Trip Report

[xHaZxMaTx]

I'm just going on vacation, it's not like I'm going bungie jumping or something.

[Suwako]

A hundreth people a year die while travelling on vacantion in west europe alone! 

please! Don't be one out of biljons!  (yeah, I made these numbers up)

[xHaZxMaTx]

10-25-06

6:10 AM
We've been out of the station for a little over an hour, now.  It's still dark outside, so nothing really interesting has happened as of yet.  We've made several stops so far on our way to Stockton, but I havn't taken the time to check what the stations were.  Probably because I don't care, not to mention I have my headphones on so I can't hear the announcements.  Up until now I've been ripping music to the laptop and browsing some of my forums.  That's pretty much it for now, if you'll excuse me, I need to pop in another CD.

6:18 AM
I got some coffee, not great not bad, though it is the first time I've tried coffee without cream or sugar;  I think I may keep my coffee black from now on.  I'm sitting in the cafe car on the San Joaquin Valley Line (Amtrak California) and I guess someone ordered some kind of fruit smoothie because the attendant at the cafe is chopping something.  It's pretty annoying...

6:52 AM
It's just getting light outside, I'd say the sun still has a while to be up, though.  I might take some pictures if I'm not too busy doing anything else...  So it's pretty much guaranteed.

6:56 AM
Looks like I was on the wrong side of the car.  It's still pretty dark out my window, meanwhile on the other side of the car, it's already bright and orange.  I guess the sun will be up earlier than I thought.  Also, we're haulin' some serious booty right now, I'd say about 65-70 M.P.H.

7:31 AM
Passing a BNSF intermodel train, if you care.  I took some pictures of the sunrise, but there really isn't much to see of it in southern California.

8:03 AM
I think the coffee's wearing off.  I'm gonna try and catch some 'z's as soon as I'm done ripping my music.

9:25 AM
We arrived at Stockton a little late, not too surprisingly.  That was followed by a short bus ride to Sacramento, nothing interesting there, either.

10:30 AM
We got to the station in Sacramento with quite a bit of time to spare, since our train arrived a tad late.  Once again, not surprising.

11:32 AM
The last two time stamps were from memory, as I couldn't get the laptop out during those times.  Since then we've gotten on the train to Chicago, and we're back to the present.

12:18 PM
Just outside of Roseville, and I've already lost the internet connection.  I hadn't really thought about tunnels and what not interferring with the signal.  Luckily listening to music doesn't require an internet connection.

12:24 PM
Sporadic tunnels are a neusance, but the connection seems fine without them.

12:40 PM
The tunnels are becoming more and more frequent.  I don't expect to get much done via the internet, so I guess that just leaves me with updating the trip report.  My mom's taking some pictures as we pass some small accumulations of farm buildings and dense forest beyond Roseville.

12:45 PM
We have officially entered BFE;  We've lost the connection entirely in the open.  Though the scenery's interesting.  Still more farm buildings, like something out of a jigsaw puzzle.  That's pretty much all you can comment on about the scenery, that and lots of trees.  I wasn't aware that California had so many trees.  If I didn't know any better, and it weren't so warm, I'd say we were in Oregon.

12:52 PM
Arrived at the town of Colfax.  ...Cozy.

12:57 PM
Just passed an old, beat up Al Camino in a large ditch by the tracks.  There's a narration over the speakers of the route we're taking, but it keeps cutting in and out.

1:23 PM
We're stopped right on a grade crossing in the middle of nowhere.  Though we must not be in the middle of nowhere, because the road is paved and the grade crossing has gates.  We've been sitting here for several minutes, and I've only seen one car.  I'm not complaining, however, the internet connection's blazin'.

5:00 PM
We moved to the next car up, which is right behind the lounge car.  Unfortunately, I had to be waken up for this to be accomplished. We're in Nevada now, though I'm not sure where in Nevada.  We just came out of a long concrete corridor, maybe you'll know what I'm talking about.

6:18 PM
Vast expanse of Nevada desert...

[Supercheese]

Not to degrade anything, but I've been seeing an increasing trend lately of TL;DR posts. (Although I actually read this one and will now proceed to comment on it.)

Of course coffee's meant to be had black.

My work here is done.

[bill]

TLDR can be made non-TLDR with line breaks, like good-ol, Haz did here.

[Tiger_T]

Not to degrade anything, but I've been seeing an increasing trend lately of TL;DR posts. (Although I actually read this one and will now proceed to comment on it.)

Of course coffee's meant to be had black.

My work here is done.

*clicks*
*reads a bit*
*scrolls*
*scrolls some more*
*scroll, scroll scroll*
*end of page - reads*
This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
ROTFLOL!


Have a nice time Haz.

[xHaZxMaTx]

TLDR?  I have no idea what you're talking about.

-EDIT-
Oh, I see.  Well, it's a whole days worth of report.

Also, there's about 2 feet of snow outside wherever it is we are in Colorado.  We're about 4 hours behind schedule, which is to be expected, running on Union Pacific lines.  We should be getting into Denver hopefully before midnight.

Also again, sorry for not posting in the rest of the forum.  The internet connection around here is shoddy and the laptop only has a limited battery life.

-EDIT2-
I must have been the only person in the entire city of Denver wearing shorts.

[xHaZxMaTx]

10/26/06

-07:32-
Woke up to fallen snow and cloudy mountains this morning.  I was surprised to hear we were still in Utah.  It's 9:35 AM now, and not much has happened since then, just enjoying the snowy scenery.  We've been following a small river alongside the tracks for well over a half hour by now. Some of the river is startig to ice over.  We passed by a flock of wild turkeys and some deer not too long ago, also.  We've been taking a few pictures, but not much.  It's beautiful to look at, but it's repetitive.

-09:45-
We've passed several makeshift bridges that pass over the river adjascent to the tracks that seem to be made out of old piggyback cars.

-09:51-
We've entered a conyon with an odd sort of porous rock.  It resembles a wasp nest, but so far is only in higher in the canyon walls.  Now that the sun is out and the snow has melted, the landscape is looking more like Utah.  The walls are full of layers of diferent types of rock, most of which are flaky and jagged.  Just arrived in Helper, Utah.

-10:04-
Not to self:  Opening creamer packages that were packaged in low altitude in high altitude is a bad idea. (High preassure in the creamer.)

-12:19-
We're past Green River, but notto Grand Junction yet.  Nt dad called and informed me that parts of Colorado we're passing through have blizzard warnings, and most other parts have heavy snow warnings, so there may be a chance of being snowed in.  I'm trying to contact a friend of mine-he's good with weather forecasting and whatnot-via Instant Messenger, but there's little internet connection.

-19:08-
Havn't had a connection since we left Grand Junction, and havn't had the laptop open, so this is a recap.  The scenery along the Colorado river is amazing!  I'd never seen anything like it.  The combination of the red dirt and rocks, green trees and white snow made for a breathtaking view.  The further we got up the mountain, the thicker the snow got, but it was still never very thick.  We passed several trains and cars that had snow on them, but we never encountered any falling snow ourselves.  I saw a variety of wildlife including deers, elk, and a bald eagle.  We just stopped at another town, not very big, and I believe it's the last stop before Denver.  And even though there is an internet connection now, I can't seem to access it.

-19:39-
Ok, we just made another stop, once again, I don't know where, but I do know it wasn't Denver.  Soon we'll be headed through the Continental Divide - Moffet Tunnel.

-21:20-
We can see Denver now, but it's pretty far down, and I'm assuming that it's still going to be a while before we actually get to the station.

-EDIT-
Oh em gee, this guy sitting behind me won't shut up.  The train stopped 7 minutes out of Omaha, Kansas for a crew change - The engineers run in 12 hour shifts regardless of if the train is in motion or not, and it's very strictly enforced - and all he's doing is complaining.   Him being pissed off is pissing me off!

[Zedd]

Yikes

[DigitalMan]

TLDR posts are often read by fellow TLDR posters Especially those interested in this particular format.

Will ye be putting pictures up online somewhere?

[xHaZxMaTx]

As soon as I upload them.   We havn't been taking a lot of pictures recently, though.  Not much to look at in the plains.

[Zedd]

On your left people is a big patch of sand...To your left...More sand with cacti!

[xHaZxMaTx]

Haha, no, that's the midwest.  I'm in Iowa right now.

[Zedd]

Tell my aunts and  uncles i said hellos..De monis they lives

[xHaZxMaTx]

Well then...  As a result of our train being several 6 hours late (Which isn't surprising at all, in fact it should be expected),  we missed our connection to andusky, Ohio.  Amtrak, however, has booked us in Homewood suites for the night with food and cab fares.  Unfortunately, all this means that we won't be getting to Sandusky at all, which means I won't be getting to Cedar Point, which means that I won't be withing 100 miles of Dakata's home town.

[DigitalMan]

Dood, if you were to go to Cedar Point I'd probably drag my friend along to go meet you there. For no reason other than "just because."

Where are you going, anyways?

[xHaZxMaTx]

When?  We're going everywhere... brb.

Bakersfield, CA -> Stockton, CA
Stockton, CA -> Sacramento, CA (Via Bus)
Sacramento, CA -> Chicago, IL
Chicago, IL -> Sandusky, OH
Sandusky, OH -> Buffalo, NY
Buffalo, NY -> CBN (Dunno what this is.)
CBN -> Toronto, Ontario (Canada)
Toronto, Ontario -> Montreal, Quebec
Montreal, Quebec -> Halifax
Halifax -> Montreal, Quebec
Montreal, Quebec -> New York, NY (United States)
New York, NY -> Washington D.C.
Washington D.C. -> Atlanta, GA
Atlanta, GA -> Greensboro, NC
Greensboro, NC -> Raleigh, NC
Raleigh, NC -> Savana, GA
Savana, GA -> Washington D.C.
Washington D.C. -> Chicago, IL
Chicago, IL -> Albany, NY
Albany, NY -> Boston, MA
Boston, MA -> New York, NY
New York, NY -> CBN
CBN -> Toronto, ON (Canada)
Toronto, ON -> Vancouver, BC
Voncouver, BC -> Seattle, WA (United States)
Seattle, WA -> Eugene, OR
Eugene, OR -> Portlan, OR
Portland, OR -> Chicago, IL
Chicago, IL -> Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles, CA -> Bakersfield, CA

[Nikki]

0.0

YOU WAS IN DENVEEEEERRRRRRR!!!!!?


*starts cursing so much that if she was to type the words, the rating of this forum would go through the roof*

[DigitalMan]

... Holy shit. That is completely insane. It's an exponential road trip D:

Let me know if any future trip brings you to Cleveland

[Zedd]

Better yet Lansing MI

[Nikki]

Better yet Lansing MI

i'm goin there in november

[Supercheese]

Haz is going every-freaking-where.   

[Zedd]

Better yet Lansing MI

i'm goin there in november

GAH! *runs and hides under basment stairs*

[xHaZxMaTx]

  You'll have to do better than that!

[Nikki]

Better yet Lansing MI

i'm goin there in november

GAH! *runs and hides under basment stairs*

awwww...i feel unloved

[Zedd]

Better yet Lansing MI

i'm goin there in november

GAH! *runs and hides under basment stairs*

awwww...i feel unloved D:

What part will you be in?

[Nikki]

Better yet Lansing MI

i'm goin there in november

GAH! *runs and hides under basment stairs*

awwww...i feel unloved D:

What part will you be in?

...let me get back to you on that XD

[Mew Mew Renee]

to much quoting! 

[xHaZxMaTx]

0.0

YOU WAS IN DENVEEEEERRRRRRR!!!!!?


*starts cursing so much that if she was to type the words, the rating of this forum would go through the roof*

I'm coming back.

-EDIT-
Oh right, I guess I should mention this before you start wondering where I am...

I'm headed up to Toronto right now, and unfortunately I won't have internet up there.  Not the cellular internet anyway.  ...Not unless I want to pay $0.15 a minute.   Though I'm sure they'l have internet service in the hotels there, since they're so nice and all.

Wish me luck, ya'llz!  La'az, USA!

-EDIT-
Gah, I've been on the train, what, 5 days?  I think I'm actualy sitting too much, my ass hurts!

[DigitalMan]

Gah, I've been on the train, what, 5 days?  I think I'm actualy sitting too much, my ass hurts! D:

Those must be some incredibly comfortable seats. I'm always in much pain after just a car trip to South Carolina. And one time it wore holes through my pants