Big Bear Lake, CA

Our first day at Big Bear Lake's Serrano Campground started yesterday, with a trip to Whole Foods in LA for provisions that will carry us down the road, starting with duck liver pate on whole grain with olives and banana. It feels like it's 100 degrees outside and there's no air in the Ford.

Just 100 miles outside LA, but a different world altogether. Getting to Big Bear Lake's ultimate 7000-foot elevation requires navigating some twisty roads. Can you smell the pine air, cooler by the elevated foot?

Finally nestled in the San Bernardino National Forest, it's time to unpack, re-pack, and organize.

You know you're camping when:

you have a single skillet for eggs, bacon, and shitake

and

you use the leftover olive oil from oiling the washed skillet on your legs

Art echoes Big Bear Solar Observatory, which judging from this link could take greater advantage of this teaching moment. Fractal-like solar granules as large as the state of Maine, which are actually mini granules?

Walked to the marina store for ice. Do they all look like some version of this?

Cooler maintenance is Job 1 around here. Actually, truck maintenance is, but cooler maintenance comes in a close second.

Art's looking particularly fashionable in his koi shirt, a gift from Bruce before we left. Those fish look as good on a shirt as they do on a sidewalk. I haven't broken out my matching one, but I will...

Anaheim Ford Update +A Goose Named Turkey

This is Turkey the goose, who nestles himself on a peepad under the desk of Cammy, business assistant at Stadium Mercedes, where some good work was done on our Ford truck. It's clear to me not much would be accomplished without her.

 

Cammy discovered the tiny gooselet under a shrub in her yard and nursed it to full health. She says Turkey adopted her, and she hopes to release him into a wild preserve soon.

Alrighty then. All this is from a couple days back. We took a taxi from the Amtrak station directly to the shop. Here Art's charging up some on-board batteries.

Plus there's a lot going on under the hood--new regulator, solenoid, and more mostly unexpected fixes that kept us around far longer than we thought. I don't even want to be reminded of how hot it was in LA that day (I'm sitting now in the cool mountains, but that's another post). Hotter than the hinges to hell, as a pal says. What's up with people who love LA? No offense to our friends who live there (and next time we promise we'll visit but we've got places to be this trip), but really?

Loading up the fresh-water tank. We'll need it.

People of the Train

Every Amtrak trip includes sitting across from new people in the dining car. Here are Pat and Ken from Sydney, Australia, who are on a six-week tour around the US and Canada. They'd already visited Niagara Falls and were getting off the train in Lamy, NM, for a tour of the Grand Canyon. We laughed a lot.

Tuesday night's table featured a marginal turkey shank but lots more laughter with Susan from St Louis, going to CA to hold her new grandchild for the first time, and the vigorously healthy 82-year-old John from Sedona, returning from St Louis where his granddaughter had been married.

The circle of life.

None of us knew each other well when we started but by meal's end they were close to throwing us out of the dining car for boisterous behavior. One look and you can see why.

 

When their shifts end, engineers and conductors swap out with fresh ones.

Grilled Angus beef burger for lunch one day in the dining car.

Art is making too many pix of me, here trying to work the blasted ipad hotspot in a literal hotspot in Albuquerque. Behind my smile I assure you I'm hiding a bad attitude about technology.

I enjoy this half-hour stop because the first nations vendors are out selling their wares.

On Tuesday we were awakened at 4:30 am Pacific Time by our car attendant to make it to 5 am breakfast before disembarking in Fullerton not long afterward. Chris and Ralph from Cleveland joined us, looking fresh as daisies. They're on their way to Hawaii via LAX tomorrow, a trip they've dreamed about for quite a while.

I, on the other, hand, sent Art ahead to make the early dining car time and when I arrived promptly sat down with a threesome featuring a guy who looked vaguely like my beloved. One table over, Art himself choked on his coffee laughing.

It's already been a long day and we're currently at a Mercedes automotive place in Anaheim, where some unexpected work is being done on the Ford truck in heat that can only be described as clay-oven. The friendly receptionist came to work with a goose named Turkey who is nestled on a poop pad under her desk. I'm sharing their blessedly air conditioned space, writing to you as a bag of crickets chirps merrily nearby, unaware of their fate as Turkey's 3 pm snack.

Music of the Train

Sunday night's sleep was intermittent as the train swayed, jerked, and grooved on the track west of Kansas City. The sounds are a peculiar form of train jazz: syncopated and free form with the loneseome scream of the locomotive horn standing in for trumpet.

Monday morning and all day, the world slips past in pictures...

Art calls this Amtrak blood pressure. Nice pulse too.

Beautiful Trinidad, CO

(sex change capital of the US)

Storefront in Raton, NM

Utterly different flora unfolds

Meanwhile, inside our bedroom car: bathroom/shower combo

The tiny Lamy, NM, station, 

where passengers disembark for nearby Santa Fe and environs.

Pulling out of Lamy...

More Southwest Chief

You might think a 25-pound cooler, stowed accessibly on the lower level of our train car, would hold enough food, but you'd be wrong. Overflow veg and fruits await afternoon snack time in my pack.

Art has his computer GPS receiver stuck to the window (second shot below) so he can track our progress (just below) on his computer.

Maria cleans the step-down handles on a brief stop while I'm just lazy.

I'm reading The Silent Wife, by the late ASA Harrison. The publisher hails it as "better than Gone Girl" and it has some fine blurbs from two of our favorite authors, though I'm not yet convinced. Enjoying it, though.

Amtrak Lodging

For a long train trip, reserving one of the big bedrooms is half the fun. It's a good size with a private toilet (and shower, if you choose to use it). And there's a car attendant who takes care of your every need, from making fresh coffee in the morning to dropping by with chocolate kisses.

Here's our friendly and capable car attendant Maria, helping with a new passenger's baggage this morning.

She's taken good care of us, even as we make odd pictures with the room-enlarging funhouse mirror.

Before dinner last night, Art waves a rum-filled flask. I think he's ready for a cocktail.

Much later, Maria positions the beds for sleeping (above, Art's sitting in the corner of the bed below when it's in seat form).

Sign near our car's coffeemaker.

All Aboard the Southwest Chief

Right up top, three reasons to love Amtrak:

That's 130 pounds of bags to stow...and we were permitted another 50-pounder. It's like Christmas in September for we who want to stock our camper the minute we meet up.

You can carry on quite a bit too.