Last train post, I promise!

"cabarne4" (cabarne4) 04/29/2014 at 22:33 • Filed to: Trainlopnik

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I attempted to post this on Saturday, but my phone decided to stop being a phone. Then, when I got to my destination.... Well, I guess you'll have to just read. Unfortunately I lost everything I had typed. So, enjoy!

If you've been reading my train posts the past couple weekends, you're probably thinking "Why? Why won't he just shut up and leave us alone already?"

In my last full post, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! It was mostly uneventful, save for an extremely efficient little Fiesta.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

We left the action with the train entering the greater Los Angeles area. Much like the Toyota Tundra, as reviewed by a certain Ferrari owner, Los Angeles is absolutely cyclopean. The sun was rising as we steamed towards Los Angeles. I later learned that trains don't, in fact, run on steam. Instead, they use a strange process called combustion , in which they explode dead dinosaurs to create a spinning force. This process is incredibly interesting. We should probably start using it for all forms of transportation.

I've heard myths and legends of "Los Angeles" growing up, but I've always wondered if they were true. Los Angeles — hundreds of miles of suburbs, hidden behind a thick cloud of exhaust fumes. The embodiment of a car-obsessed, car-dependent culture. Fuel prices continue to climb, and it's too expensive to actually live there. Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to it.

I think the stories were wrong.

What I found instead was beautiful landscape under bright blue skies. Tall mountains, dotted with large houses. Large roads pouring traffic into fast moving freeways. Or, what would be fast moving freeways, if it weren't for the Friday morning commuters.

Powering through the metro area towards downtown, I think we may have been the fastest moving people. If anyone is wondering, the app is called "Speedview". It's the same app I used to keep myself entertained, while others somehow enjoyed Kansas (the state, not the band).

Eventually, the city of Los Angeles materialized through a thick cloud. I'm told the natives of the land call this cloud "smog". I think the word's roots have been traced back to the Native Americans who first settled in the area. Next, we crossed the mighty Los Angeles River.

Such flowing. Very water. Wow.

At least the bridges were pretty.

Coming into Union Station is much like arriving at an airport. Except you don't have to have your balls fondled by a large woman in a blue shirt. Damn.

The station has one central corridor from the tracks, that leads into the main building. Following the crowd, I quickly found the Amtrak desk. "Can I pay you money to leave my shit here?" I asked. "No problem." I was told. Money changed hands, and my bags were locked up for the day. Leaving the counter, I followed the crowd. I wound up going down a staircase. Everyone in front of me all wanted to stop at these machines on the way down the stairs. When it was my turn, I did what the people in front of me did at the machine, and out came a little card. I took the card out of the machine, and used it to get through a little gate that I could have probably just stepped over.

On the other side of the tiny gate was another set of stairs down, only this set went down for you. Californians must be pretty lazy. At the bottom of the stairs (seriously, how far underground are we by now?) was another little train. People were getting on it, so I got on as well. Just a few seconds later, the train accelerated quickly. Unlike my last train, this one didn't have beautiful scenery outside the windows. Instead, it just had a few dim lights flying by.

By the second stop, I was bored of the windows, so I got off the train.

Up a few more flights of stairs (by now, I think I worked it out — we had descended into exactly the 2nd layer of hell), I was greeted by the city.

Growing up, I was told that in the Socialist Republic of California, all residents entered into a sort of "lottery" where, if chosen, they were allowed to buy a crude form of motorized transportation called a "Toyota Prius". Walking around, I quickly learned that wasn't the case.

Mercedes and Audi seemed to be the most popular choices.

After a bit of walking, I came across a small park, which had one of my favorite views of the city.

Unfortunately, the park is fenced off. I think you can get in still by invitation, as there were a few people enjoying the benches. They must have been from out of town, though, because most of them seemed to be wearing many coats, and carrying their luggage with them.

Fortunately, there's a staircase alongside the park. At the top of the staircase, one can still enjoy the view.

Those things down there are parking lots.

Coming back down the hill, I saw one of the same big cars that I saw back in St. Louis. This time I thought I'd give it a go. I was amazed to find that the little card from the machine back at Union Station let me on the big car as well!

The big car took me through Los Angeles, and while riding it I saw a good cross section of life. Although I didn't get any pictures, I did see one woman who appeared to severely dislike a public telephone. The woman in question ran across an intersection whilst our big car waited at the light, and answered a public telephone that wasn't even ringing. She then immediately began to slam the receiver against the base, until it broke into pieces. I guess she didn't like what it had to say.

After a while of riding, I got off of the big car. Across the street was a rather large building.

Oppo, I am disappoint. I even dropped a little Easter Egg in my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and not one of you Jalops called me out on it.

Full write up and photo dump of the museum will come in a later post, mostly because I love making you guys wait... But also because then this post would be way too damn long. Suffice to say, amazing museum. And the $20 extra for the vault tour is completely worth it.

After the museum, I enjoyed a delicious burger and milkshake at an attached restaurant. Being in California, I was amazed the hamburger wasn't known to give me cancer.

After leaving, I went and walked some more. Again, most people here drove Mercedes and Audis, but there was also the occasional Volkswagen. I'm not the best at car spotting, but I'm pretty sure it's an Eos, and a Beetle.

This particular type of bread van was also fairly common. I'm not too familiar with it, but I think it's made by Mercedes.

While wandering around, I think I even found Tony Stark's house!

Pretty soon, I found myself in a weird part of Los Angeles called "Hollywoodland". I think there was a law there that you had to look at your feet while you walked. It seemed to be a really stupid law, however, because people kept walking into each other. I decided I didn't care much for this law, so I watched where I was going while I walked. Even doing this, I still had people walk into me. Maybe this is how people say "Hello" in this part of Los Angeles. Or make babies. Either way, I felt violated.

While walking around Hollywoodland, I even saw a British Private Investigator. On second thought, though, he probably stole the car. I'm basing this conclusion off the fact that (1) I was in Los Angeles, and (2) he didn't have a mustache.

I was pretty tired of walking. Luckily, there was a big movie theater right across the street!

I was excited, because I haven't gone to the movies in months. I normally love going to the movies. I crossed the street, hoping they were playing something good. Unfortunately, I immediately noticed the movie theater had a big rat problem. Rats are disgusting. They spread disease and give people Plague. I think all rats should be murdered. The world should be cleansed of their filth. I'm a big fan of rat-genocide.

These particular rats seemed to be most attracted to young children. They would repeatedly go for young children. I tried warning the parents and shouting at the children to get away from the rats, but the parents just called me "insane" (note: this didn't actually happen).

So I decided to not go to the movies. Instead, I found a nice place with a good view of the Hollywoodland sign. Unfortunately, I think the sign is broken. The "land" part must have been getting fixed while I was there.

Unfortunately, shortly after this my iPod died and I was no longer able to take more pictures. Fortunately, not much else exciting happened. I took the train back to Union Station, and sat around charging my phone until my train arrived.

When I woke up, we had already left the Socialist Republic of California, and re-entered the United States, somewhere in Arizona. As I have ridden this stretch of train before, I didn't think to take any photos. The train ride was mostly uneventful though. Entering New Mexico, a dust storm began to kick up. The dust and high winds continued across the state, and finally calmed when we reached Texas. At one point, the train passed very close to the border with Mexico. Along the border were people in white SUVs, carrying large semi-automatic rifles. Mexico seems like a friendly place. I'll have to drive there sometime.

The rest of Texas was pretty uneventful, but I did meet a few cool people on the train. We're now facebook friends, or something like that. I'm still getting the hang of this "internet" thing.

I got into Arkansas late on Sunday night. I was supposed to get off at the Little Rock station at 11:30, where my dad would pick me up and drive me back (about 30 minutes away), but instead, I had him meet me one station earlier (which was an hour earlier than Little Rock, and also 30 minutes from my parent's house). There was some pretty strong wind and rain, and loud sirens in the distance. As it was more comfortable than the train, I slept well.

The next day (and also today), it's been nothing but talk about "tornadoes", and "destroyed buildings". But that's unrelated.

thebigbossyboss > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 22:44

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I didn't read any of the previous posts...but i enjoyed this post. Good Jerb. What kind of people do you encounter taking a train across the us?

The Transporter > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 22:48

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Been there, done that.

cabarne4 > thebigbossyboss 04/29/2014 at 22:50

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All my previous posts you can read on my kinja blog (cabarnett.kinja.com). They're all similar writing style, and shitty iPod quality pictures. I had fun with them, and my friends have all enjoyed them.

On the train, you meet people from literally all walks of life. There's old retired people, who are just having fun going around the country. There's poor people who couldn't afford flying, but didn't want to degrade themselves by taking Greyhound. There's foreigners travelling across the US the same way they would across Germany (these are the best, and the ones I usually hang out with the whole trip. It's fun to joke about just how inefficient and late our train system is!). There's college-aged kids like myself, and there's even whole families.

For this trip, I stayed 4 nights in a hostel in Flagstaff. If you're young / social / adventurous, it's an awesome environment. I really only need a bed at night to sleep in, so I really can't justify paying $100 / night for a room all to myself. All 4 nights, I managed to share a dorm-style room with 3 Germans all around my age. Made a few good friends in the hostel, and went out drinking / partying every night. For $22 / night, much better than any hotel.

cabarne4 > The Transporter 04/29/2014 at 22:51

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Yeah, but the tree to the left of the sign is a little bigger in mine!

The Transporter > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 22:54

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Well, that was almost 10 years ago.

thebigbossyboss > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 22:54

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Cool Thanks for sharing. I will have to check out your other posts later as some of us have work at 6:30 AM EST which is in 7.5 hours.

Glad you had a good trip!

cabarne4 > The Transporter 04/29/2014 at 22:56

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Excuses, excuses.

cabarne4 > thebigbossyboss 04/29/2014 at 22:57

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Yeah, I have to be up in about 7 hours as well. Luckily I don't require sleep.

After a week and a half of great weather, fun nights out drinking / partying, and hanging out, I came back to Arkansas to face tornadoes and destroyed buildings... So, yeah, gonna go rebuild shit tomorrow.

Ferrero1911 > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 23:04

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I've enjoyed reading about your train journey. Believe it or not that is way more water than there usually is in the LA river. I'm glad you did the vault tour at the Petersen. Totally worth the extra money!

cabarne4 > Ferrero1911 04/29/2014 at 23:08

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It's been a really fun trip. I've got two more trips in the planning stages for the summer, but sadly they don't involve trains.

Oddly enough, it actually rained the one night I was in LA! If you're a local, it would've been Thursday night. Started raining about 9 or so, continued raining until I left.

Ferrero1911 > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 23:11

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Ahh yes, I remember the rain. Luckily my car was safe at home in the garage, so he's still clean!

cabarne4 > Ferrero1911 04/29/2014 at 23:11

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People in Los Angeles have garages? (I kid, I kid...)

Ferrero1911 > cabarne4 04/29/2014 at 23:16

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Haha. Only the rich people have their own garage! I have a garage below my building with tandem parking. But Bird's Bronco doesn't fit in the garage. So little Ferrero gets both spaces!

cabarne4 > Ferrero1911 04/29/2014 at 23:20

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Shit that thing is awesome! And I usually don't like trucks.

I honestly wouldn't mind living in LA, if cost of living weren't so high... and by the time you find some place you can actually afford, you're either in east LA (and going to get shot), or so far out in the suburbs that you'll die of old age before you actually make it to work.

That's why I live in Phoenix. It's like LA, just without a beach, public transportation, or a high cost of living.

thebigbossyboss > cabarne4 04/30/2014 at 06:47

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Sorry to hear about that. I can't imagine how though that is. Good luck!

cabarne4 > thebigbossyboss 04/30/2014 at 07:58

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Oh shit, I guess that's badly worded. I was half asleep while posting. My family is in the metal roofing / metal building business out here... Lots of roof damage around here, so the next few weeks are going to be insane. Tornadoes passed just a few miles north of us... Some winds ripped the trim off one of our buildings, but it took us maybe an hour to make new trim, get up there on a ladder, and fix it.

EDIT: probably one of the few businesses that loves tornadoes and hail!

thebigbossyboss > cabarne4 04/30/2014 at 08:49

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Well..at least you'll have lots of business!!

cabarne4 > thebigbossyboss 04/30/2014 at 10:25

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Haha it's already starting... Once insurance adjusters figure stuff out, we figure it's going to get absolutely insane. I'll probably have a couple of LATE nights (1 or 2 am) working the roll former.