On the Coast Starlight

After the wine tasting in the dining car, I went back to my room to relax. The room was unbearably warm, so I found the SCA and asked if there was any way to turn the heat down. He said he made a slight adjustment, and it cooled down slightly. The heat was pouring out from a bottom vent underneath the windows, which made it hard to sit next to the window because of the stifling heat. It wasn’t so bad if I sat near the door, but I wanted to look out the window. The scenery continued to be breathtaking.  The tracks are right along the water here, and I watched the waves of the Pacific crashing against the beach and rocks.  I was able to see dolphins jumping up out of the water and into the air.  It was just glorious.  We also headed into some pretty farmland, and I saw many black cattle grazing on lush green hills.  At 5:30 PM, I headed down to the PPC to have dinner. I talked with a family who had overheard me mention that I had taken the train all the way from Rhode Island.

Mel brought over the standard Amtrak salad and roll, and then he also told me that he had several other dressings in the fridge if I was interested. I declined and went with the Newman’s Own organic Balsamic Vinagrette, which has been my standby on this trip. And the Amtrak roll continued to be delicious. I had pre-placed my dinner order with Mel, the PPC attendant, and he brought that out in a few minutes. I had the ancho chile beef. It was a tougher piece of meat that had been slow cooked so that it was falling apart. I am might not sure if it had maybe been braised at some point before brining it on the train. In any case, it was delicious and was accompanied by rice pilaf and some mixed vegetables of broccoli & carrots. This was by far the best meal that I had on the train to date. I also had another glass of the Rabbit Ridge Zinfandel. This was also the only meal where I was able to dine by myself, and it was a little refreshing to not have to make conversation with people. I love people, and talking to people, but after four straight days it is getting to be a bit much. The other nice thing about this meal, compared to the others, is that the food was served on real plates and with real glasses, versus the cheap plastic stuff on the LSL and the SWC.

After dinner I headed back to my room, which continued to be sweltering. The only able that I was able to stand the heat was to just put the bed back down and lay directly underneath the air vent that was trickling out some cool air by the door. By this point it had also gotten dark, so I decided to just succumb to sleep. As I was drifting off, the SCA came by knocking. I struggled up and unlatched the door, and he wanted to know if I wanted my bed put down. I told him that I knew the secret and that it was down already.

I woke up at about 6 AM as we pulled into Redding, CA. A quick check of the timetable showed that we were now running 3 hours behind schedule.  It was still dark out and I felt grimy, so I hopped into the attached shower in my room. This shower was definitely bigger. It had a curved door and the sides were curved, which gave me just a little more room so it didn’t feel like my butt was rubbing the wall. I took advantage of the “amenity kit” which included some shampoo and condition for showering. The water pressure did not feel as strong on this train as on the SWC, so it took what felt like forever to get all of the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair.

At about 6:45 AM, I headed into the dining car for breakfast. I was seated by myself at a table and Donald came over to greet me and tell me about the specials. The special was cheese blintzes. I wasn’t sure about that, so I ordered the standby French Toast with sausage.  I was also pleased to see that this dining car included a real cloth tablecloth as well as ceramic mugs & plates. My French Toast came out shortly, along with some artificial syrup, and then a woman from Vancouver joined me for the remainder of my breakfast. The sun was starting to sie, but it was so cloudy out that we didn’t really get to see any sort of sunrise. As I was able to see outside, I noticed that there were snow on the ground and we were passing through the mountains. Large pine trees dominated the landscape, and swollen rivers came down from the mountain.  It was also alternating between snow and rain.  The big negative about this is that the windows are all wet and it is making picture taking very, very difficult right now.  We also keep stopping to let freight trains roll past us – I can see how this route ends up delayed!

I am now sitting in the PPC writing up my report. I can’t seem to get the Amtrak wifi in the PPC to work, and the mifi is having some trouble as well. Hopefully I can get this posted soon!

I have already made a reservation to eat lunch in the PPC, and the car seems to be filling up now that it is 8 AM. I will sit here for a while since it is so unbearably hot in my bedroom – AND the views are better since I can see out of both sides of the car. Mel is also offering everyone what appears to be unlimited juice and coffee, which is a nice bonus.  So far the amenities on the CS make this train even more enjoyable than my first two trains.