One must be flexible when traveling. (Can you hear it coming?) We made it into Emeryville and decided to check a few bags through to Los Angeles. The agent said there’s a train that’s two hours earlier than the one we were booked on so instead of having three hours to wait, we have only one, and will be into LA about 6:30, a couple hours ahead of schedule. Cool!
The hitch was, we had planned for my niece, Sylvie, to come over to Emeryville station from her home in Alameda to visit and have a meal before we had to leave again. So, quick change of plans, Sylvie said she’d come anyway and we could just have a brief visit in the station.
We were so glad to see Sylvie and her new baby, William. Bernadette had not seen Sylvie since 2017, and had not met William at all. I had had a chance to see them last October when I was in Roanoke for Dad’s birthday.
Soon, the Emeryville clerk announced that the train was delayed half an hour, so we just said “yay we can visit longer!” A couple hours later we were still waiting for that earlier train. Some difficulty getting out of Oakland; some mechanical thing needed fixing. So, when we finally got on our so-called earlier train, we were estimated to arrive in Los Angeles around 8:30pm, which is when we had originally been expecting to arrive. Flexibility! Wheee!
There was some lovely scenery and clouds as we headed back north a bit, then east, then southeast down through the San Joaquin Valley towards Bakersfield. On this train, because we had been rerouted, there were no roomettes available so we were riding regular coach. We found some seats with a table, which was nice to have, and kept our masks on.
We arrived in Bakersfield around 6pm, and made a mad dash to the connecting bus through the rain. I’m carrying my large backpack with me which has my computer in it and I keep it with me at all times, so I did not want to put it under the bus. I was thinking I could put it in the overhead bin but when I got on the bus, I discovered the overhead was way too shallow to fit my pack, so I just kept it on my lap. B did the same with our “food bag” (snacks and things we know we can eat since we have food allergies).
I settled in and buckled my seatbelt with some difficulty and was comfortably squished. Then the guy in front of me decided to lean his seat back. He couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t go back much and I was too tired and too polite to say anything. So we rode with bags on our laps for another two and a half hours, I could only breathe shallowly, but it was sufficient. When the bus stopped at LA Union Station and it looked like the guy in front of me was going to stand up without putting his seat back, THEN I tapped his shoulder and asked him to put it up, which he did. Otherwise, we would not have been able to get out.
The station attendants in LA were extremely helpful. We checked a couple of bags we didn’t need to schlep to the hotel, checked them through to San Antonio on tomorrow’s train, and got a ride to the cabs with our other bags.
I cannot say the same for the cab driver. He was grumpy and unhelpful and gave us a story about not having had many fares all day. I’ll bet he says that to everyone. Our hotel was only a few blocks away. He wanted cash but had not set the meter and said just pay whatever we want. I paid him too much. He did not help with our bags.
We got checked in and to our room and settled and collapsed. I did decide to get a little dinner from the hotel restaurant before they closed but there were no menus in the room. I went down to the restaurant and ordered an ahi rice bowl to go and took it back up to the room. It was delicious but, you know, we’re in LA and everything is expensive.
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Adrian Dee, flutist, composer 