The day before we left Washington we go and try to pick up rental car so john can take us to train station the next morning..well there's was a clerical error and the reservation didn't get moved from one calendar to another..so we had no rental car. John used his car to take us to train station..it hasn't been running well lately well it made it to train station and john got home safe.
We board the train in Pasco and the train is packed we had to walk all the way to the last car to find two seats together..for a moment didn't think we would find seats..so we are now on our way to Portland..on the way we had to stop suddenly because about 5mins up track there was a rock slide..we had to wait for them to clear the road..so we finally get to portland
In Portland the rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was insane..kinda looked like a hurricane was going through. anyway..we had to wait in Portland for about 4 hours till the train going to L.A got there.we go to board train and once again train is full. and the lady assigning seats messed up and it turned into a giant cluster fuck and we almost didn't get seats that time too. we overheard them say they think they booked to many people for this train. one guy didn't get a seat he kinda floated around the cars seat hopping till we got to L.A.
seating gets taken care and we start out trip to L.a.its still raining out and at one point there was thunder and lighting struck a field right outside gina's window..kinda startling.rain clears up and we saw a rainbow..kinda cool...So we are riding along and get just outside Eugene Oregon..between Eugene and chemult..right in the middle of nowhere and they slam on the brakes..we all got tossed a bit forward and thrown back in to our seats..we where all like oh shit what the fuck happened..a big tree fell and slammed into the engine and crashed into the window of the engine car. and layed on top of train.We lost power..had no lights, air, bathrooms didn't work..nothing and they wouldn't let us go outside because it sloped down on both sides..and there was nothing but trees on both sides..we then saw guys with chainsaws running along side train to cut apart the tree while we waited for a replacement engine car to get to us from chemult..which was about 2 hours..and the sun was going down so it was dark on that train..Amtrak passed out glow stick to everyone. we wanted to spell out help with the glow sticks and hang in window so people could see us..lol..
SO after two hours they get things fixed up and we continue to California.
the rest of the ride wasn't to bad..there was some kid with some bad b.o i mean really bad. it made the whole car stink. we didn't get much sleep on train. gina at one point was so tired she like passed out..i tried to wake her and she wouldn't wake up..i was about ready to slap her one to wake her up but her arm dropped off window sill thing and it startled her awake..it was kinda scary..we got seats on the wrong side of train.we didn't get to see much of the ocean when we got to it. tried to take pics..got a few. then with all the weather we ran into we didn't get to many pics for most of the train ride.
They managed to make up the time we lost when the tree hit and managed to get into L.A a half hour early..which was nice.
It was kind of an interesting ride with all the stuff that happened. hopefully the return trip is a little bit better.
To Recap:
we had rain,wind,snow(in Shasta),thunder& lighting,a tree falling on us, oh and dense fog in Martinez California....anyway..
Heres the some pics.
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| train ride down 2010 |
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