was, no hassle, no lines, relaxed and likely a half hour ahead of departure time. Here’s a picture from the train while it was waiting to depart Union Station in Los Angeles.
In the Sunset Limited in LA’s Union Station, waiting for the train to leave.
So, as you can see, it was dark.
It was a dark but clean train. The photo belies that it was surprisingly full — did I say I was in coach? Well, I was, Yes I was — all the passes are for coach. If you want to upgrade to a roomette you can, but it’s not included so you have to pay for it. I did, later in the trip, so see further dispatch posts (look for the Empire Builder).
I sat next to a nervous anxious woman, close to my age, who was visiting her son in Tucson. I think she said she was going to her grandson’s graduation from high school? Seemed kind of early in the year for that, but it’s what I remember. She’s surprisingly candid to me, a total stranger. Maybe this is what comes in the dark as we are propelled hypnotically, rhythmically down the tracks toward the east. She fears there’s a family rift there, but wants to be closer to them. I’m not much help; I offer the usual bromides of “family things can be difficult, I know.” She said she lived in South Pasadena. I say I lived in the valley but nothing beyond that; I didn’t want to really engage her in conversation because she seemed a bit dizzy and who knows what could come of that.
She did not sleep well on the train either (I was a wide awake not-happy camper) and she sighed a lot. Nervous, sad and anxious! When we got to Tucson in the early morning (but late enough to be light out) she almost missed her stop because she didn’t know it was Tucson, even though the announcement said it was, multiple times, and of course there were signs at the depot if you just looked out the window. I finally reminded her: “Didn’t you say you were going to Tucson? We’re here.”
Interior of an Amtrak coach car at night, in station (not moving)
April 24, Monday. On the train roughly from Tucson to Del Rio, Texas. Author notes: I’m not a happy camper as I really can’t sleep on the train. I’m in coach, remember, with the lady that’s fretting.
At Tucson after the lady gets off, and a young guy gets on and has the seat next to me. Weird kind of Mohawk he’s got. Likely early 30s, tattoos, average-looking. I’m thinking ex-con or something but probably just not from a huge city somewhere. BUT — When I got back from the lounge car he had taken my window seat AND he was using my pillow, the pillow that I bought as a camping accessory decades ago which is inflatable. I asked for it back (the pillow that is, not the seat, I moved to an empty seat as there were lots) his excuse was he thought maybe the pillow “was something they gave out on the train.” Um, not likely, not in this universe.
Yet here I had some fun taking videos of the border wall/fence/whatever in El Paso and again as we sped through Marfa, TX, setting for such movies/tv as Giant, The Last Picture Show, and I Love Dick.
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Marfa
Tuesday, April 25
Author note: Wishing the train trip to NOLA was over. It’s a two-day train ride. My ass hurts, my back hurts, my sciatica is acting up and there’s literally no place on this train where I can stretch.
Long layover in San Antonio with no announcements as to why we’re delayed, although I did ask a conductor and got an answer right away: Tech problems with the toilets, he tells me! We certainly do want them operational.
My mind wanders to sexual realm: Has anyone on the train been fuckable in a traditional sense, like from my past sex life? Why yes — there was kind of a jock/college type on for part of the initial journey. I think he got off at Tucson, probably a U of A student. (As a matter of fact, a tremendous amount of the train pop got off at Tucson.) That day (Monday) was a week after Easter so maybe they were coming back from break? Anyway, he possessed that young manly beauty where it’s effortless, and this guy seemed self-effacing, so that he didn’t even realize how attractive (and really, stunning) he was to an older gay man like me. Or maybe he does, who knows? We had no interaction. We did not exchange looks. I have no reason to think he was either gay or straight or anything.
One thing definitely different on this trip (than the last train ride, I guess) is I’m more invisible. I feel this. There is less slack given to an older person, and not just in the sexual realm but everywhere. People are just not willing to put up with older people and I can really feel a difference, although it’s not like I’m saying it’s terrible, it’s just different. Cuteness won’t get you anywhere, i.e., because you’re no longer cute and they don’t look at you the way they used to. Or maybe it’s just that I’m crabby. From lack of sleep?
Question for the blogger: When was the last time I was actually cruised, as in real life, and not on an “app?” I will have to think about that one.
But I did take some stills, so here’s a few for you.
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