Cal/CanTrain Trip

Legend

Train
Driving
Electric vehicle
Hiking

Jaffrey, United States ‐ Oct 19, 2023

+5

What's at home:
Buffalo ‐ Oct 21, 2023

398 mi

So, apparently, just because this trip is mapped out, doesn’t mean that’s how we’re going to go. Case in point, the train from Buffalo to Chicago was canceled. Mudslide. So we stuck to plan! Carl heroically drove us to Buffalo where we parked the Tesla. And then tried to rent a car…

+3
Depew

To go back in time an smidge: After a HELL—let me repeat that—HELL day of driving in the rain with the added stress of knowing we would have to rent a car to get to Chicago. Which would mean more driving, or a cold-day-in-hell airplane. (TBD in some future post.) We left home at 11AM, found out the train was “disrupted” at 12-ish. And that it was cancelled at 1-ish. Stress cocktail anyone? Finally arrived in Buffalo/Niagara airport at 9PM. I had rented a car while en route to Buffalo, [...]
in part to distract me from looking at the road but also because we needed a car to get us to Chicago by 2:50PM the next day. A fact that Carl seemed to relish. His musician-on-the-road self was re-emerging. Where had gone the Farmer Carl of the day before? Apparently, rental cars were scarce at Enterprise that night and, even though I had the email showing I had rented a car, I had done so within 24 hours. So they wouldn’t/couldn’t rent it to us. They had to have cars for the 500 people arriving the next day who had planned ahead. So I marched over to Hertz. They had cars. But our debit card wasn’t being accepted. Carl asked if we made a reservation, while we stood there at the desk, could we bypass that debit card-that-is-a-credit card issue. YAH! So we made the reservation. And spent the next 15 minutes trying to get the debit/credit card to work. Arrived at the Hamburg hotel at 9:58. No restaurants open. No lunch. No dinner. Hot shower! Homemade muffin and a banana! We went to bed.
Hamburg ‐ Oct 22, 2023

11.2 mi

October 22, 2023 LIke perky bunny rabbits, we jumped out of the hotel bed at 4:15AM. Having driven 399 miles the day before, Carl was raring and ready to drive the 534 miles to Chicago. I had another take on it. My passenger brake (sic) in the Tesla had broken somewhere near the border of New York State. And the idea of buying gasoline for our rented car? And what about the espresso situation? We had our espresso paraphernalia road trip bag—inclusive of a thermos filled with our local, raw mil [...]
k—but no time to make it. And it was dark. And raining. “This is fun!” Carl informed me. And we had a train to catch. Vroom! Vroom! He was right. It was fabulous! Remembering the day before: the mobile homes without foundations and falling apart in rural Vermont and New York; the Tesla charging stations at malls selling stuff and more stuff, and casinos promising dreams and despair; the crowded roads, filled with cars going too fast in fog and pouring rain were a visceral memory to be processed at some future time, if we lived so long. We were on the road again, and Carl looked suspiciously like he was liking it, more and more, with every passing mile. As night turned to dusk and day, and the expanses of dead corn—Round up?—being mowed—dust—and the houses in the midst of those miles of fields…. The trucks, and more trucks, swerving violently—as I would be if I had been driving. I worried the drivers were overtired as described in that John Oliver show we had watched some time in the last years. . .. We arrived in Chicago at 12:30PM EST. But it was 11:30 local time. We had won an hour! Plenty of time to drive around 2300 S. Martin Luther King drive, looking for the (closed) Hertz location where we were to leave the rented car. An efficient taxi driver got us to Union Station.

+2
Erie

82.2 mi

The blur of an early morning drive in the rain.
Fremont

186.8 mi
LaPorte County

212.1 mi
Valparaiso
South Deering
Chicago

Numbed by the previous 24 hours. Checked baggage. Walked around, looking for something to eat. Fed chickadees and pigeons, the consequence of which was a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. And onto the train from Chicago, heading to Los Angels. We departed on time.

+8
Old Niota

The Mighty Mississippi!

+2
Topeka ‐ Oct 23, 2023

We have too many photos and none of them capture the beauty, the vastness and the thumbprint-on-the-landscape of humans. Amazing what nature has created and, arguably, humans. As opposed to my photography skills.

+2
Garden City

We were up and making coffee when we chugged through here!

+23
Albuquerque

Lots of beauty that goes on and on and then huge building popping up, and poverty and then a gopher. Onward we go to L.A... Toot Toot!

+27
Amtrak Union Station, Los Angeles ‐ Oct 24, 2023

We arrived in LA and were met by Carl's sister and her son and off we went to get breakfast at Egg Slut! And plenty of chicken picts to make me feel at home. And the La Brea pits with a disarmingly upsetting art installation (?) of a mother mammoth sinking into the tar pits while her baby and husband look on. And on we went/go. The next day, my first cousin once removed arrived from Australia with a 12 hour layover that he spent with us. Once we filled him put with an espresso drink at Blue Bott [...]
le Coffee and breakfast at I don't remember the name but it was excellent and we went back the next day, we dragged him from one car rental to another. Not having learned our lesson about credit versus debit. Nate ended up renting the car for us. Sigh. A too short reunion with a college buddy of mine--Hi Pete!--and the next day, we walked around Santa Monica and spent the rest of the day with Carl's nephew Jon and his totally adorable kids. And the next day? Back into a fossil car. At which point I wrote this: we are an hour out of Los Angeles and rocketing on the Aeropress espresso drinks I just made. Oh, so much to process, and we are only three days into this trip. The visuals alone…. The parallel of the “purple mountain majesty” and great poverty. The diversity of animals, human and otherwise. And then sight to sounds to tastes and all lead to ideas popping and illegibility handwriting. And most signficantly and as usual, coming up splat against my preconceived notions, assumptions, prejudices, and judgment. Toot, toot! Onward we go!

+15
Santa Monica ‐ Oct 26, 2023

16.3 mi

+7
Half Moon Bay

376.8 mi

Another terrifying 6 hour drive for me, and a relaxed day drive for Carl. It’s all in the attitude and perspective…. Half Moon Bay is/ was the reason for the trip: A family wedding. We managed to have fun. A jump into the Pacific. Myriad family gatherings and a wedding. And then it was off to Ashland, OR.

+5
Ashland ‐ Oct 29, 2023

377.1 mi

+4
Portland ‐ Oct 30, 2023

Today, I started live tracking! Feel free to stalk us cuz that’s what it feels like. But it is way easier to input photos at their places now!? We drove from Half Moon Bay to Portland, where a few of my cousins live. But only stayed for long enough to have dinner and meet a cat. Andthen we caught the train to Seattle.
Day 9

4 006.2 mi

Travelmap and Wayward are not talking to each other. Where are we!? Day 9 has a straight line that doesn’t agree with the more um nuanced line that we maybe actually took via the train. As to the straight line from Jaffrey to Longview? No clue. But makes me think of the play we saw this summer titled “Straight Line Crazy”….
Seattle

We arrived in Seattle at 11pm, after a day’s drive from Ashland to Portland, dinner at my cousin’s home, and a train from Portland to Seattle—yes! All on one day!—to a wonderful and exhausted sleep in Seattle. And now? It is 9 hours later and we are chugging along toward the Canadian border and Vancouver B.C.

+5

Seattle- Puget sound
Vancouver, Canada ‐ Oct 31, 2023

We made it to Vancouver! We settled into the hotel with a swim in the pool, an exploratory walk around the area of our hotel and an early Farm to Table dinner meal at the hotel. Zzzzz. Today, Nov 1, we walked about 7.1 miles, or 9.9 miles depending on whose cell phone you believe, Carl’s or mine. Did laundry at Abbot Coin laundry and walked around, and the. To Stanley Park. Time for a dunk in the pool and early dinner! Perfect weather. A bit of rain made way for hints of sun

+7
Day 7 ‐ Nov 1, 2023

6 mi

Hotel Living! - We are right on the harbor. Quite beautiful and Vancouver is one of our favorite city’s. This hotel is amazing. But the Day 7 as title?

+3
Day 6 ‐ Nov 2, 2023

23.6 mi

Ok. It is right about here that Wayfarer and Travelmap had an argument. And I have spent two hours trying to get the photos to work without success. So. We had an amazing tour of the city by car on the 2nd full day. A delicious dinner. And the next morning--Day 6? We were packed to get on the train and got a text saying we had been exposed to covid. One positive. One negative. We called Canadian Rails. Phew! They had no Covid restrictions. So we picked up some masks and some Kleenex and hopped a [...]
board!

+16
Kamloops ‐ Nov 3, 2023

374.5 mi

View From The Hotel Restaurant - We are checked out and having a last meal in Vancouver before getting on the train. -- At The Train Station! -- Vancouver Departure - The train is amazing! Push a button and the walls and floor of the bathroom warm up! Champagne toast!? The only negative is Carl tested positive for Covid. So we are masking and isolating. Thank goodness Via Rail didn’t say we couldn’t board! -- First Mountain We See!! Baker? - It has been inner city for awhile. And a stop for [...]
a veeeeeery long train. -- Yummy food! Sorry the pictures aren't showing up. Maybe they are somewhere else in this monster app?
Edmonton ‐ Nov 4, 2023

767.3 mi

+8

Day 4
Winnipeg ‐ Nov 5, 2023

1 253.4 mi

+11
Canada ‐ Nov 6, 2023

1 257.2 mi

+2
Toronto ‐ Nov 7, 2023

459.9 mi

View From Our Hotel - We just arrived. Two hours early! So we are off to walk about and explore. An early morning departure tomorrow so gotta cram in what we can! -- Wall Art - Like in Providence but in Toronto! -- For dog lovers! -- The Distillery -- Our Hotel

+4

Toronto 2

+7
Buffalo, United States ‐ Nov 8, 2023

108 mi

Sunrise As We Head Home - We drive home today. Shan of Airport Limo Ontario is taking us from the hotel to Buffalo airport where we left the car 17 days ago. Tonight it will sleet. But today looks like a great day for a drive. And to arrive home.
Jaffrey

378 mi

Carl is negative and we are heading home but Wayfarer and Travelmpa? I give up.

+2