The Great Train Trip- part the Twenty-eighth

(Wherein our hero gets ready to leave the City of Angels and travel many miles up the West coast to Seattle!) One of the things I wanted to look into in LA was the Metro Lounge for us “Luxury travelers.” I knew it was located in the Union Depot somewhere and so it was Google time to find out where it was. For some reason I thought it might be in the basement behind some locked doors with a sign that read “Beware the Leopard!” From what I can gather it’s almost that difficult to find. So I am going to the  depot just a bit early and see if it’s possible to partake of its wonders. It’s the little things on this trip that amaze and amuse.

One little thing that I did not anticipate was time differentials! My body clock is on Central daylight Time and I am in the Pacific Daylight time zone! So I am up in what is the middle of the night but at home it’s about dawn! How screwed up can you get? But breakfast is at 6:00, so I can get that out of the way, settle up with the Hotel and hit the road early.

Another thing that was not on my radar was California is still in a drought situation and every thing is oriented to saving the amount of water used. Cool it in the shower, don’t use too many towels and if you are drinking the water, get it from a bottle not the tap! ( of course, what heck do you expect when you put a major city in what essentially a desert without any water resources and tell every body to come out and enjoy the sunny weather! And they did!)

Some observations while I am at it. Every water course in LA is a cement gorge! And from my observation there was no water in the cement valleys!  The city has grown in some strange ways, especially on the edges. It seems that as the center expanded the junk, businesses that dealt in transport or manufacture all were pushed to the edges and none too neatly. If there was an empty lot a house was put on to it, maybe two or even three. The same was true if there was a pile of dirt disguised as a mountain, put building on, around, on the side of it. Oh, yes and paint them strange colors! Someone canned the rainbow and used it as paint!  If you thought that some one lied about the “car culture,” they didn’t from the hotel window I can see a major free way and every time I look it’s filled with cars, I sure hope they have some idea where they are going.