My First Train

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Riding on my first train, this is too damn cool. I’m going to sit on the top level, lots of room, and a bunch of empty seats, yeah baby; I‘ll take the window and the isle.

Ok, my first thought is, “Whoa, each seat has a power outlet.”
Second thought, “I’m never going to fly again.”
Third “‘Shouldn’t we be moving faster?”
Fourth “There?s a caf? car on this thing?”
Fifth “I could walk faster than this thing is moving, no wonder it takes 14 hours to get to San Francisco.”
Sixth “Hey, if I walk forward while the train is in motion, I’d be moving twice the speed of the train. I could get to L.A. in like an hour that way.”
Seventh “Oh yeah? I’d run out of train cars to walk on.”

Now we are going through some sort of mountain path. On the last turn I could see the front of the train. It’s a rainy day, but the view is still magnifique. Actually, this is the first time is rained in San Diego in over 180 days. Now we are through the mountains and riding right along the coast. All the little creeks on the east side of the track are full of muddy rainwater. I guess they are calling this flood weather.

Pulling up to Solona Beach Station, it looks very Wright inspired. New passengers, some honey?s walking by me like “Check out that handsome Midwestern fellow eating Krispy Kremes and Budweiser.”

Yeah that’s what I?m eating for lunch, don’t judge me. They don’t serve this stuff on planes; I’m just enjoying the train ride.

Note for travelers, the Busy Signals make great traveling music when riding northbound beside the Pacific Ocean.

Hey, now were moving, yeah. “Fuck Solana Beach, let’s get out of here.” Maybe the conductor has to pee or something.

People shouldn’t use cell phones in these things, but since the lady behind me is talking so loud I have no option but to listen in. “Whatever, I’ll stay another month or two.” she says in a thick accent, “Life is cold.” Is that a Russian accent? Sounds very mono-slavic. Cool, she just worked “the struggle against death’s clock and bleak eternity” into a casual sentence casually. I think she’s booking a flight somewhere.

Golly this is fun, why don’t I just take a train all the way to San Francisco? Oh yeah, it takes 10 times as long as an airplane ride and costs about the same. I miss my bike.

I’ve moved seats now. I decided to find that prick that cut ahead of me in line at the ticket line and sit in the seat in front of him. Ha-ha motherfucker, I’m getting to L.A. before you! I bet he’ll realize it soon, and get pissed of.

Whoa! A train just whizzed right by us. That was actually sort of scary. Next stop Irvine, Now we seem to be pretty inland. They say that because of the atmospheric pressure, one drink in a plane is equivalent to two on the ground? So I should buy another beer. Luckily these doughnuts came in pack of two.

That dude got off in Irvine; I bet he was really pissed when he noticed I got there right before him.

There are military bases all over California. These buildings look pretty old, I bet those hangers over there were actually built for aero-zeppelins. That?s so cool, now that must have been a great way to travel. If I could go back in time anywhere, I?d want to go back and ride in a zeppelin. Pure luxury. And they would actually dock on skyscrapers; can you imagine looking up and seeing one of those floating over your apartment? Hell, they were practically floating buildings themselves, just put on their side.

I wonder if that guy noticed I got to Irvine before he did.

Those girls that passed me earlier just walked by again. I must have misread their looks before, cause that was more like a “That balding Kerouac needs to lay off the donuts” look. Hmmm? They must be upset that I’m technically going to reach LA before they do.

We are coming into L.A. now, and for the first time I’m seeing graffiti along the line. The thing is, this isn’t just graffiti, these are the pieces I’ve seen for years and years. In magazines, graf vids, internet sites. This is some of the stuff that I’ve been seeing for a long time, but it’s all here. It’s so weird, its like running into Tom Waits and Ron Jeremy in the same day (which I’m only mentioning cause I actually did), but some of these pieces are like celebrities to me. I can’t believe they are all so close to each other, I’ve never seen this part of LA before. How cool. I guess this is the end of the trip, what a fun ride.

Doc