#2 Day Two on the Coast Starlight

 February 9, 2024

Alas, even going to bed early didn’t provide me with a good night’s sleep.  Despite sleeping with a sound machine on, there were too many random noises, and my hip was hurting on the thin mattress.  Add to that, in an effort to cut back sugar, I'd vowed not to eat any of Amtrak's amazing desserts, so I'd had a few squares of very dark chocolate with my evening decaf.  At 6:00 I gave up and got a cup of coffee from the big percolator in the hallway.  Eventually I went down to the dining car for a veggie omelet.

There are so many old historic train stations.  Here, tawny in the morning light is the charming adobe station in Davis, California.  This was a brief "fresh air break", but I stayed aboard the train as it's usually pretty smoky on the platform.

Since leaving our home area it has been rainy and wet most of the way.  In addition to vast green fields and still-dormant orchards, there were miles of soggy wetlands.  When I think of California, droughts come to mind, but clearly it's not always so.

Like Portland, the area around San Francisco is crisscrossed with many bridges.  Here, crossing the Benicia-Martinez Railroad Bridge, we got up high enough for a broad view of the water that is part of the bay.

Then looking back towards the bay, I saw that the morning light and clouds, the water’s reflection, coupled with what I presume to be steam from industries, had created a unique phenomenon.  With some spikey black things silhouetted, along with the columns of smoke, it put me in mind of the rooftop scene in Mary Poppins.  Or on second thought, maybe something from a Dr. Seuss book.

I was so focused on those interesting gray plumes that I nearly missed seeing this C & H Sugar plant located in the little town of Crockett, near San Francisco.  I wasn't sure if it was still in use as I'd thought that most sugar was refined in the Philippines, but a little research shows that this location is still very active, and has been in operation since 1906.  The raw cane is shipped in from Hawaii, and more than 700,000 tons are refined here annually.  I'm sure I've consumed my share of it.

And then, more graceful bridges.  I don’t know the area well enough to identify them.

A bit further south down the bay I saw these huge white piles.  I had good service on my phone, so I was able to look it up and found that it was the Morton Salt factory.  Or maybe salt plant sounds more appealing.  It’s hard to imagine that those long mounds are actually something that we sprinkle on our food.  The salt does come directly from the waters of the San Francisco Bay and is produced through natural solar evaporation.

Continuing south, we again traveled through very wet areas.  As we weren’t going very fast, I was able to see many interesting birds.  Heron, sandhill cranes and many that I couldn’t identify.  And once, two graceful swans facing each other like in a classic painting.  I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of them.  Looking up the photo information, I find that this area is the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and these waters do tie into the Monterey Bay.  Thus, it isn't too surprising that there were seals, as you can see in the third photo below. 

Further south we rode through the Salinas Valley, with its freshly tilled fields and all things growing.  At the station there was this cute farmer cutout to greet us.

I marveled too, at the vastness of the farms.  Many seemed to be entire villages, complete with tiny, utilitarian homes for the workers.  Often these were comprised of rows of trailers. 

As we continued to pass these farms with their enclosures of all sorts of buildings, and no town nearby that I could see, I pondered whether some people lived their whole lives without ever leaving.  Then at lunch, while I enjoyed a good burger, I heard the story of someone who did spend much of her life on a farm.

Olivia, a tiny, wrinkled, and very classy-looking woman of maybe eighty years, was born in Mexico after eight brothers.  Her family owned three small bakeries.  All worked hard, except Olivia.  As the precious, only daughter, her family spoiled her and didn't make her work.  Or as she put it in her halting English, didn't teach her to work.  I didn't catch at what age she was, but at some point she came to California to live.  She had no education or marketable skills, so came to work on a farm.  There she lived and worked, married and raised two daughters and a son.  As she put it, "I worked, I worked hard, all my life.  That's all I do." But...she was determined to do better for her kids.  She got them into a private Catholic school instead of putting them in public.  Somehow she put each of them through university.  One went to Berkeley, one to Stanford, and one to Notre Dame.  She didn't say, but likely they got scholarships.  She's clearly very proud of her children's success.  One became an engineer, one a biologist, and I can't recall the third.  But they are doing well in the LA area.  Her husband of fifty-five years left her and now she stays for a time with each of her kids and their families.  They have insisted that she get out and travel.  Prior to this trip, they had sent her to Europe for a time.  She's very quiet, and it's hard to imagine her finding her way around, but she's quite the inspiration.

During the afternoon we wound through the tawny hills.  There were several areas with clusters of oil donkeys.  I'm more familiar with the oil wells of North Dakota, that are more spread out.  These were maybe fifty in a rather small area.  

The scene below was reminiscent of North Dakota, with it's scrubby trees in the coulees. 

As we wind through the golden hills, swaying first one way and then another, it's fun to try to catch a photo of our train.  As always, reflections make it a challenge.

My roomette was in the next to last car of the train.  The cars are like beads on a string, put in whatever configuration is best.  Often there is a baggage car at the end, so no opportunity to see out the back window.  Here I was able to, so frequently walked back to look out the filthy window.  There is something so mesmerizing about watching the miles of tracks slip away into the distance as we chug along.

By default my phone camera wants to focus on the dirt, but it does create a neat effect.

When the dining car manager announced that he would be coming through to make dinner reservations, he stated that there would be just two seatings.  One at 5:00 and the other at 5:30.  As we would be riding along the Pacific Ocean during sunset, they would put all of the first seating on the oceanside for the best view.  I took the first seating of course.  I got the window seat that I wanted, but was pinned to it by a rather large gentleman.  Seated across from me was a nice couple.  The two men were both former Navy, so much of the conversation centered on that as we enjoyed our dinner and the sun setting over the water.

By 6:00 the sun had become a red sliver on the horizon, and then slipped away for the night.  Our meals were done, so I went back to read for the rest of the evening in my room.  I'd been anxious about this stretch of the journey as I had a close connection in Los Angeles.  My next train only runs thrice-weekly, so to miss it would add an unwanted challenge.  But we were actually running on time, and pulled into Los Angeles Union Station a few minutes ahead of schedule.  I said goodbye to the Coast Starlight, and was soon boarding my next train, the Texas Eagle.