Taniith’s Relto

I know, I haven’t written anything for a while. My apologies, I have just been lazy. I’ll try to get something down about the three cities I’ve stayed in since getting off that train in Salt Lake.

As for now, I just had my first of two (was three, but I fixed that) coach trips on Amtrak, arriving in Spokane. Mysterium begins tomorrow morning, and I’m super psyched. On my second trip to Powells in Portland, I happened upon something completely by accident. Without intending to, I was in the exact right section, glanced at the shelf behind me without expecting to see anything interesting, and came face-to-face with a near mint, *hardcover* copy of Myst: the Book of Atrus! For those who don’t know, there have been three Myst books published, discussing the backstory of the Myst universe (or, Multiverse as it were). I own all three in paperback, but it is incredibly rare to find even a tattered copy in hardcover (we fans would never give ours up), so to find one in great condition for such a cheap ‘used book store’ price was unbelievable. I had to hold back the urge to start making loud noises of happiness in the store, as I don’t think that would have gone over well.

I think this find and purchase bodes well for this Mysterium!

Remember that whole delay thing? We just finally got in to Salt Lake a little after 2am, despite being scheduled for 11pm. Did I already say some of that? I don’t really care if I did because I’m tired and its almost 3am. I had to call the hotel a second time once it was past 1am (which is what I told them the first time). Thankfully, my room was waiting for me. Its your generic Hilton ‘blah’, and I somehow have double twin beds, but I’ll make due. I chose it because it was the only one available, not because it looked like a good hotel, remember?

My sleeper attendant didn’t even know I was going here. He came by around 11 to ask if I wanted my seats bed-ified, and was surprised when I told him I was getting off at Salt Lake, whenever we got to it. He said he’d drop by about a half hour before we got there to let me know. Needless to say, I had to figure it out on my own; he did eventually show up to open the door, and had obviously been asleep. Not so much with the tipping this time, that’s all I have to say.

I think I need sleep, and eventually a shower. *ugh*

PS. Did I mention that they charge for wifi? So if you’re wondering what took so long for these posts, it was so that I could buy the 24 hours when I would only have another 24 hours.

-K

We are currently stopped at Green River, Wyoming. It’s a train yard on the Union Pacific line that were are using to go around the maintenance on the normal track for the Zephyr. Apparently, we would normally stop at Green River Utah, so this is the counterpart stop, to change over to the new staff on the way to Salt Lake.

Its actually a blessing that we are taking this less scenic route, because that repair work last night put us 4 or 5 hours behind schedule; however, this route is faster and we are now only an hour or so behind. It seems that there was a bridge that we needed to use to cross the Missouri River that needed emergency repairs and inspection. They also had to send a pair of empty coal cars out over it first to make sure it would be able to hold the weight of this train.

I just gave the hotel in Salt Lake a call. This was the first on I booked because it was the only city that seemed to be almost entirely sold out! As I now know, the big festival is happening this week which would explain the problem. My confirmation said it was guaranteed for late arrival, but I decided not to take a chance since we’ll end up getting there sometime around midnight or 1am. It’s a good thing I called to; it seems they are full and, in fact, overbooked. They transferred me to someone at the front desk who said she would put a note of my very late arrival so my room would not be given away; hopefully that will work just fine *knock on wood*.

Meanwhile, I had dinner with an interesting pair of other individual travelers. One is a theater teacher and dramaturge, who also does on class on some sort of interactive media. The other is a man who teaches life skills to autistic people till age 22 (from the end of 12th grade, for four years). He, apparently, likes to use theater as a means for helping them express themselves. It was all a very interesting conversation.

Also, apparently there is now a group of people who believe that letting children play video games can cause them to become autistic. Oh, and eating wheat or any dairy product also does the same. None of the three of us bought in to any of that, though.

-K

We’re now at Fort Morgan, Colorado, at 11am. Of course, the schedule says it should be 5am. Yeah, we’re a bit behind. Fort Morgan is a stop where some sort of something happens that requires about 5 minutes of waiting, so it’s a chance to get off the train and stretch. Very warm and insanely sunny. But it was nice to get some air and watch people climbing all over the engine. It sounds like, from the current announcement, we got a new running crew for the train.

I made a point of staying outside till the end this time, specifically so I could hear a good, old fashioned, “All Aboard!”. They didn’t disappoint :D

-K

We’re somewhere on the way to Omaha. Its just about 11, but soon it will be 10. Looking out the window is like looking into ink. There isn’t even enough light to see silhouetted shapes of trees (or corn), save for the occasional distant flicker. Its really kind of nice; so rarely do complete darkness show up in places like Newton and Worcester. Even at Waterville, back when we had it, it never got totally dark. I’m starting to really enjoy the trains. Like our attendant said when we got on, riding the train can almost be therapeutic.

I do think, next time, I’ll take Serita’s lead and get one of the larger rooms (with in-built toilet). Looking in on even the middle size, its really a drastic change on the quality of the accommodations for just a bit more square footage.

*time jump one hour*

The darkness out the window is just so interesting that I decided to walk down to the lounge car and stare at it in the company of other night owls. You know what they say, ’stare too long into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you. (actually, I’m the only person I know who says that, but whatever). Trekking down, I discovered most of the train staff sitting in the dining car just relaxing. There were a few people in the lounge, and I just sat down and stared into the void. But I soon learned that I had missed an announcement about the train. It seems that the tracks ahead are undergoing maintenance and we may end up several hours behind schedule. This, on top of the hour we were already behind (which they claimed we would probably make up before this). Oh well, I guess it might be even later of an arrival tomorrow night (or maybe the next morning, heh). I just hope we’re not too late on the next leg, because I stupidly bought tickets to that show about 4 hours after we’re supposed to arrive in Sacramento.

We don’t seem to be moving again. This is going to make sleeping somewhat difficult; I’ll miss the rocking. Maybe I’ll take this opportunity to go write up my bit about Chicago (though to you it will look like it came first. Ah, the magic of blogs).

-K

The first of two, eventually. We crossed over the Mississippi River (hey, knowing how to spell that finally came in handy!), and I had a chat with a fellow in the lounge car who talked really fast. I mean really fast. I had to guess about half of what he said. I just kind of excused myself pretty soon thereafter.

Just now at dinner, I was seated with a man and two of his sons headed home to Salt Lake (which is where I’m headed, so that worked out). By the Maker, I swear this guy was just like Professor Farbrook back at WPI. He looked similar, acted similar, made the same kind of jokes and had the same accent. The only real difference was that he didn’t have quite as loud a laugh. Also, there is this bloke with a huge beard and substantial hair that reminded me of Prof. Rosenstock; but I digress.

This fellow gave me some tips about what to see at Salt Lake. Apparently, there is a rodeo happening every day this week, and there is some state holiday on Friday (I leave late that night) with what he said might be the largest parade in the country. Given where my hotel is, in the middle of downtown, I guess I’ll probably see it.

Then he had a tip for up in Spokane. Apparently there’s this place called Courdalane (or something) in a neighboring state (I feel like it was Idaho but not knowing geography I’m hesitant to say so). He said its pretty close to Spokane and is a nice relaxing nature resort spot. I might end up renting that car in Spokane after all.

Oh, and we just had an interesting stop over; we needed to get onto the left-hand track for some reason, and they had to do the switch manually. We switch tracks plenty, but its usually handled electronically, so it is a bit strange. Too bad we couldn’t watch ;D

-K

Well, now I’m on the California Zephyr, which uses the double-decker superliner trains the most of the country uses. They can’t use them on the eastern tracks because the bridges and tunnels are so low. For now, I’m on the second level, so it’s a nice view. Of corn. So much corn! There was a bunch on the way from Boston to Chicago, but it was nothing compared to what’s out here! Though, it isn’t all that unexpected. I can see how driving through this could get boring real fast.

But the view is completely unobstructed most of the time; just those unending hills of corn. When the tracks are raised high enough, it almost starts to blur together and look like a sort of carpet, begging to have some large hand come down and create a depression in it (as happens to carpet). Quite obviously, someone has their anti-aliasing settings up too high, and that’s why its all blurring together… probably too much motion blur as well. You know, the world would be so much faster if the settings were turned down ;p

-K