My idea on this trip was to keep blogging all the way when ever and where ever possible. Again “I was hoisted on my own Pitard!” I forgot that the Internet was dependant on electronic signals ( how soon we forget sitting in our bed room with steady constant signals seeming coming in from the ether!) So as the train is traveling up the Pacific coast and I am enjoying myself watching the scenery go by, I am happily typing away and suddenly there is no signal, no bars, nothing! And the computer informs me, ” No Service!” What the heck? Come to the realization that no matter what I thought, you just don’t have an Internet connection in the mountains- as you have no antennas or any place to put them- ( Now in Los Angeles, they disguise them as palm trees- not a very good disguise as they have all these antenna things sticking out of them and if they looked like palm trees nobody was fooled- then it occurred to me that maybe they had just stuck the antenna in a real Palm tree!) Oh by the way, for an old Midwesterner, palm trees look fake! They look like the green men from the movie studios put them together to amuse the tourists. They cannot be real!
Also I found that if there was a signal no matter how weak it would not follow you into a tunnel and there are many tunnels in the mountains of the northwest. ( I don’t recall the early pioneers having a problem with this on the Oregon trail, and Jim Bridger didn’t mention it in his diaries of the difficulties he experienced on his way west. ) And there was the maddening delay between when you exited the tunnel and the signal finally caught up to your computer again. More often than not I resorted to writing out my ideas on paper using a pencil ( as low tech as possible!) and then transcribing the material when I had a signal again. Then there was the business of keeping all the things charged- The train has plugs but usually there is only one that was accessible so if you did not have a multiple outlet with you there is a good chance something was going to blow it’s battery charge before every thing was up to snuff. ( my I-pad requires two cords one for the pad and one for the key board and each charges differently!)
Once you get going traveling a remarkable thing happens, you lose track of what day it is. This can be good or bad- good if you are trying just to get away from things, bad if you have to be somewhere on time with your act together. I keep losing track of the day so I depend on my I-phone for that information and so far it’s doing a good job- now as for time it has a bit of a problem keeping up with the zone changes but eventually it’s caught up.
Oh, yes, I forgot to mention one thing about communal dining on the train, some times it’s a dead loss! I was seated at lunch with three people from China! They were barely conversant in English and my Chinese is known to be none existent so lunch was pretty much quiet! They had Pork shanks and I had the famous Amtrak Angus steak burger! But they were nice enough folks. ( they got off the train in Portland- in case anyone was interested.)
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