Strom Travel Diaries

Day 9 – Saturday, December 25, 2021

When I woke up for good about 7 a.m., Mom had already gotten up and dressed. Once I was ready and she’d brushed her teeth, we went to the dining car for breakfast. We’d already passed through Sacramento and were heading towards San Francisco. We passed through the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and saw lots of ducks. But as we went around Grizzly Bay, we saw a double rainbow!

The train didn’t go into San Fran—the closest we got was Oakland. And then it was on to San Jose. But we just seemed to see more and more birds: ducks, grebes, egrets, herons, vultures, hawks, coots, gulls, cormorants, geese, and what I’m guessing were willets. Then, just after San Jose, I think we were passing the Elkhorn Slough State Marine Reserve, and we saw a bunch of egrets, gulls, and wading birds. Then Mom said, “Is that an otter or just a log?” Dear reader, not only was it an otter but just a few feet away were a whole passel of otters, some of which we were able to watch hopping in the water! Later research found that these were sea otters as opposed to river otters.

Of course, the train doesn’t stop for otters, so we kept going, past orchards and vineyards and mountains and windmills. We went to lunch at 1:30 (Mom had a salad and I had chili on a baked potato), where we kept to a similar pattern that we had before and sat on the opposite side of the train from where our roomette was. We like to vary our view. We were glad we had done that because towards the end of lunch we saw another rainbow!

After lunch, we went down to the lounge car and sat on that side as well, and were very glad we did. From the left side of the car, we saw sweeping vistas as the train came through some mountains and around a valley, perhaps the Salinas River Valley, on the way to San Luis Obispo. We went through several tunnels on the way and were able to see both the front and back of the train as it navigated the curving rails.

After San Luis Obispo we made our way back to our roomette since we knew that we were on the side that would have the best views anyway. We caught some glimpses of the ocean as we sped on our way, though the train went inland for a bit and we only caught sight of dunes every once in a while. But it was all worth it once we did get closer to the Pacific. The train traveled alongside several mostly deserted beaches for a bit (they were rather rocky, though we did spy a few people scattered around) before the beaches petered out and the train was going along a cliffside that ran straight down to the ocean, with large crags sticking up out of the surf and seemed to be coming out from below the train. At one point we joked that Amtrak should offer a bungee activity off the side of the train for anyone who wanted to take a dip, it seemed that close to the edge. We could see the waves crashing against a few lone rocks that were a bit further out. We, of course, saw plenty of seagulls but also spied about four pelicans swooping along the coast as the light began to fade.

We eventually left the coast and came a little bit more inland as we got closer to L.A. and the stops we had to make on the way. We had made pretty good time on this trip and made it to Union Station (just about everywhere it’s “Union Station” except for Seattle, where it was King Street Station, and smaller stations that are simply unnamed) around 10. After we got our bag, we walked through the gorgeous entrance to the main part of the station, which was all a mix of Art Deco, Mission Revival (that very Spanish California style), and Streamline Moderne—thank you Wikipedia. We finally got a Lyft despite the fact that I had not considered it was Christmas Eve until the moment I logged in and saw how difficult it was to find a driver.

As we waited we were treated to a very L.A. welcome outside the station as a security guard yelled at a woman to pull her pants up and the woman yelled back that she had to pee. I’ll state here that one of the things that struck us most on this whole trip is the sheer scale of the homelessness epidemic in our country. It was absolutely heartbreaking and the subject of many of our discussions during our trip. We know a lot of factors play into homelessness: mental illness, abusive relationships, drug and/or alcohol abuse, and physical disabilities to name just a few. But it became increasingly clear, too, that the cities we were visiting all needed to put many more resources into not only helping the current homeless population but also into programs to address the causes of homelessness in the first place. *steps down off of soapbox*

So, we finally got that Lyft and made our way to our hotel, the Westin Bonaventure. Dear reader, it was swank. Water features in the lobby. A circular café area in the middle. Once we had checked in, we were told that our room was in the middle tower. THAT’S RIGHT. I SAID TOWER. We got on the elevator. IT WAS A FRICKIN’ GLASS ELEVATOR FROM THE LOBBY UP THE OUTSIDE OF THE TOWER. I nearly exploded from excitement. We got to our room and found that it also had an in-room coffee/tea maker. ALSO VERY EXCITING. I don’t know why some of these fancy places don’t have either an in-room coffee/tea maker or a free coffee/tea bar, but I was very pleased to see this one. We had us some chamomile tea before bed!