It all started the day before the trip, we had to drop our dog Lucky off at my sister's friend's house. The next day, a bus arrived and we locked up the house and put our suitcases in the back of the bus. The seats were comfy. One hour later we arrived at the train station and started our adventure. We grabbed window seats on the train to look at the beautiful views on our way from Boston to Chicago. The trip took about nine hours and we ate a good dinner on the train. After dinner, we went to a sleeper car where we each had a cramped bunk to sleep in. At about 6:00 AM, we arrived in Chicago. There, we changed trains to head to San Francisco. When we left Chicago, we rolled though the Great Plains. The plains looked like a big sea of grass. We slept on the train that night, in a large room with regular-sized beds. When we woke up, we were in Nebraska, and Daddy and I got off for a quick picture. We then headed towards Denver. We left Denver in the early afternoon. Then we went through the Rocky Mountains. The mountains had a lot of trees. I could see a good view of the other mountains. The sky was very blue. The clouds looked like big fluffy sheep. We went to bed as the train rolled through Utah, and the next day we got off in San Francisco! We stayed in a hotel and my Grandma bought me a rainbow peacock. We visited an art museum. Daddy try to get me under the picture of the man throwing up a rainbow. I refused. We also dipped our toes in the Pacific ocean, and saw the Golden Gate bridge. Finally we saw the town in a V.W. bus. We took a plane home and was happy we had Lucky back. Ashleigh Rest in peace puppy!
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This is going to be the last post dedicated to the train trip. Not the entire vacation; don't worry- I have plenty left to say about my 3 day stay in San Francisco. This is just going to close out the last bit of the trip that was on the train. I don't have much commentary here, so get ready for some gorgeous photos as we come out of the Sierras and into the outskirts of California. Some of my funny memories from this part of the trip include my dad getting frustrated with our car attendant and being mooned by rafters on the water. Not much to say other than the country was beautiful the whole way across.... and I had no idea how much open terrain there was. Next week, I'll tie up the vacation with a few posts about San Francisco.
I'm going to take a break from pictures for a moment to just do a bit of an appreciation/bonding post. Over the course of the trip, I did a lot of bonding with my dad, since we were rooming together. We had many hilarious conversations; particularly at night when there were no sights to be seen. While the scenery was gorgeous, some of my best memories on the trip were made in moments and conversations with my dad. So, here is a special post just for you, dad.
Thank you for the late night conversations. Thank you for the unforgettable jokes and comedy routines in the viewing car. Thank you for the butter-fueled childish humor at every meal possible. Thank you for the edible late-night ammunition (if you know what I mean, musket balls, wink wink, nudge nudge) Thank you for all the excitement and good vibes of the entire trip. Thank you for putting up with my poor attitude. Thank you for not being too bothered by my constant showering. Thank you for the non-stop commentary on the people and sights around us. Thank you for teaching me to appreciate nature, and the little things around me. Thank you for not buying a train souvenir blanket. God, that would've been embarrassing. Thank you for putting up with my annoying ass for 3 days while sharing a room with me. Thank you for allowing me to experience the trip of a lifetime. Thank you for everything. I am in no way even close to being finished with mountain photos. I guess I'm not too good at shortening things up... oh well. It's worth all the extra posts. I had missed quite a few anyway, and I have so many to share! The entire experience was too great to not photograph and explain in detail. I'll be entirely honest with you- I have no clue at what point in these photos that the mountains go from being the Rockies to the Sierra Nevadas. I just know that both ranges were beautiful. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is where the Sierras begin.
My sister and I sadly got bored of scenery fast... to give you an idea of that, I'm going to begin this post NOT with scenery but with a handful of selfies we took together. Then, I'll break for a moment to talk about an interesting character I met on the train and finish off with some good scenery. BUCKLE UP! Yeah.... there was a LOT of dining car stupidity. To be honest, I think she and I spent more time on our iPods and iPads than anything else during the trip. Fear not, however- there was no wifi for the last portion of the trip; so we were forced to intake the beauty around us. Speaking of which; I'll show you some more right now. Wondering why you're suddenly seeing a mascot head and not mountains? Well, this was an interesting highlight of my trip, to be honest. You never know who you're going to meet on these trips, and I met an advanced engineer who designs mascot heads and travels to conventions for a living. I didn't ask how he managed to make money doing this, but the mascot head itself was gorgeous and very complex on the inside. Over 640 parts went into it and on top of explaining how the mechanics of it worked, the guy also had some great stories from his times at different conventions and shows. I listened to him for 3-4 hours as the train rolled through the mountains, taking more photos along the way.
We were allowed off the train for the first time in Denver. Even though we had about 30 minutes to get off and walk about; we were very time-conscious and only got off for about 5 minutes. In that time-frame, I snapped this over-head photo of the train station. At this point, we were in a different schedule than most of the trains that make that route due to our four hour delay. This gave us great lighting and a gorgeous view that some people may never have experienced. Admittedly, I didn't take AS many photos in the Rockies because I was too busy absorbing the beauty for myself and listening to the facts about the trip. My dad, however, took many photos... and honestly; as we traveled through the Rockies he was one of the happiest versions of himself that I've ever seen. It was great. It was like watching a child on Christmas.
Since I don't have much more to say, I'll end this post with a few photos I snapped in the dining car. These were taken after my dad and I finished pulling a joke on my grandma... I won't go into embarrassing detail, but it involved butter and was a running joke and highlight of the trip for me. Dad will understand. Honestly, I have not much to say about the next few posts you're going to be seeing. The rest of the trip included a bigger sleeping room, much better food (since I knew what to order) and GORGEOUS scenery. As I progress through trips, I'll add in short memories... but most of the rest of the posts are going to be comprised solely of photos. Let's get started!!! The first part of our final leg of the trip took us through the great plains- which I won't lie, scared me with the endlessness of flat ground. I'm so used to hills and mountains that it was a shock to my system to see so much flat ground. SEE WHAT I MEAN?! Nothing but flat ground and open fields for MILES. I'd go crazy living out here. Nevertheless, it was still beautiful and I'm glad I got to experience it. This is the last post-worthy scenic photo I have in the great plains. Whoops, I lied. Those are the last photos I have from the great plains. Join me in my next post to see a small bit of Denver, get a few memorable stories, and begin the ascent into the Rockies.
Honestly, this post doesn't deserve to be titled "train trip". This post lacks us even being on a train, in fact! Remember how in my last post I stated that it was the last time anything during the vacation would be on time? The horror started in Chicago when our train ran FOUR HOURS LATE due to maintenance problems. First, a vacuum pump went. Next, the entire engine needed to be replaced. It was pretty ridiculous; considering we had been there 4 hours earlier than our initial boarding time to begin with. Thank god there was at least a lounge that provided wifi, food, and drinks for us to wait in for the train... if we had been out in the station, I think we all would have wound up in bad moods. In any case, it didn't take long for boredom to hit both me and my sister, so I dedicate the rest of this post to our stupidity while waiting for the California Zephyr to get its shit together. At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure all of us- and by that I mean everyone who had to deal with the 4 hour delay- looked like my dad in the above photo. Thank god the next three days went smoothly and were enjoyable.
YES, FINALLY! I am putting out my half of the trip, now that it's been about a week and my dad has already stolen all the glory of it with pictures and witty remarks. Ah well, I'll certainly try to redeem myself! I'm going to break these posts up into pretty short things with a few pictures each, and try to summarize the awesome trip as best I can. Before our trip even began, my dad and I had to get up early to bring my dog over to my friend's house. She had agreed to watch him while we were gone. The thing about leaving him with her was, that she had two cats and Lucky had never been around cats before. Within 10 minutes of being home, I had my first update on my dog- he wasn't exactly "getting along" with the cats: In any case, there wasn't much to be done about things now- we were set to leave by car at about 9:00. The car (or should I say bus) arrived on time and within an hour of pick-up we were in Boston at our first train station of the trip. The first leg of the trip took us on a ride from Boston to Albany. The train wasn't a sleeper train, and the ride in and of itself was long and boring. To entertain myself, I wound up using snapchat filters on my family and turned out with some amusing results such as the photos above. We finally got into Albany, though, and this is where our trip truly began in my eyes. Little did we know, this was the last part of the vacation that would be as on-time as we predicted. Since the train from Albany was only taking us to Chicago; we had to make one more stop and board one more train before embarking on the last leg of the trip. Since it was a day trip; we had sleepers on the Albany - Chicago train. The rooms were a LOT smaller than I had predicted; and in the beginning I was quite claustrophobic. When we finally did leave our rooms to get food in the dining car, I was met with even further disappointment at the bare choice on the menu. I can't say much about the dish I got on this train... it was my fault for going with noodles in alfredo sauce and not steak. I will say that the meal itself tasted like bile. Don't worry- things got better after this. The train got better after dinner ended. I wound up making a blanket fort for myself on the bottom bunk in our traincar (I was rooming with my dad) and since the train had good wifi, I wound up falling asleep at 2am after a long talk with my boyfriend (mainly surrounding the small living areas and shitty food).
Here are the last of my pics from our vacation. The first picture was taken on the pier in the Embarcadero. Given we were in San Francisco, I thought this shirt would be fun to walk around in. One stoner actually came up to me and said "alright shrooms! That's an awesome shirt! He then tried to sell me other shirts with "dubious" messages. (Get it... dubious?) On Monday we did a tour of the city with the "San Francisco Love Tours". The tours are given in old VW vans painted with psychedelic scenes in bright colors. Since there were four of us, we got a personal tour! Here is Ashleigh in front of our van. The archway is something that was constructed for the World's Fair that was held in San Francisco. Meanwhile the shoreline and building above is a view of part of the Presidio. It was getting foggy just as we got to the Golden Gate bridge. This was the best picture I could get. Maddie really looks like her mother Sharon in these two pictures. Standing on the curb helped her to get to about the right height too. Haight/AshburySan Francisco has a lot of murals, particularly in the Haight/Ashbury area. The one below is of Jerry Garcia. See if you can find Jimi Hendrix in the following pictures. There's Jimi! Yep up near the roof line there. Unfortunately, that was the best picture I could get. The rest didn't come out too well. The mural above the store has Janis Joplin featured. The pink house is where she lived when she was in San Francisco. Believe it or not, That gated house is where the Grateful Dead lived while they were in San Francisco. The new owner put up a gate because she was tired of people coming up, sitting on the porch and lighting up joints. Below, San Francisco has really embraced gay pride. Below is what I called the gay crosswalk. Lombard Street...The Crooked Street!Feet In The Pacific!The girls have now dipped their feet in the oceans on either side of the country. Here is a shot with their feet in the Pacific. When my mom first graduated nursing school back in 1961, she left Canada with three friends. My Mom had wanted to go west, to San Francisco, but the other three wanted to go to New York... So off she went. It's been 55 years, but she has finally made it to San Francisco. As Jerry Garcia used to say. "It's been a long strange trip". I hope you enjoyed it Mom. Not only the vacation, but the choice you made in 1961.
San Francisco is an interesting city. We did a number of things, and took pictures along the way. In Chinatown, we mainly shopped the many stores there, so we only have the one picture below. The rest of the pics are from The Museum of Modern Art and other parts of the city. San Francisco's Museum of Modern ArtAshleigh refused to move over one more step to the left! In hindsight, probably not a bad call, though I think it would have made for a funny picture. To be fair, Ashleigh took my photo with the same work of art. I call this work "The Art Critic"! Essentially, this is how I felt about nearly half of the stuff we saw. I guess modern art is an acquired taste. I did take pictures of the ones I liked. You can see them below. Only in San Francisco ... A psychedelic Lincoln! They had a number of Andy Warhol pieces there. I am not a huge fan, but here are my two favorites from the ones they had. Maddie finally let me take a picture of her! I think my picture taking might have embarrassed her. I'll try to get my last set of pictures up tomorrow.
Here are the last of the pictures from the Sierra Nevada mountain range. In the shot below, I liked the way the clouds and the sky looked behind this tree. To give you some idea to how high up we are here, that white line in the photograph is the wake of a full-sized boat! That's the last of the pics from this mountain range. Tomorrow, I will start with pictures from San Francisco.
On Friday morning, we awoke on the salt flats in Utah. Not much to see really, but I decided to put up a few pictures anyway. I will also have some of the pictures from the Sierra Nevada mountain range below. The Salt Flats & The DesertSome people lost interest in the salt flats rather quickly! A more normal-looking desert landscape soon followed, though. The Sierra Nevadas!Soon, the desert gave way to the start of the Sierra Nevadas. I am not sure where they actually started. The whole process was rather gradual. Here is a picture from where water we could see signs of water again. Note that water had been visible for a while... It just took me a while to get a decent picture of it! More from the Sierra Nevada Mountains tomorrow!
I took a lot of pictures on this trip! I hope you like them. For those of you who would rather read our posts, keep scrolling down for our old ones. Or just wait til next week for new ones without all the pictures. This was our first vacation in a number of years, so please bear with us and our pictures!
After leaving Chicago, there is not a lot of different things to see until after leaving Denver. Below are a few of the pictures I took on the way to Denver. First up is a picture of Iowa. Now Nebraska. Ashleigh in Nebraska. It seems to have more cows than people! Heading into Denver. A couple from Union Station in Denver. Our train from above the tracks! Don't get too excited... just a sign to remember where I was. Heading for the Rockies! Adios, Denver!
On Tuesday, July 5th we left for a cross-country trip across the U.S. by rail. We started in Boston and completed the journey in San Francisco. Unfortunately, Amtrak does not have WiFi on its trains running west of Chicago. My next few posts will be a catch up for the days we were travelling. I am going to add lots of photos to these next few blogs, showing off the beauty of our country. The Rocky Mountains were truly stunning! This post will focus on pictures from Boston to Chicago. And so it begins. Not much to see that is new or interesting as we leave Boston. So here is a picture of my Mom and Ashleigh. In upstate New York, we get our first view of how much of our country really looks. While the coastlines are highly populated, the interior of the country is largely farmland, and reasonably empty, except near the major waterways. This is a bridge over either the Eerie Canal or the Mohawk River... Likely the Eerie Canal. Unfortunately, I didn't know what I was looking at when I snapped the picture. I do know we were still in New York when I took the photo. This is a shot crossing the Mohawk River. Dusk on the river. Sunrise west of Toledo. Not everything is corn fields and rivers though. We also passed a number of industrial properties. Here are three examples below. Every once in a while, the sun hit the window in such a way that the picture comes out looking really freaky. I call this next shot "Ohio On Acid"! Sometimes, it is fun watching others trying to line up the perfect shot. I'll finish today's missive with a shot of Maddie trying to line up a photo.
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