tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65451982100715974632024-03-13T14:22:20.467-07:002011 Nth American AdventureSydney - LAX - Kelowna (via Calgary) - Big White Ski Resort - LAX (via Vancouver) - Boston - New Orleans - Chicago - Reno - Heavenly Ski Resort - LAX - SydneyBobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-55423359203785917732011-03-11T20:43:00.000-08:002011-03-11T21:31:52.942-08:00Home, Sweet Home...<i><b>Days 34, 35 and 36, Mar 8th, 9th and 10th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>S</t></b></i>afely home. We left Harvey's on the 10:45am shuttle on the 8th and walked in the door at home at 10:45am on the 10th.<br />
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We checked out of our hotel in the morning, using up all our rewards points, not that there were many left after Diane and Lorraine waged war on the hotel gift shops. Breakfast was at Cabo Wabo for the 7th straight day where we were certainly on first name terms with our waiter.<br />
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The shuttle arrived and we were met by a sour bus driver who was obviously not having a good day. A 90 minute odd trip to Reno airport saw us check-in and prepare for more than a 2 hour wait for our plane. Clive and Lorraine decided to check-in at the kerbside check-in where Lorraine tipped the guy a few dollars to overlook her overweight bags. It worked...lol<br />
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At 3pm we were in the air and headed for LAX aboard a Southwest Airlines flight. A pretty smooth flight saw us land at LAX and collect our baggage and leave the terminal about 4:30pm. It was at this stage that we said our goodbyes to Clive and Lorraine who were headed to Pasadena for a few days before flying home on Thursday, arriving on Saturday in Sydney.<br />
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Diane and I took a terminal shuttle to Tom Bradley and checked in. Even though the flights to Sydney and Melbourne don't leave until 22:30, 23:00 and 23:50, the check-in process opens at 2pm. I guess it is to accommodate passengers who have to check out of their hotel by midday and need to leave their baggage somewhere rather than lug it around Los Angeles for the day. If so, that's good customer service.<br />
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By 5pm, we had checked our baggage through, even though our flight wasn't leaving until almost midnight. We had time to go somewhere, but we still had our hand luggage and I had my laptop etc, so we decided to just suck it up and sit out the 7 hour wait. After having a snack and a coffee, we thought we may as well clear security whilst there were no crowds and spend the time at an eatery/bar or some shops once inside the terminal. Big mistake. When we went thru, we found 2 or 3 VERY small shops with almost nothing to sell and no restaurants at all. From memory I thought there was a heap of shops and bars inside when we had been waiting at LAX previously, but obviously not the case. I finally worked out that it was more than likely when we connected from LAX to New York from another terminal. As it turns out, Tom Bradley is a ghost town once you get thru security and immigration.<br />
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Well, there was no way we were not going to go stir crazy stuck in here for 6 hours, so we asked somebody could we get out. To our mild surprise, it was no problem at all and we just walked out back into the terminal itself. We had a light dinner, Diane had the worst noodle dish she had all trip and I had bagels and cream cheese, just OK. We then had a drink and waited impatiently. A quick wander thru the duty free without purchasing and we decided to head back thru the security checkpoint again.<br />
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Once inside we waited in a vacant lounge until the QF12 was due to leave at 22:30 where we then made our way to that gate, which was the same gate that our flight, QF108 was leaving from. We were then treated to a bit of a show as one passenger hadn't shown for the flight. They made multiple announcements over the PA, different staff went different ways to try and track him down. It then got to the stage where they had to remove his bags from the plane, but this was not going to be an easy task, finding unknown colour bags from a full plane, but they cannot leave a passenger behind without offloading his baggage, for obvious reasons. It was getting quite comical as at least 10 staff went out to look for this guy. He was eventually found in the 'oneWorld lounge' and the call came thru the radios that he was located. This led to the bag search being abandoned and finally this guy turns up, escorted by about 6 staff members and seemingly oblivious to the commotion he had caused. The plane eventually left about 20 minutes late.<br />
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It was then our turn to sweat. Because we had checked in at 5pm, 7 hours before the flight, we didn't get seated at check-in, not even an economy seat, our boarding pass was marked 'SBY' for standby, allowing us to pass thru security and immigration, but not guaranteeing we would actually get on the plane. Our 'contact' in Sydney assured us we would be fine, but it would still be nice to have that seat number. Diane went to the counter and was told that the staff seating sheet had not come thru yet. He agreed it was pretty late, but there was nothing they could do until it came thru. They began to board, boarding first class, business and premium economy first. They then called for rows 55 thru 75 to board and still we sat in the waiting area with no boarding pass!!!<br />
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Some guy came near the counter and spoke to a woman who was checking and directing the premium passengers. She went to the counter and we heard her say 'Standby passenger MrX' and grabbed his boarding pass which was sitting on the counter. This made Diane jump up and see the same woman who kindly grabbed our passes which were just sitting on the counter waiting for us to be called but it appeared all too much for the staff. We were not seated together, one in front of the other, but up the pointy end so all good. When we boarded there were empty seats galore in business and it's hard to work out why we were just not given a boarding pass, if not at check-in but when we first went to the gate. I've read on some airline staff forums that the staff at LAX like to make other staff sweat for amusement purposes, perhaps that was there motivation, but whilst we got a tad concerned, we were never really sweating as our 'contact' had given us the 'you'll be fine'.<br />
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We boarded the plane which was one of the 747's with the indigenous paint job. I soon noticed the huge difference in the amount of room on the 747 and the A380, the latter being much roomier. This was more than made up for however by the friendly cabin crew. We both recognised one of the older guys as someone we had flown with before. We were looked after splendidly. I was plied with copious amounts of Shiraz followed by 2 'generous' Cointreau and ice whilst Diane's sleeping pill of choice was cognac. Both worked fine and I got 5 or 6 hours before waking and watching 'The Kings Speech'. It was a fine movie, but I think maybe didn't transfer well to the small screen on the plane, some very dark cinematography and scenes made it difficult to see.<br />
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We arrived ontime at 09:20am, walked off the plane at 09:25 and walked straight thru the automatic line. Our bags were waiting for us as they were still marked standby and got offloaded first (they would have been put on last) and we walked into the arrivals terminal at 09:40am. Almost a record surely for touching down and walking to the taxi rank!!!<br />
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A friend had looked after the car for the 5 weeks and he was soon there to pick us up, we dropped him back at work and we headed home and as I said, arrived home at 10:45, exactly 2 days after we had left Harvey's to come home, less time difference of course.<br />
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So that's it, nothing much more to say. Soon enough we will be both back at work and working to pay off the credit cards and start planning our next trip which at this stage looks a fair way off, but will more than likely be Europe, using a combination of cheap flights and train travel to commute between Priceline hotels in major European cities.<br />
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Thx to all who took the time to read my ramblings and I hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed bringing them to you. <br />
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Until I see you in the flesh...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-67763869380739495022011-03-08T00:20:00.000-08:002011-03-08T00:20:11.492-08:00Last day in Heavenly...<i><b>Day 33, Mar 7th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>W</t></b></i>e woke to a slightly overcast day. It had snowed during the night, an inch or two in the village but a foot reported at the top.<br />
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We had breakfast at the usual, Cabo Wabo Cantina, where we had the usual, 2 eggs over medium, sausages and a double serving of sourdough toast.<br />
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Clive and Lorraine then headed to the mountain, I piked it and Diane was never going anyway. Diane and I arranged to meet Clive and Lorraine at 2:30pm at the bottom of the gondola where we would buy a foot passenger ticket and take a trip up the gondola and have coffee at mid-station and a look from the viewing platform.<br />
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I played a bit of poker online for a few hours before we headed out at 1pm to do some shopping before meeting Clive and Lorraine. On the way, I passed a familiar arcade game. Does anybody remember the very early Tom Hanks movie 'Big'??...<br />
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We went to the big supermarket in the village where Diane stocked up on pills, potions, lotions and some cosmetics. I have no real idea of prices, but the girls assure me they are way cheaper then back in Australia. I took a look down the grog aisle and looking at those prices, I have no doubt that what they say is true, things are much cheaper. We noticed it earlier in the trip that some of the grog prices were ridiculously cheap. I took a few photos to prove the point...<br />
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Wild Turkey, less than $20 a 750 ml bottle...<br />
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Jim Beam, a 1.75 litre for less than $30... <br />
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Hendricks Gin, 750ml for $32...<br />
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...when I got back to the hotel, I looked at the Downtown Duty Free website and those prices were between 20% and 40% better than the duty free price in Australia.<br />
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We met Clive and Lorraine and we went up the gondola. Here are a whole lot of short videos I took on the way up and when we cam back down...<br />
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We jumped off at mid station where they have a viewing platform, a small retail shop and what we thought was a cafe. Unfortunately we only found out when we got there that the cafe only opened on weekends. The view was spectacular from a raised metal walkway which winds itself around a small summit for about 100m. Here are some of the shots I got off the viewing platform and from the gondola and a few shots of the trees, splendidly covered in snow...<br />
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We made our way back to the hotel after coffee and a donut at a 'Seattle's Best Coffee' outlet in the village. When we got back, the girls decided to go down and do some souvenir shopping and pick up a few things for special family members and friends whilst Clive and I readied ourselves for dinner. While I was getting ready, I noticed a now sunny mogul run up on the mountain...<br />
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The sun was also playing some nice tricks on the lake and the clouds as it set...<br />
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We had dinner at Harrah's in their 5* restaurant which was very, very nice. The bill was also pretty nice at over $300 + tip. Fortunately it was all covered by our rewards points, except the tip of course. We have now eaten for the past 4 days for nothing, including two posh dinners at bona fide 5* restaurants with $300+ bills. We still have a $50 coupon left which will pay for breakfast in the morning. <br />
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It's after midnight and I'm ready for bed. We check out in the morning and are booked on a 10:45am shuttle to Reno airport for a 2:55pm flight. That means we have the best part of 3 hours in Reno. After we arrive in LAX at 4:30pm, we have a 7+ hour wait until our plane leaves at 23:50 for a 15hr flight back to Australia. It looks like it will be one hell of a day, but should make it easy to get some sleep on the plane, providing we are at the pointy end, fingers crossed.<br />
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This will be the last blog entry until I get back to Australia where I will finish it up with all the happenings of the 30+hr travel day we have tomorrow. Thanks to everybody who has taken the time to read and leave comments. I've enjoyed bringing you the happenings of the trip, but I'm now REALLY tired and looking forward to coming home.<br />
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Until I'm back in Oz, later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-23554956306847766702011-03-07T10:47:00.000-08:002011-03-07T10:47:39.035-08:00A little bit of exploration...<i><b>Day 32, Mar 6th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>W</t></b></i>e think we finally have the bus system sussed, so we decided that after breakfast we would do some exploring of the other 2 main base stations, California Lodge Base and the Boulder Lodge and Stagecoach Lodge Bases on the Nevada side.<br />
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Breakfast was the usual 2 eggs over medium and sausages for all of us. Diane opted out of the bus run so Clive, Lorraine and I headed to the transit station at the Gondola Base where we jumped aboard the 'orange route' bus which took us to the California Base. At the base were a few shops and a nice big cafeteria where we had coffee and a look around. We hopped on the next bus back to the transit station where we changed and waited for the 'blue route' bus to take us to the Nevada base stations.<br />
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The blue route bus arrived and off we went. This was a much prettier and interesting ride as the bus climbs high into the mountains via the 'Kingsbury Grade' before coming to the Boulder Lodge base area. This was not a huge base, but had a very slow moving chair which serviced a beginners area which came back down to the base area underneath the chair. The non beginner accesses another lift when they alight the slow lift at the top, taking you further up the mountain to more advanced terrain. The bus continues from Boulder Lodge to Stagecoach Lodge base, further up the mountain again. This is a large area surrounded by condos and impressive looking apartment blocks set high in the mountains at about 7,500'. There appeared to be a few shops, but nothing worth actually getting out for, so we stayed on the bus for the return journey to the transit station at the Gondola Base. Reasonably solid snow falling also made our decision to stay on the bus a relatively easy one.<br />
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Once we got back to the village, we decided to got to the movies, again. Third day straight for Clive and Lorraine. We went and saw 'Just Go for It' with Adam Sandler, Jennifer Anniston and Nicole Kidman. It was a very enjoyable, lightweight comedy and we all thought it was a good movie. After the movie we wandered back to the hotel and it was about 4:30pm. We had a few hours in the room before heading off for dinner at Harrah's.<br />
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Once at Harrah's we decided to make tomorrow, our last night together and for Diane and I, our last night of the trip a special one, so we went to the 18th floor and booked a table for tomorrow night at Friday's Station Steak and Seafood Grill, an upmarket restaurant at Harrah's on the 18th floor with a lake view. We went back downstairs and headed for the 'American River Cafe' for dinner. It is a burger, soup and sandwich type place at Harrah's. We each had $5 off vouchers which they let us use, so after that we had a smallish balance left over which we paid using our Reward Points. We headed back to Harvey's where I drew stumps early at about 10pm with Diane, Clive and Lorraine heading to bed not long after.<br />
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Just a few quick pics...<br />
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Last nights sunset with the sun straining thru thick cloud...<br />
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This morning with clouds covering all the peaks on the horizon...<br />
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Some pretty pics of the village and nearby holiday units covered from a light dusting overnight... <br />
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The natural 'median strip' formed by the snow building in the centre after being pushed aside by traffic...<br />
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I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring ski wise. I tried my boots on but it was too uncomfortable and I've totally lost the passion to get out there, so I'm unlikely to get up the hill, not to ski anyway. Lorraine is going to try her boots again and hopefully will get out for a few hours with Clive. Providing it is not clouded in, I will be going up the gondola as a foot passenger, hopefully with Diane, to take some pictures of the magical view and also a video.<br />
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Until then, later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-22744822672951452012011-03-07T09:58:00.000-08:002011-03-07T09:58:09.508-08:00Another relaxing day...<i><b>Day 31, Mar 5th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>T</t></b></i>oday, being Saturday, was always going to be an easy one avoiding the crowds on the hill. <br />
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Diane is feeling a bit better, but still finding it hard to stomach food. She elected to skip breakfast so I joined Clive and Lorraine at our usual breakfast haunt, Cabo Wabo Cantina in Harvey's. After breakfast Clive and Lorraine left to explore the other casino properties in the close vicinity, Horizons Resort and MontBleu. Their prognosis...don't bother. Diane and I headed to the laundry where we did a couple of loads of washing. It seems to be our typical Saturday now, last week in Chicago we spent the evening at a laundramat...lol.<br />
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Clive and Lorraine went to the movies in the afternoon to see 'Hall Pass' and Diane and I spent a lazy afternoon in the room after coffee and a snack for lunch.<br />
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In the evening we decided to dress a bit more upmarket for our dinner at the 'Sage Room Steakhouse' just off the gaming floor at Harvey's. Before going to the steakhouse, we attended 'Kitchen 19', another upmarket restaurant and bar on the 19th floor with sweeping views of the lake and mountain, although being dark we did not get the opportunity to enjoy those views. We went to the bar and used some coupons to receive 2 for 1 $12 Martinis. I'm not sure any of us really enjoyed the Martini's we ordered, but you'd get pretty trashed trying them all until you found one you liked.<br />
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We went back down to the steakhouse and despite the 3* location off the normal gaming floor, the service and ambiance was absolute 5*. We had about 5 different waiters. A drink waiter, a wine waiter, our normal waiter, a waiter for this and a waiter for that. Of course Clive's reaction was 'I hope they all don't expect a tip'. The hardest part was not getting run over by all the trolleys of food flying down the aisle between tables. All the meals are brought to the table on a trolley where the waiter prepares each meals sides. If you have ordered a baked potato, it is split and semi-mashed by a fork in front of you, then you can get sour cream, chives and bacon added in any quantity you desire. The deserts and coffees were flaming and exploding on trolleys all over the place, there was always something happening.<br />
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We finished the evening with a few beers and drinks at the slots whilst the girls had a play and it was close to midnight by the time we headed to bed.<br />
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No pics today, but hopefully I can get the pictures and video from the gondola before we leave. Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-70672417845700570792011-03-05T09:49:00.000-08:002011-03-05T09:49:37.702-08:00Relaxing day...<i><b>Day 30, Mar 4th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>G</t></b></i>lorious sunny skies greeted us as we woke this morning. I took these shots from our room on the 11th floor...<br />
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With the weather so nice, Lorraine thought she may head up the mountain and have a ski. Unfortunately, whilst trying to put her boots on, she found it too painful due to a nasty bump she gave her leg back in Big White. On the morning we were leaving Big White, I heard a scream/obscenity fly from Clive and Lorraine's room. My first thought was Clive must have walked naked out of the shower, but Lorraine hobbled into the living area, having banged her shin on the very solid steel base of the bed. Within minutes she had a rather large 'egg' forming on her lower leg which was obviously painful. It was this area which started to 'burn' when she put on her boots this morning, so that plan was put on ice.<br />
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Clive called from their room and we arranged to go for breakfast. Diane opted out because she has picked up a bug or something and has been getting nauseous and unable to keep food down for a few days. In fact, at Hard Rock last night Diane ordered a chicken dish which she barely touched. When the waiter took away the plates he inquired as to whether there was something wrong with the food. Diane explained she had not been well and thought she would be able to nibble on a chicken dish but was unable to do so. To their credit, they did not charge us for Diane's meal, so that was nice. Of course, as Clive rightly pointed out, it was in the waiters best interests to ask the manager to waive the meal cost as it was he who would get the subsequent generous tip. Little did he realise he was dealing with Clive...lol<br />
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The three of us went to breakfast and I got into trouble because I forgot to bring the vegemite tube we brought over with us. We also learnt something at breakfast that I was unaware of about ordering our eggs. 'Sunny side up' is obviously eggs cooked but not flipped, that part we knew. I was under the impression that when you flipped the eggs, it was called 'over easy' and that was it. Lorraine asked for her eggs to be 'over easy', but not too runny, so the waiter said 'You want them over medium?'. We then established that you can have them 'over easy' = runny, 'over medium' = not runny but not hard and 'over hard' which cooks the yolks until they are hard. So Karmen, remember to order your eggs, 'over rocks'.<br />
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After breakfast Clive and Lorraine headed out because Lorraine wanted to show Clive some artistic 'pieces' her and Diane had seen the day before. We arranged to meet at 11:30 at the local 'Village 6' to see Matt Damon's new movie 'The Adjustment Bureau'. This we did and although we all agreed it is not a must see, the movie was OK, just. We then headed to a pharmacy and Diane described her symptoms to the pharmacist who told her to take 'Pepto Bismol'. It's the pink stuff that gets mentioned often in American sitcoms when they do gastric, farting and vomiting jokes. We also found out where the local Medical Centre is if her condition doesn't improve in the coming days. We wandered around a few more shops before heading back to the casino. An hour or two on the gaming floor and it was almost time for dinner. <br />
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I went and checked my 'Rewards Points' balance at the desk. Now here is the Rewards Points story. On our first night, we went and signed up at the host desk because we thought at the end of the week we may have enough points to get a T-Shirt and a pen or something. The very friendly lady at the desk explained the good deal we get as 'new members'. If we accumulate 100 points within 48 hours you get a $20 gaming credit. 250 points gets you a $50 dining credit for use in the restaurants and 500 points gets you $150 in credit to spend anywhere in the property, dining, merchandise, whatever you like. Diane and Lorraine stuck their cards in the machines and started hammering the buttons. It soon became evident as there points tally climbed that the first level would be almost reached by the time they go to bed. To cut a long story short, both Diane and Lorraine reached their 500 points easily and received all 3 rewards. So they started to play with my card inserted. Within the 48 hours I had reached 300 points, so I got my $20 and my $50 dining credit. The lady told me to come back tomorrow (today) and check to see if I reached 500 points. I knew that was outside the 48 hour limit, but who am I to argue. When I went to the desk a different lady was there and she told me I was outside the 48 hours cutoff. I said I understand and it was no problem, but Maria had told me to come back today. She told me Maria starts in 20 minutes and if i wanted to see her, go for it. I waited for Maria to start and went and saw her. She smiled and then said 'Oh, we are outside the 48 hours' I said I understood that but she had told me to come back tonight. She made a call to her boss and within 30 minutes I also had the $150 credited to my card...woohoo<br />
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We had dinner at the Chinese restaurant in Harrah's where our Rewards are also valid. We had Peking Duck and a few other dishes and when the bill came, Lorraine used her $50 voucher and paid the balance of $66 off her rewards balance which was over $170. All we had to do was throw in the cash tip. Tomorrow night we are booked into the Steakhouse at Harvey's and Diane will use her voucher and card for another free meal. My voucher and card will be used for Sunday nights meal and we are going to sign Clive up tomorrow morning, Diane and Lorraine will use Clives card when they play and we'll use Clive's card to pay on Monday. Breakfasts from now on will also be paid for by reward points, so we should be eating free from now until we leave on Tuesday morning. Any unused rewards can be used at the casino merchandise shops, so we should have enough for those T-Shirts and pens after we are finished...lol<br />
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That's all for today, but here are a few more shots from our hotel window...<br />
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The Village...<br />
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The gondola...<br />
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No, it's not the cemetery, it's a new casino complex that was being built next to Harvey's on a huge block. Apparently the developers went broke at this stage of construction and the current economic environment has failed to find anybody willing to take it on. It may stay like this for a long time...<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-29276100516704754992011-03-04T22:25:00.000-08:002011-03-05T08:36:40.921-08:00Not so Heavenly...<i><b>Day 29, Mar 3rd</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>P</t></b></i>ockets of sunshine could be seen over the mountains when we woke as the cloud appeared to be breaking up and it was looking promising.<br />
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Clive and I headed out at 8:30, jumping the shuttle for the short ride to the gondola base station where we needed to hire our skis. I'm not sure if my feet and ankles were a bit swollen due to the altitude, but I was having problems with my boots with the very bottom of my shin, just above the ankle, pressing hard against the tongue of the boot on both feet. It was a problem I first encountered in Big White on the right boot only, but after a few tweeks it was alleviated. By the time I left Big White the boots were fitting fine. This of course made walking very painful, but also made skiing painful as I found out later because when I flexed or tried to get forward in my boots, I was taking the whole pressure on that one spot. <br />
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We hired our skis at one of the dozens of rental shop at the base of the Gondola, Powder House Skis. The casinos and just about everywhere else is full of vouchers, 10% off this, 15% off that. Ski rental is no different and the concierge had given us a voucher for 15% off at Powder House, although there were similar vouchers in at least 3 coupon books I looked at. They had a pretty good setup and friendly staff and although busy, we were fitted out reasonably quick. They have an unusual setup because all they take is a credit card authorisation for $50 and you pay for the skis when you return them after you have finished your skiing for the trip. At less than $30 a day and every 4th day free, it is a pretty good deal. <br />
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As I said, the whole process was pretty streamlined, but we were in no real hurry. When we arrived, the line for the gondola was at least 150m long!! It snaked up one side of the mall, around the top and back down the other. Clive went and bought lift tickets for both of us and we were shocked when they cost $90. They were under $80 if bought in advance online, but as we were unsure just how much we'd ski we decided we would just buy daily's. Even though $90 is less than the $100+ we pay to ski crappy snow in Australia, by Nth America standards it is pretty steep.<br />
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The trip up the gondola is spectacular, no way else to describe it. It runs fairly flat for a couple of hundred metres before steeply rising to the summit. The views back over the lake and town are breathtaking. I didn't bring the camera, but when I next go up the gondola I will be taking lots of pics and probably shoot a video as well. It has a small mid station right at the top of the first summit where they have a viewing deck and a small cafe. It is accessible only on the trip up where you can get off, have a look around and then get back on a gondola going further up the mountain.<br />
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When we got to the top of the gondola, we were presented with about 20 or so steel steps to get down to snow level, however there was a lift which was used less than I thought it would be. We jumped the lift and arrived at snow level. We then head to the giant trail map board to work out where we could go. Amazingly, you have 2 choices. An almost 100m walk up a slight hill to a lift on the Nevada side or a 200m walk, push, skate to pick up the California Trail and ski on the California side of Heavenly. Already I was less than impressed. <br />
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We opted to go to the California side which was little more than a wide cat track leading down to some lifts. The snow was very nice however, so we just picked one of the 2 lifts and headed up. At the bottom of the lift was a small sign where they list which runs have been groomed. We took a look and saw which runs had been groomed. When we got off the lift at the top we discovered another thing that Heavenly doesn't appear to do well. The directional signposting of runs is pitiful. I guess for regulars it doesn't matter much, but for first timers, it was sadly lacking.<br />
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We skied down a few blue runs which were decidedly on the greener side of blue. In fact by the end of the day, we had skied half a dozen or more blue runs which were much less difficult than the green runs in Canada that we have skied in Big White and Whistler. We stopped at about 11am for some lunch because we hadn't had anything for breakfast in our rush to get out on the slopes. We both had a burger and a cold drink and it was definitely 'on hill' pricing.<br />
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My shins were now killing me and I was not a particularly happy camper. We did a few more runs but my skiing was not good. I could not get forward in my boots because the pain was terrible, so I'm sliding down like 'Sammy Straightleg', conscious not to get in the back seat but unable to flex my boot. I asked Clive would he be OK skiing a few runs on his own whilst I went inside to a cafe and took off my boots hoping the 30 minutes rest without the boots on may help. He was fine with that so I headed into a big cafe/eatery and was lucky enough to find a seat straight away. I was soon joined by a couple of 30'ish girls on holiday from Florida and later by their husbands. All 4 of them were here for the first time and all 4 commented on how poor the signage was.<br />
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Clive came in after a bit and we had a coffee. He told me of a few nice runs he had found so after finishing our coffee we headed back out to them. They were nice gentle runs, all blue but they were barely blue even by Aussie standards. My shins weren't getting any better and Clive knew I was struggling, so I made the decision to come back down the mountain on the gondola. Clive stayed out and skied the extra hour and a bit until the lifts were ready to close.<br />
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I hobbled back to the ski rentals and returned my skis as I knew I wouldn't be skiing the next few days. The cost is a daily cost, no discount for multiple days, so it was pointless keeping them when the process to go thru hiring again is pretty painless anyway. I have a decision to make now. At the hire place they told me that they have a master boot fitter who works at shop 5 (they have 7 outlets throughout the town) and they were sure he would be able to get me going. I'm worried if I get the boots 'blown out' a bit, when things return to normal they may be too big. I guess I could just try some hire boots until I find a boot that is comfortable for now. At any rate, my shins will take a few days to recover, so I'll see what happens over the next few days.<br />
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I then needed to get the 200m back to Harvey's. I seriously contemplated taking the boots off and walking in my socks, but that would have been agony in the cold as well...lol. I then remembered when we went to the general store the other day that they had cheap walking boots. I needed a pair, so I went in there and bought a pair, wore them out of the shop and threw the ski boots over the shoulder and walked back to the casino and room. <br />
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Diane and Lorraine were out shopping when I got back to the room, but soon enough they were back. They went downstairs for a bit of play, in the meantime Clive arrived back from the mountain. Clive said he finally found a longish run, but he was still unimpressed with the layout and infrastructure of Heavenly, as was I.<br />
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We had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe inside the casino before attending a show. It was a Comedy Central type show with 2 comedians and a comedian/MC. It was very funny and all the acts were quite good, although the final and main act, Rocky LaPorte, a New Yorker of Italian heritage was a class above.<br />
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There's really not much more to say about today, the mountain was disappointing, the skiing was even more disappointing from a personal view and I didn't remove the camera from it's case so I have no pics to show.<br />
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Let's see what tomorrow brings.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-81124415303124436912011-03-03T18:39:00.000-08:002011-03-03T18:39:30.660-08:00Settled in at Tahoe...<i><b>Day 28, Mar 2nd</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>T</t></b></i>he weather this morning was as predicted, wet and miserable. The Gondola was on wind hold, as were several of the other chairs. It made the decision to delay the start of our skiing by a day an easy one.<br />
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The four of us headed to breakfast in the hotel where Diane discovered she did not have her reading glasses and believed she must have left them in the restaurant at Harrah's the night before. After breakfast, I went in search of her glasses, Clive went to the hotel laundry to remove some clothing from the dryer after he and Lorraine had washed some clothes before breakfast and the girls went off to play the slots. <br />
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I found Diane's glasses at the restaurant, Clive did the domestics and we met the girls downstairs to plan the day. I thought it may be a good idea to do a loop of the local bus which runs the length of the main Sth Tahoe strip to have a look at the sights and get some bearings. Diane opted out of going outside in the cold, so Clive, Lorraine and I found the bus stop and waited for the 'GoBlue Bus' which allegedly comes every 20 minutes. At least 30 minutes later we jumped the bus and as Clive, who got on last, passed the driver he was informed it wasn't a free trip which we thought it was. Clive pulled $3 from his pocket and stuck into the drivers perspex cash holder and that was that. We are not sure what they spend the fare money on, but it certainly isn't cleaning the windows which were so filthy you could barely see out of them, seriously. It was a terrible day and it's impossible to keep windows of cars and buses clean in a snow town as we have found out touring the USA, but these looked like they hadn't seen a hose for a month.<br />
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When we came back, we found Diane and her and Lorraine decided to play the slots for a little while. I talked Clive into splitting $100 with me at the Craps table. I had given Clive, Lorraine and Diane a quick Craps lesson the previous day, so we went and put the lessons into practice. We had a little bit of success and were winning about $30 when they decided to double the table minimum, for reasons I still cannot fathom. This caused more than half the table to leave, including us. <br />
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A relaxing afternoon was followed by a very nice meal at Nepheles, a nice restaurant serving 'Creative Californian Cuisine' and about a 10 minute taxi ride from the casino. Clive and I both had broiled elk and the girls had fish. We all shared an appetizer which was seafood cheesecake. A bottle of wine, a few drinks and a nice night was had by all. The restaurant rang a taxi for us and we were back in the hotel around 10pm. We decided to call it a night there and then and not go up to the gaming floor, so it was an early lights out in preparation for our first day on snow tomorrow.<br />
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Some pictures of Tahoe, all taken from our hotel room in Harvey's...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A5GlDFlsoaQ/TXBPq2nw3MI/AAAAAAAACDg/TD8JEsqWnB4/s1600/Mar%2B2nd%2B005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A5GlDFlsoaQ/TXBPq2nw3MI/AAAAAAAACDg/TD8JEsqWnB4/s400/Mar%2B2nd%2B005.JPG" /></a></div>Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-25101660661433772862011-03-02T22:44:00.000-08:002011-03-02T22:44:18.858-08:00AMTRAK over...<i><b>Day 27, Mar 1st</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>A</t></b></i>fter 12 nights on trains and a few hotel rooms, the AMTRAK adventure came to an end this morning. As I noted at the end of yesterdays blog, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and although I've had enough for now, it has certainly whet my appetite to buy a Eurail Pass sometime in the future and use the train as a viable option to navigate around Europe.<br />
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The last leg however was not without it's problems and the late arrival into Reno which I floated was a probability since we left Chicago late on Sunday, did eventuate although for a while we were close to making it.<br />
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We awoke early on our last morning to take in our final breakfast/meal before arriving in Reno. We showered and packed our belongings ready for what was shaping as a mad dash to the airport to pick up the South Lake Tahoe Express shuttle. I made a quick video of the Superliner roomette before leaving the train...<br />
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It appeared we were looking at a 9:40'ish arrival into Reno. If we got our bags and connected with a taxi real quick, we would probably just make it. The train pulled into Sparks, which is a sort of dual city setup with Reno. For Aussies, think Albury/Wodonga. It was about 9:30 and the train stopped just short of the platform where we waited...and waited. Finally the crew announced on the PA that they were having problems with the lead engine and were playing it safe by replacing it to ensure they have no problems climbing the pass thru the Sierra Nevada mountain range which was awaiting the train after Reno. This was predicted to take about 30 minutes, so the 10am shuttle was now scuttled. I'd had contact with Lorraine via SMS and they were already at the shuttle terminal which was inside the airport terminal. I let her know we would not make it and she passed that information onto the shuttle people. It is a fairly common occurrence for people to be held up by late connections and they just said we could get on the next available shuttle after we finally arrive. <br />
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Of course the 30 minute engine change took well over an hour and we arrived in Reno a few minutes after 11am. A taxi ride to the airport saw us arrive in time to catch the midday shuttle. It was a very scenic trip to South Lake Tahoe and we arrived at the hotel just after 1:30pm. I took this short video as we approached our destination, a few miles out from Stateline...<br />
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Here are a few pics taken from the bus as we made the trip down...<br />
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Note the small object on the top of the hill...<br />
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This was the object. They are very patriotic...<br />
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It appears the modus operandi for clearing snow from shopping centre carparks is to stack it up around a light pole or tree. Every carpark looks the same...<br />
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A couple of buildings in Carson City...<br />
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After checking in, we had a bit of a job to locate Clive and Lorraine who were out and about having a look at things. We finally caught up with them on the casino floor and had coffee at Starbucks. After a few hours relaxing in our rooms, we met up for dinner in a simple restaurant in Harrah's Casino which is opposite Harvey's Casino where we are staying and can be accessed by a tunnel beneath the road adjoining the 2 gaming floors. They are both owned by the same group and their Player Rewards program is interchangeable. <br />
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After dinner we went back to Harvey's where we signed up for the Player Rewards program to maybe earn some freebies by the end of our week here. Diane and Lorraine played slots/pokies on machines side by side whilst Clive and I looked on. They both had a good run and finished the night well in front. It was getting late and we'd all had big days travelling after rising early, so I think we were all thankful to get some sleep.<br />
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The forecast is not good for the morning. They have had massive amounts of snow over the past 2 weeks and it appears there is more to come. Clive and I agreed to play it by ear and if it is fogged in and miserable, we will probably delay hiring our gear and have a rest day. I know that's a bit of a novelty to have a rest day before we even start, but we have all had a pretty solid month on the go over here and both Clive and I are treating this last leg as a quiet week with a bit of skiing, rather than a full-on ski every day ski holiday. Who'd have thought I'd be saying that!!<br />
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More tomorrow, later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-4960041345227302892011-03-02T06:45:00.000-08:002011-03-02T06:45:23.362-08:00Day in the Rockies, simply stunning...<i><b>Day 26, Feb 28th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>E</t></b></i>ven though I woke early, I had a reasonable nights sleep. I guess I’m now getting used to the narrow bedding and although I couldn’t possibly sleep like that on a permanent basis, it is now easily bearable.<br />
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What time did I get up? Well at first I wasn’t sure. My phone said 5:35am, but had it gone back an hour yet or not? I had absolutely no idea where we were, how close we were to the Nebraska/Colorado border where the time changes from Central US to Mountain US time. Maybe we were past the border? Either way, I felt like getting up anyway and beating everybody else to the shower. By the time I showered and changed and got back upstairs to the room it was almost 6am on my phone and there was no movement in the dining car which was to open for breakfast at 6am Mountain time, regardless if we were in Mountain timezone or not. No movement meant it was still only 5am, damn.<br />
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I grabbed my laptop and bag of tricks and headed to see if I could get a spot in the observation car amongst all the sleeping coach passengers I expected to find. When I got there the conductor was talking to some guy and there wasn’t anybody in sight. I told the conductor of my experience on the earlier train and he said it’s a fulltime job keeping them from sleeping in the SSL, but he usually does a sweep first thing in the morning and moves them along back to their seats if they are sleeping. I worked on the blog for an hour before deciding I better make a move for breakfast if I wanted to secure a good spot in the SSL for the trip into the Rockies. I went back to the room and woke Diane whilst securing my stuff in the room and told her I was going for an early breakfast. <br />
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I sat with a couple from Idaho who were cattle farmers and travelling back home after a week away. We got to talking about the weather and he said that he had just finished talking to his son back home who is looking after the farm in their absence. He said the weather is quite extreme on the farm and they have had a foot of snow over the weekend. His son needed to stay up because some of the cattle were calving and they needed to get the young calves and place them indoors almost immediately otherwise they couldn’t survive in the current environment. Ten minutes later, Diane turned up for breakfast, deciding to get up early herself.<br />
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After breakfast I returned to the SSL and settled in for what should be the most scenic day of all the days on the train we have travelled so far. The train was due into Denver at 7:15 and depart after refuelling and passenger moves at 08:05. We arrived in Denver at about 9:20, so just over 2 hours late. I’ve read a lot about this part of the trip and it’s beauty, but if only to reinforce that whilst stopped in Denver, 2 guys came along with long poles, one with a washer and the other a squeegee and washed all the windows on the train. They obviously want you to be able to clearly see. This has not happened on any of the trains we travelled on earlier in the trip, so I took it as a sign that is a special trip scenery wise and AMTRAK acknowledge just that. The train platform was adjacent to the home ground of the Colorado Rockies baseball team, but it was hard to get any worthwhile pictures from the angle I was on. The train finally departed Denver at 10:15, 2hrs 10mins late, but it was a slow crawl out of the station and rail area with frequent stops.<br />
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Before long, we were climbing our way slowly into the Rockies and with the sounds of John Denver’s ‘Colorado Rocky Mountain High’ playing in my head (how sad is that!!), I readied the camera hoping to catch some of the beauty. After a short while we came to what is a famous series of bends among rail buffs on the early ascent from Denver. A freight train was stationary on an adjoining line with almost 100 carriages on the back. The first bend is a sweeping left hand turn thru more than 180% followed by a right hander which turns back thru 270% with the line you just travelled clearly visible just below. I took a short video of the freight train below when we passed it again up the top...<br />
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As you can see, I was unfortunately seated on the wrong side for that video and picture. Indeed, the right hand side of the train is clearly the superior side when travelling west. Fortunately our roomette is on the right hand side and Diane got a great view of everything from our room. It soon became apparent however, that the SSL was not ideal for taking pictures, especially on the bluebird day we were enjoying today. There are just too many reflections bouncing off the windows and it is almost impossible to get a clear shot without some reflection. We steadily made our way up and thru the ‘Tunnel Section’ of the ascent which passes thru dozens of tunnels in just 30 odd miles of track. This video will give you some idea of the tunnel frequency and the sights from the SSL...<br />
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The final tunnel in the tunnel section is the 10km Moffat Tunnel which when built made a 6 hour trip around and over the mountain a 10 minute trip thru the mountain. As you emerge from the Moffat Tunnel, directly to the left is Winter Park Ski Resort right alongside the tracks. There is a perfectly formed mogul run used for competition and some jumps, as well as a chairlift just in that area as you emerge. About 10 minutes before we entered the tunnel, Diane came up to the SSL to see if I wanted lunch. We agreed to meet once we had gone thru the Moffat Tunnel. <br />
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After a burger lunch, I was happy to just go back to our room for the afternoon and hopefully get some pictures without light and reflection issues. I got plenty of pictures of the different rock formations which make up the Rockies, it is truly spectacular. I also took a few videos when we were going thru deep canyons that had just a single rail line and absolutely nothing else, the sidewalls of the giant canyons being within touching distance...<br />
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Pictures unfortunately don’t do the whole thing justice, well mine don’t anyway. The different formations and colours which make up the area are stunning and the 2 hours or more we spent following the frequently frozen Colorado River was also breathtakingly beautiful. For what seemed like mile after mile we followed the river on the right side of the train whilst on the other side of the river is Highway 70 which is often split into dual carriageways one on top of the other due to the steepness of the cliffs it was traversing...<br />
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Here are some of the many pictures I took during the day...<br />
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At the end of the day, the whole experience met my expectations. And those expectations were high after all the reading and research I had done suggested this particular section of the California Zephyr’s journey across America was among one of the world’s great train rides. It was truly a great conclusion to our ‘AMTRAK Adventure’ which we set out on 12 days ago and both Diane and myself have not a single regret for having done it.<br />
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Dinner was the usual, rare steak with mash. Diane had hers medium/well. Tomorrow morning hopefully sees us arriving in Reno in time to get our shuttle, but it is doubtful. We are still 2 hours behind, but they are confident they can make up some time this evening. If they can makeup an hour, we are still a chance of meeting Clive and Lorraine in time, but if not, we’ll just get a later shuttle and see them there.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-73387678823604460252011-03-01T17:09:00.000-08:002011-03-01T17:09:11.504-08:00Willis Tower and the California Zephyr....<i><b>Day 25, Feb 27th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>T</t></b></i>he gods were smiling on us this morning when we woke to a glorious sunny day, a perfect opportunity to go to the ‘Skydeck’ at the Willis Tower. The tower, which is a huge office block, was allegedly the tallest building in the world until 2009 when a slightly taller building was opened in Taiwan. However the Willis Tower has some communication towers on the roof shooting upwards a further few hundred feet, so they are now claiming the tallest structure in the world. I say allegedly because if there is one thing we’ve learnt doing the city tours in Boston, New Orleans and Chicago, each city has the biggest, the oldest, the longest etc. of everything. I think they tell a few porkies along the way to make their narration a bit more spectacular. For instance in Boston, we passed a bridge which was an almost exact replica in style of the Anzac Bridge in Sydney, except about half the size. The tour guide starts to tell us how the bridge was built in 1994 etc. blah blah blah and finishes with ‘And is the biggest bridge of its type in the world!’ Maybe your world sweetheart, but not the world I live in. The Yanks, you gotta love ‘em.<br />
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As we walked out of our hotel, I took a picture of the tower in the cloudless sky...<br />
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Opening time was 10am, but unsure of what time you needed to get there to line up to ensure you got up there straight away, we walked the short distance arriving about 9:15. The place was locked up with barely a person in sight. There was a McDonalds on the next corner (isn’t there always?...lol) so we walked across the road and grabbed something for breakfast and a coffee, keeping the entrance in our line of sight. About 9:30 somebody appeared from inside the building and placed signs out the front to signify they were open. There were not many people around, so we continued eating our breakfast in the warm comfort of McDonalds, just praying a tour bus didn’t pull up out the front with 100 Japanese on board and their 1000 cameras and camcorders.<br />
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At 9:45 we made our way over and jumped in an elevator which takes you down, not up, to the ticket office. It’s here that you buy your tickets and have the mandatory photo taken so they can try and relieve you of some ridiculous amount of money for a 20c print when you come down at the end. We paid a extra few dollars for the ‘audio tour’, which looks just like an old mobile which narrates points of interest to see from various points around the Skydeck. When you are at the window which has a 4 on it, you press 4 on the mobile and it gives you a quick overview of what you are looking at and directs you to places of interest. We had one when we went to the top of the Empire State Building in New York and for the extra few dollars it is a no-brainer, well worth the money.<br />
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After the ticket office, you make your way through a display area which shows special interest points and some trivia of the tower. You then funnel into a small theatrette where a short movie plays continuously explaining the history of the tower. It’s just like a Disneyworld ride where you go through a whole pile of crap to keep you occupied if the line is long before you actually get on the ride. Apparently the express lifts were having maintenance done on them, so the ride up was in a goods lift, obviously a much slower ride and for some reason, not clear to me or clearly explained by the ‘liftie’, needed to stop at floor 33 and 67 before arriving at the 99th floor. These stops were just a matter of stopping, doors open, doors close and off we go again. Once at the 99th floor, yet another lift takes you up the further 4 floors to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor.<br />
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Even though it was a super sunny sky, Chicago suffers from the same problems of haze that most major cities suffer from, so things get very blurry on the horizon. Here are some shots of the city...<br />
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A few buildings of interest were:<br />
Marina City, which was built and opened in 1964 as an exclusive city address with its own theatre, gym, swimming pool, ice rink, bowling alley, several stores and restaurants, and of course, a marina. It consists of two buildings standing side by side in the heart of the city, although when it was built it was in an unfashionable warehouse area. The bottom section beneath where there appears to be break is the unit carpark. It is an open carpark where the cars reverse into spots against the railing. The locals call it the corn cobs...<br />
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What do you think this building is? Note the large exercise area on the roof and although you cannot clearly see it, there is a barbed wire fence around the top area...<br />
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It is the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, right smack in the centre of the city.<br />
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This is the John Hancock Building, formerly the tallest and most prestigious skyscraper in Chicago. It now ranks at #3.<br />
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This is the Kinzie Street Bridge. In 1992 it was undergoing renovations when some equipment broke through into an old forgotten tunnel/pipe under the riverbed. The Chicago River started to empty into the tunnel like somebody had pulled the plug out of the bathtub. This led to the ‘Great Chicago Flood’ which flooded every basement and anything else built below ground level in the Chicago city loop area.<br />
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This is the United Centre, home of the Chicago Bulls and the place that the mighty Michael Jordan plied his trade for many years. Out the front is a statue of Jordan with an inscription ‘The best there ever was, the best there ever will be’. It’s hard to argue...<br />
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The red building in the centre is on the site of the start of the great Chicago fire of 1871. History tells of a cow kicking over a kerosene lamp and starting the fire which burnt the greater part of the city to the ground. From this event, the influx of people who came to Chicago for the rebuilding and decided to stay, forced the city to come up with a way of accommodating everybody in an already smallish area. This led to the idea of building up instead of out and so began the tradition of the ‘skyscraper’ generally conceded to have had its beginnings in Chicago.<br />
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Half hidden by the tall building in the foreground is Soldiers Field, home of the Chicago Bears football club. The field is an open air arena on the banks of Lake Michigan which makes up the eastern edge of Chicago. I can only imagine how cold it would be in the middle of winter, high up in the stand with the wind whipping off the lake...<br />
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Grant Park, a superb sculpture of gardens and paths on the shores of Lake Michigan...<br />
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Traffic management. Damn you M5...<br />
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On the western side of the building they have recently installed glass viewing platforms where you actually walk out onto the glass and look straight down to the pavement...<br />
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We finished up around 11:30 and it was time to head back to the hotel to gather our bags and head for the train station to commence the last leg of the AMTRAK adventure. We took a short taxi ride to the station where an ever reliable red cap was on hand to help unload the taxi and escort us to the baggage check-in and first class lounge. We had a little time to kill in the lounge before our train was due to leave at 2pm. A check of the TV monitors around the lounge told some interesting stories. The eastbound version of the train we are on, the California Zephyr, was due in to Chicago at 2:50pm but wasn’t expected until 4am tomorrow morning, a delay of 14hrs!! The Empire Builder which travels further north through Wyoming and Montana to Seattle in Washington State was only going part way due to extreme weather conditions and a derailment of a freight train in a 20 foot snow drift!!<br />
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Soon before we were due to board, the monitors started flashing ‘delayed’ for our train and an announcement was made shortly afterwards, but no real explanation given. We sat in the lounge as first one train jumped the queue and then another. Finally at 3pm we were advised we were ready to board. A walk to the train saw us comfortably in our seats and the train pulled out at exactly 3:30, 90 minutes late. <br />
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As day slowly started to turn to night on a now very overcast day, we began to run into some pretty severe weather. Sago snow began smashing into our window and the now dark paddocks and fields were periodically lit up by giant flashes of lightning. After an hour of this, the train started to slow down until eventually coming to a stop in a real one horse town type station with a couple of dull street lights. The crew came on the PA to tell us that because of the weather conditions they had lost use of the horn and somebody had to climb up and attempt to have it working again. Something that struck me from the first trip was just how much the engine sounds the horn. It soon became apparent that they sound the horn every time they approach a rail crossing, whether there is anybody waiting to cross or not. Leaving LA for instance, the horn never stops blowing for ages as they pass crossing after crossing. Now for those who have travelled to Asia, we have all laughed at how it appears that the horn is almost as important as the steering wheel in negotiating congested roads, they are forever blowing it, but it appears that AMTRAK and trains in general in the USA are just as reliant upon the horn. It is the law that the train MUST blow the horn 24/7 whenever approaching a crossing. So what happens if the horn malfunctions, as it has now? The train must come to a complete stop each and every time it comes to a crossing!!!!!<br />
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Fortunately the poor crew member who drew the short straw managed to clear the horn and get it working again. The PA announcer said that it would hopefully either cool down enough for snow or warm a bit for rain, but the current freezing rain and ice that was smashing into the train and horn as it made its way thru the storm was absolutely the worst thing possible. <br />
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Of course this did not help at all in trying to make up lost time, but the crew had already warned that the chances to make up time in the schedule, which usually has some sort of built in buffer, was very limited in the run from Chicago across and suggested that before people lost cell/mobile phone service to ring anybody picking them up and let them know the train would be 90mins late at a minimum. <br />
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At 7:45 we made our way to the dining car for dinner where we had a meal with a nice woman, a few years younger than us who lived in Colorado Springs. She was also the manager of the Marriot in Colorado Springs. She had been visiting her mother in Iowa. For the first time I didn’t have the steak, electing to have the pork chop special. I’ll be having the steak tomorrow night. Diane had roast chicken.<br />
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Back to the room and there wasn’t much else to do but go to bed. We pick up an extra hours sleep tonight when clocks go back an hour from US Central time to US Mountain time when we cross from Nebraska into Colorado which is supposed to be sometime around 5am. I’d suggest it will be much later than that. The plan was always to get up early and get a seat in the observation car for the scenic trip into the Rockies, but rather than a 7am arrival in Denver it is now likely to be 9:30 or later.<br />
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I was just hopping into bed when the train stopped again, this time to wait for the eastbound California Zephyr which was 14hrs late to pass. We should have passed it 7 hours ago!!<br />
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This train is getting later and later...lol<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-22704990078942599812011-02-27T06:14:00.000-08:002011-02-27T06:18:31.570-08:00Chicago...and all that jazz...<i><b>Day 24, Feb 26th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>A</t></b></i>woke this morning to a very white outlook. It has been a few days since we made our way from the snow of the far north of the USA to the humidity and pleasant warmth of the deep south...<br />
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I slept reasonably well in the <strike>coffin</strike> Superliner upper bunk. Maybe it was the bottle of red, but I slept thru what was an abbreviated breakfast serving time due to a 9am arrival in Chicago. It was about 8am when I dragged myself down from the top bunk and got dressed in my shorts and T-shirt that I boarded with in New Orleans. I had to go looking for William the SCA to ask him to make up our room so we could get our stuff together for arrival in Chicago. William made our room up in a few minutes and we prepared for arrival, which was about 15 mins early at 8:45.<br />
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Upon arrival in Chicago, we all alighted and headed for the baggage claim which was in a room with two conveyors, airport style. I was walking off the platform in subzero temperatures, snow falling all around in the uncovered areas, with my shorts and T-shirt...lol I had anticipated I may get caught out, but I was prepared to wear the pain of a few minutes of cold then lug coats around in New Orleans and clutter up the bedroom. Needless to say, when the bags appeared, all of them, it was with much relief that I grabbed a jacket which I had placed on the top of the bag.<br />
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We jumped a taxi to the hotel, the <a href="http://www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=97509">W Chicago - City Centre</a>. It was not much after 9:30am, so we were hoping we could check-in. It wasn't a problem and soon enough we were in a room on the 20th floor, no view, but a huge king room with a giant bathroom. It is very modern and although the building is aged, they have recently renovated in the 'W' style with lots of little quirks. These are pics of the bedding and the unusual front reception where we checked in...<br />
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After we settled in and freshened up with a shower, we rugged up and went in search of a city tour. It was snowing, quite heavily at times, so we ruled out trying to go to the skydeck of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) as visibilty would be extremely limited at best. We found out the hop on, hop off trolleys left from opposite the Willis Tower which is only a block from where we are staying. On the way we decided to have an early lunch because we skipped breakfast on the train. We ended up going back to Giordano's again, but I gave the deep dish pizza a miss and settled for the Philadelphia Beef Sandwich, a monster sandwich with massive amounts of sliced beef, onions, peppers and melted cheese. Diane had soup and pasta.<br />
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We left Giordano's and walked half a block to the trolley stop where we paid for the tour. There was a double decker open top bus just about to go, but the bottom was chockers and the top was getting dumped on by snow. We decided to wait for the next trolley in a trolley bus that is parked at the stop as a waiting/warming room. I took this picture of the grass and garden of the office block adjacent to the stop, very pretty...<br />
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We did the trolley tour which allows you to hop on or off at any of 15 stops around the city, but given the weather, we were happy to just travel the loop, which took over 2 hours. Unfortunately the windows were quite dirty on the outside and very fogged up on the inside, so any photography was out of the question. We finished the tour where we started and made our way back to the hotel via Starbucks for coffee. I was approached at least 3 times on the way back by beggars claiming to be homeless. I was a bit surprised to be honest that homelessness was such a big problem here given it is so cold. I may be naive to think that they migrate south for the winter, but I can't see how anybody can survive the harsh winters here without a roof over their head. It wasn't a problem that I saw in Boston which has a similar weather history, maybe I was just lucky in Boston.<br />
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After relaxing in our room for a few hours, we headed back out for a big Saturday night out in Chicago town. I had a bag of washing under my arm and we headed for a laundramat I had searched up on the net. A taxi drove us there, we put the clothes in the washing machine (cost = 14 quarters = $3.50) with some washing detergent (cost = 75c a box x 2 boxes = $1.50). They told us it would take 30 minutes so we left to look to grab a bite to eat. We turned the corner and came across this tiny little chinese restaurant. We just grabbed a large short soup each and a combination appetiser to share + a couple of diet pepsi's and got change from $20. <br />
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I went back to the laundry after 30 mins and transferred the clothes into these giant commercial tumble dryers, all complimentary for clothes washed at the laundry. I went back to the restaurant to finish my meal and then Diane and I walked back to collect and fold the clothing. We needed to run a few things thru the dryer a second time and it was at that stage that I noticed that they had unusual instructions on the dryer. Have they really had this problem in the past?...<br />
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We grabbed a taxi back to our hotel and by 9pm we were safely tucked away in the room for the evening. The train for Reno leaves at 2pm tomorrow, so I have received a late checkout at 1pm. The plan for the morning will be determined by the weather, if the visibility is OK, we will go to the top of the tower, but if it is a bit like today, we will probably rug up and take a walk to Millennium Park which is just a few blocks from the hotel.<br />
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We'll be on the train for 2 days from tomorrow, so the next update probably won't come until we get to Lake Tahoe.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-42999919631144523462011-02-26T14:07:00.000-08:002011-02-26T14:26:11.990-08:00Bourbon Street...<i><b>Day 23, Feb 25th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>U</t></b></i>p about 8am this morning, finished packing the bags which were mainly sorted last night before we went to bed then headed out for a look around for a few hours until it was time to checkout and head for the railway station.<br />
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We left our room and headed for the unusual lifts in this hotel. I’ve never seen it before, so I guess it’s not that common, but there is a keyboard on each floor, including the lobby, where you key in which floor you want to go. A pleasant computerised voice will say ‘Floor 39, Car F’, so you wait outside lift ‘F’ and sure enough, within a few seconds it opens and in you get. There are NO buttons in the lifts themselves, it proceeds to take you directly to the floor you keyed in and out you get. Very neat, not particularly secure, anybody can key in anything as no room key is needed, but neat all the same...<br />
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We left the hotel and headed for the world famous...<br />
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...yep, Bourbon Street. Now I’m sure Bourbon Street at 9am is a far cry from Bourbon Street at 9pm, but even at this hour there were plenty of sights and characters to keep us amused. It is Mardi Gras time here in New Orleans at the moment (not the gay version, just plain old Mardi Gras) and just about every shop and house is decorated in the purple, yellow and green of the festival... <br />
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In the street which runs parallel to Bourbon Street but one block closer to the esplanade, there was a big gathering that we could see. I’m not sure what it was in aid of, but they had the road blocked and the sheriff’s were stopping traffic from going down there...<br />
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...well I think that’s what they were doing, lying back on their Harley Davidsons. But never fear, the NOPD constable on his moped is here to the rescue, he’ll control the angry mob...<br />
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...even if he does look like he just walked off the set of Police Academy 1.<br />
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We walked the length of Bourbon Street with the buildings gradually becoming less and less colourful the further along we got. We were now mainly in residential parts as opposed to businesses and restaurants. When we reached the end of Bourbon Street, we headed one block down towards the esplanade and headed back in the opposite direction. This street was marked by a row of splendid looking terraces which were apparently a hotel of some sort...<br />
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We also passed a rather unusually numbered home...<br />
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... I wonder if they send the kids to school via Platform 9¾?<br />
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I needed something to drink and it appeared my choices lay between...<br />
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I went the coffee...lol <br />
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We headed down to the esplanade for brunch where we had a cheap buffet breakfast which wasn’t particularly good to be honest, but we’ve had very few disappointing meals so far, so it was bound to happen. Whilst Diane looked in a few shops, I crossed onto the other side of ‘The Wall’ I spoke of yesterday which runs the length of the river to prevent flood waters reaching the city to get some shots of the river and a trolley car...<br />
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This is a picture of the wall and the sliding door which seals when it needs to prevent flooding. I had a close look and whilst no engineer, I could see how there were thick rubber strips on all edges which would prevent the water flowing thru...<br />
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Here are a few more random city shots as we walked backed to the hotel...<br />
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We returned to the hotel just prior to midday, gathered our belongings and headed to New Orleans Station. On the way to the station, we went down a street which will obviously be a part of the parade route for the big Mardi Gras parade tomorrow. There were temporary grandstands erected on both sides of the streets to give vantage points for spectators...<br />
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We got to the station and checked our bags to Chicago, let’s hope they all arrive. We headed over to the Magnolia Room which is for sleeper passengers. We had the code to get in, but when we opened the door, we found a small, relatively dingy room which was packed to the rafters. We elected to just sit with the coach passengers in the pleasant and spacious terminal...<br />
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We boarded the City of New Orleans (CONO) at 1:15pm for a 1:45pm departure. We were met by our SCA, a fairly young African American named William. Thankfully he doesn’t go by the name of Bill, I couldn’t stand another one...lol<br />
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We pulled out of the station ontime and headed thru the suburbs. We passed yet again many examples of homes and properties just vacant and decaying due to Katrina. We then passed a huge lot that contained nothing but thousands of empty yellow skips. I guess it would have been an absolute thriving goldmine 5 years ago as everybody in the whole city needed a skip to get rid of silt and rubbish which accumulated in the bottom floors of just about every home in the city. I guess the owner has just taken his riches and packed up, leaving behind thousands of bins to rust or maybe to be used next time a tragedy hits somewhere.<br />
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As we headed off north from New Orleans and thru upper Louisiana heading to Mississippi, we passed mile after mile of swamp land, home to the alligator. I saw 2!!!! Unfortunately you’ll have to take me at my word, I had no time nor opportunity to snap a shot. Just as we crossed into Mississippi, the train slowed down and eventually stopped. The conductor advised over the loud speaker that we needed to wait a few minutes for a freight train to pass. Eventually a massive freight engine slowly came into view beside my window. I waved at him to tell him to move his fat ass train out the way, but I guess he thought I was just saying hi....<br />
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Diane went down to the cafe car and bought a small snack for a late lunch as we were not eating dinner until the 8:15pm session. I took my laptop and all my knick knacks (camera, mobile, chargers for everything) down to the SSL (remember from an earlier blog? Sightseeing Lounge, I won’t be telling you again...lol). I updated my blog from a table in the SSL, with everything hooked up and charging on a power board I brought from Australia. It looked like I had setup office. Here are some pics of what the SSL looks like. This is the top level looking from the middle of the car, swivel seats in one end and tables in the other. The cafe car for drinks and snacks is on the bottom level...<br />
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As I said, dinner was 8:15, so about 7pm I went back to our room and opened a bottle of wine. Dinner was steak for both of us and bread and butter pudding for desert. I went back to the SSL after dinner to watch some poker videos I had downloaded before leaving Oz and finished off the wine. Bedtime was 11pm and another night back in the cramped Superliner top bunk.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-82474677911978441202011-02-24T15:51:00.000-08:002011-02-26T16:03:18.638-08:00New Orleans, Katrina and the missing bags...<i><b>Day 22, Feb 24th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>F</t></b></i>irst things first, we got the missing bags delivered intact to our hotel this afternoon. To be honest, its a bit of a mystery where they got to, because we were expecting them to arrive no earlier than this evening when The Crescent arrived from New York. There is only one train a day which travels direct NY-NOL, so how they arrived before that train arrived I don't know. The guy at AMTRAK told me he thinks they may have gone via Chicago, but there doesn't appear to have been time. Anyway, it will remain a mystery I guess because everything was there and it's now all good.<br />
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Firstly, our hotel in New Orleans is excellent, another great Priceline deal. We are on the 39th floor with a fantastic view over Downtown and the river. Some shots from our room, apologies again about the quality, taken thru dirty windows and all...<br />
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We were out of our room and hit the pavement about 9:00am. I was back in the hotel at about 9:01am, taking my jacket back to the room. It was quite warm and very very humid. We had breakfast at 'Daisy Dukes', a small diner in the French Quarter before wandering around a few streets in the area. We made our way down to the tour bus area and decided to take the City/Katrina Tour which is a City Tour with an emphasis on visiting areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. There are major areas of the city inner suburbs still sitting in disrepair. A few shots shows what probably 80% of houses look like in some areas...<br />
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Not much left of this house, just the steps, patio and some foundations...<br />
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The following picture is a picture of Fats Domino's home and studio. The story goes that he spent 2 days on the roof of his flooded house before a boat came along to rescue him. The way the story was told was believable, so I have little doubt it may be true...<br />
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The thing about the devastation of Katrina was not the damage caused by the winds. Sure, some of the weaker homes were blown over and tiles were dislodged and homes damaged by flying debris, but the real destroyer was the flooding which occurred when the levies and walls were breached for various reasons.<br />
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Now for those who haven't been here, New Orleans is just dead flat. Whilst on the tour, the bus went under a freeway and the road dipped a bit and he told us this was the lowest point in New Orleans at 14 feet below sea level. The high point is about 6 feet above sea level. So in the whole of New Orleans there is about 20 feet of undulation. Now surrounding the town is a wall which runs all the way around with big sliding 'doors' which are sealable. This is to protect the town from flooding if the Mississippi rises too high. here is one picture of the wall near the French Quarter...<br />
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There are also canals which run out of town which carry all the rainwater that falls in New Orleans. As you can imagine, being so flat the rain that falls from the sky doesn't just naturally flow downhill and find it's way into stormwater drains...there is no downhill!! So it gets a helping hand and gets pumped into canals which flow into Lake Ponchartrain, which isn't actually a lake as it is connected to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico.<br />
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When Katrina hit, the winds forced the waters of the lake back up the canal at great force, which was met by equally great force by the huge amount of rainwater which was coming down the canal from the torrential rain which was pouring down on New Orleans. This clashing of the forces created a never seen before effect which quickly started to erode at the foundations of certain sections of the levy wall. The wall collapsed over about a 100m section and water poured into the city and wiped out the suburbs closest to the wall. The repaired section of wall can be clearly seen in this shot...<br />
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We also stopped at a large cemetery, Louis #3. The cemeteries in New Orleans are very unique, everybody is buried above ground!! Because New Orleans is essentially built on a swamp, it is not practical to bury people in the ground for a few reasons. Firstly when you start to dig a hole 6 feet deep in a swamp, it is quickly going to fill with water, if it doesn't collapse in first. Also, back in the 1800's they found that when it flooded in the area, remembering this is pre wall and levy days, the remains would just float to the top... not nice. Therefore, family's have built tombs where they 'bury' all the family members. There are tombs owned by groups of families to save costs, companies etc...<br />
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So what happens when somebody dies?? The front part where the names are engraved is actually a door which is removed. The remains of the last person placed in the tomb are removed, placed in a plastic bag and stored underneath the tomb with the previous 'occupants' of the tomb. The latest 'tenant' is placed in the tomb and will remain there until the next person needs their space. Louisiana law dictates that once placed in the tomb, the remains must remain untouched for 1 year and 1 day. If somebody needs the space within that timeframe (in other words, they die within the year), they are kept in a 'holding' area until such time as they can be moved into the tomb. I didn't ask what happens if 2 people die simultaneously such as a car accident. The whole subject may be a bit morbid, but fascinating all the same.<br />
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We finished the tour and briefly had a look at the casino which I must say was bigger than I was expecting. After freshening up in our room we had dinner at Drago's, a seafood restaurant in the Hilton, recommended by our SCA on The Crescent. The house specialty was oysters, char grilled with garlic, oil and parmesan. I had a dozen which were great, although the flavours of the garlic and parmesan overpowered any of the oyster taste. I would like to go back and have oysters natural to see if they were any good. I had Drumfish? for my main and Diane had a lobster.<br />
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I took a few shots when we returned to our hotel...<br />
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The blue cow is some exhibition of a popular American artist. meant nothing to me, but nice colours all the same...<br />
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Tomorrow the plan is to hit the pavement again, visit Bourbon Street for brunch and head back to the hotel to checkout at midday for our trip to Chicago (for the second time).<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-8392047578639982872011-02-23T23:55:00.000-08:002011-02-26T16:06:04.587-08:00Something had to go wrong eventually...<i><b>Day 21, Feb 23rd</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>I</t></b></i> had a great nights sleep in my Viewliner bunk. As promised, here is a picture of us in our bunks this morning. Note the extra width at the head of the bed to make it easier to turn over and also the significant headroom for me in the top bunk...<br />
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We pulled into Atlanta, Georgia at about 8:30am. This meant we had made up nearly all the time we lost at Washington. Atlanta was quite a big stop passenger wise, many getting off and a few joining. It is also a refuelling stop for the locomotives. I took a few shots and a quick video of the config whilst stretching my legs on the platform...<br />
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Dining Car service is not offered whilst in a stop, so as soon as we started moving from Atlanta, we headed for the dining car for breakfast. Three egg omelette with mushrooms for me and scrambled eggs for Diane, along with juice and coffee of course.<br />
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When we came back from breakfast, Michelle was still converting our roomette into day mode, so we sat in a vacant room until it was ready. I decided to do a quick video of the Viewliner Roomette...<br />
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After we left Atlanta, we travelled thru Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and finally Louisiana just before nightfall. Most of the day was spent looking out at typical scenery in the deep south, fields and swamps. I was unable to take any pictures of quality whatsoever, the windows were filthy from when the train left New York and was flying thru New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, throwing up snow and grit from the rails and distributing it on the windows. <br />
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The only 2 pictures I took were an example of plant life which plagues the south...<br />
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These are examples of a Japanese vine, Kudzu, which was introduced in the southern states to control soil erosion. Unfortunately, it has just taken over and smothers everything in it's path, growing straight up and over and strangling all types of trees. According to a website I looked at, it can grow up to 12" a day!!! I guess it's a bit like our own Lantana in Australia.<br />
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We finally rolled into New Orleans on time, having made up the 2 hrs from Washington. Michelle the SCA turned out to be somewhere in between Cindy and Bill. Always a smile, but you really had to wait a while to see her or go look for her. She has given us some tips for eateries from a locals perspective (she lives in the city). All the tips we received previously were given the thumbs down by her because, although the food was good, they were overpriced and touristy. If her recommendations turn out OK then we'll forgive her for having to wait so long to get a juice...lol. The dining car crew didn't improve however. They were nice enough, but light years behind the previous crews in professionalism and demeanour.<br />
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What went wrong you may ask...<br />
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When we went to claim our luggage, only 2 of the 4 bags have made it to New Orleans. Dianes's small suitcase that we would normally use as carry-on but decided to check thru because of the space restrictions in the roomette was missing, as was my new ski boot bag with obviously my new boots underneath and most of my ski gear and other clothing. The AMTRAK guy had a few different scenarios about what may have went wrong, but we really don't know at this stage. He said that 99.9% of time they come thru on the next train (ie: tomorrow night) and urged us not to panic too much, that AMTRAK would deliver them to the hotel when they arrive. Diane elected not to take his advise and went into panic mode immediately. I asked him why would somebody not ring thru to say 'Hey, we've got 2 bags here that should be on The Crescent to New Orleans, let the owners know they are safe and will arrive tomorrow'? He said that it normally doesn't happen, they just stick them on the next train without ringing thru. Perhaps it should happen that way. I know I'd be much more comfortable right now if somebody at New Orleans said 'Sorry Sir, your bags were inadvertently offloaded at Atlanta, we will get them to you tomorrow'. I think an email to AMTRAK when I get home may be in order.<br />
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Anyway, we were 'lucky' enough to get one bag each delivered, so we have clothes to wear tomorrow when we go out and discover New Orleans. Until then...<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com89tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-39594294280879114022011-02-23T19:38:00.001-08:002011-02-23T21:07:59.490-08:00The Crescent...Day 20, Feb 22nd<br />
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<i><b><t>E</t></b></i>arly 6am rise at Boston for a 7am taxi ride to the station for our trip to New York and on to New Orleans. Today would be a ‘short’ 4 hour trip to New York’s Penn Station in coach on a regional train before changing trains onto ‘The Crescent’, a Viewliner sleeper which travels between New York and New Orleans.<br />
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A seamless checkout saw us arrive at South Station Boston just after 7am. The taxi driver unloaded our bags onto the sidewalk as Diane went in search of a ‘red cap’. I stood guard over the bags in typical freezing weather, commuters pouring out of the station on their way to their city office well rugged up, almost of all of them sporting beanies on head and coffees in hand. The red cap arrived, loaded our bags onto a manual trolley and wheeled inside. When he found out we were going to New Orleans on a sleeper, he took us straight to the first class lounge where we had complimentary juice, coffee and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I snuck outside for a short look around and grabbed a few quick pics of the station...<br />
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We stayed in the warmth of the lounge until he came and grabbed us for pre boarding. Because we were travelling to New York on a regional train, we couldn’t check our bags thru to New Orleans unless we were happy to receive them a day late. This meant we had to take all our bags onto the train with us, but using the red cap made it easy. He had secured our luggage whilst we were in the lounge and when we left with him to go to the platform, it was just us and other people who were using red caps allowed to board early. This gave us our choice of seats so the red cap took us down one car past the cafe car, loaded all our luggage onto the train for us and then suggested we sit on the left hand side because it is a better view. Thank you sir, here’s your tip.<br />
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I may go on about it, but this red cap thing is just a great service and complimentary, although it is one service I’m more than happy to ensure a good tip. In essence, we never touched our bags at any time from the time we left our room until the time we got to New York. The porter at the hotel in Boston collected our bags from the room. Loaded them onto the taxi, the taxi driver unloaded them, the red cap picked them up from the kerb and put them on the train, straight behind our seats. Too easy.<br />
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The trip to New York was more or less straight down the coast, leaving Massachusetts and travelling thru America’s smallest state, Rhode Island, before travelling thru Connecticut before arriving in New York City. The ocean, wealthy homes and countless marinas housing boats big and small are the main points of interest as we travel the Boston/NY corridor. As we got close to New York, after travelling thru the Bronx, the train crosses the East River over the Hells Gate Bridge. This bridge was completed in 1917 and allegedly was the model for a larger bridge of similar design familiar to all of us back home...<br />
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When we got to New York it was a bit of a shitfight to be honest. The platform where our carriage stopped was very narrow, I’m talking 2 people wide narrow!! With 90% of the people getting off (a few were travelling on to Washington on the same train) it became very congested and a slow disembark. We waited until last because we had a fair bit of luggage, but fortunately there was a red cap close by waiting to load a family onto the train. Diane grabbed him and after he finished loading his group, we were in business. He loaded our bags onto a trolley, we all went up an escalator together and headed for the check-in counter. The red cap found out we were travelling on a sleeper to New Orleans, so we just skipped the long line, he took the bags thru and checked us in himself. After he gave us our tags, he directed us to the ‘Acela Lounge’ where we were able to have a drink and relax and wait about 30 minutes to board. We originally had 2 hours between trains, but the regional ran about 30 minutes late and all the farting about on the platform and checking in ate into any time we had to make it worthwhile to step outside. I did manage a few shots of the escalator to Track 12 Penn Station and our waiting train...<br />
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We boarded ‘The Crescent’ and it left on time at 2:15pm. Immediately upon leaving Penn Station, the train travels thru a tunnel and you pop out into the state of New Jersey. I took a quick video of the sights from the train, but it wasn’t until I started to take that video that I realised just how fast we were moving. Here’s the vid...<br />
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We were fairly flying, running side by side with freeways with cars doing well over 100km/h and just leaving them for dead. I later found out why it seemed to be going so much faster than either of the other trains we had been on so far.<br />
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We were now travelling thru areas of mostly housing and factories, a far cry from the mile after mile of desert we encountered on our trip across from LA. That said, I was pretty amazed at just how many factories just appeared vacant or desolate. Every window broken and many just sitting there disused. It appeared from the train that only about 1 in 3 was functioning, but looks can be deceiving I guess and perhaps the street facade told a different story. <br />
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Our SCA on this trip is Michelle, a 31yo African American who resides in New Orleans. Before you ask how I know she is 31yo, I heard her telling another passenger who asked...lol. She is very accommodating and at this early stage looks like she is light years ahead of Bill. It remains to be seen if she can match Cindy.<br />
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We arrived in Washington about 20 minutes early at about 5:40pm and were due to leave at 6:30pm. It is here in Washington that they change locomotives from electric to diesel powered. It was at that point I realised why we were going much faster on this train than on the SC or the LSL. I wandered up to the station concourse to get a bottle of soda water, or ‘Club Soda’ as you have to say here or they have no idea what u are talking about. I had a few Campari and soda’s between NY and Washington, but the cafe car doesn’t stock many cans of club soda, only using it for mixers for the cash paying coach passengers. I managed to get one can off him, but I got the impression that it was a one off. I got back in plenty of time, even though Diane was panicking. We waited and at 6:30, nothing happened. After a while, Michelle came thru to tell us that one of the coach cars has mechanical problems and they were going to have to change it. To make it worse, it was in the middle of the coach config, so they had to move all the passengers out of the car, plus their luggage and relocate them temporarily whilst they found a new car from somewhere. We finally pulled out of Washington at 8:10pm, almost 2 hours late. We had 8pm dinner reservations, but they were thrown in turmoil because whilst cars are getting changed and the train shunted about, all the power goes out, thus the dining car had a large downtime as well. As we pulled away from Washington, I wandered down to see what the situation was like in the dining car. It was only about half full, so they told me to grab Diane and come down straight away. Before I went back, I had a quick #1 in our rooms communal dunny, but the flush wasn’t working properly. Yet another reason why these are a BAD idea...lol I saw Michelle in the dining car picking up some dinner for somebody in our car who wanted to eat in their room and told her about the toilet problem. She said she’d go fix it. <br />
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Diane had ribs and I had the steak, done rare. This was no problem as the hotplate had obviously not reached peak temperature as yet and it came out still mooing. Fortunately it’s just the way I like it so it was all good. Desert was a sensational Peanut Butter Pie...<br />
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The staff in the dining car appeared very inexperienced and a world away from the smooth talking, sharp attendants we had on the SC and the one and only dining car meal we had on the LSL. But in fairness, it was a tough set of circumstances they faced and things may improve by tomorrow, we’ll see. After dinner we both ‘visited’ the coach car, just to check that their restrooms were working OK. Fortunately they were.<br />
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When we returned to our room we were met by Michelle who told us she needed us to change rooms because the toilet problem in our room could not be fixed and she needed to run it past the conductor. We told her not to worry if they had to upgrade us to a bedroom or family room, we wouldn’t complain. Her laughter suggested that wasn’t going to happen...and it didn’t. We moved to another roomette and prepared for our one and only overnight stay on ‘The Crescent’. It will also be my last night in the clearly superior Viewliner top bunk, the next 2 trips are back to Superliners.<br />
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That's all for now.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-90107615351581189682011-02-21T19:52:00.000-08:002011-02-21T20:00:52.963-08:00Fenway Park - Home of the Red Sox...Day 19, Feb 21st<br />
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<i><b><t>T</t></b></i>oday was another day I have been looking forward to, the day I tour Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.<br />
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Diane and I both slept a bit longer than we wanted, awaking well after 9am. We flung open the curtains to see what the weather was like and we both thought we were back at Big White. Snow was falling and falling heavily!! We eventually got our stuff together and headed down for brunch at a nice little bakery cafe adjacent to our hotel, Au Bon Pain.<br />
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From there we walked to the trolley car tour headquarters which is only a block from where we are staying in the <a href="http://www.bostonparkplaza.com/">Boston Park Plaza</a>. We purchased trolley car tickets which lets you hop on and off at any of 18 designated stops around the city and surrounding suburban points of interest. I also purchased a Fenway Park Tour ticket at a discounted price. The trolley cars run every 15/20 minutes so there is about 5 of them on the road at one time for the 90 minute route.<br />
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By now the snow had stopped, but it was bitterly cold and the stiff breeze cut you in half. It was well in the negatives and you could tell. The trolley rolled up and we jumped on with zero other passengers. The driver was a large guy called Buck who never stopped narrating from the time we got on until the time we got off at Fenway. He surely must have no voice left at the end of each day.<br />
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The windows of the trolley car were very dirty, so the pics are not great in a lot of cases, but I managed to get a few decent shots, one of which was very early in our tour, the original Cheers Bar...<br />
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We joined the trolley at stop 6 of 18 and the Fenway Park stop was #12, so early in our loop. I took a squillion pics of Fenway and these are a few...<br />
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That is Diane in front of the bronze statues of some Red Sox legends. Diane did not do the tour, opting to spend the hour in a nearby cosy Starbucks. The tour started from the Red Sox Team Store. This is a merchandise shop for the Sox which is huge, selling everything you can imagine relating to all things baseball and Red Sox. I was going to get the bottom garment for Mark, my good mate from Melbourne and mad Red Sox fan, but I couldn't get them in XXL...<br />
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The tour itself was fantastic. The guide obviously knew every intimate aspect of all things Red Sox, but his spiel was well rehearsed, very humorous and very polished, right down to the constant digs and snipes at the Red Sox sworn arch enemies, the New York Yankees. Here are some of the pics I took from inside the ballpark, spanning around the field from left field stand to right field stand...<br />
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Here is the story of the famous 'Green Monster'. Fenway Park is not only the oldest field in the Major Leagues, it is the smallest. On top of that, it has a slightly offset shape and the left field fence is substantially closer than any other fence in major league ballparks. To counteract this, many years ago they built a high wall at the fenceline of left field and you needed to actually hit it over the wall to get a home run. If the ball bounces off the wall it is still 'in play' and the game goes on. In the early days the fence was covered in advertising slogans, but the players complained that with the 'busy' background, they were losing sight of the ball. So the owner cut the sponsors and painted the fence, originally a dark navy blue. Apparently it looked out of place as blue, so they developed a paint in conjunction with a leading paint manufacturer and named it Fen Green. According to the tour guide, the exact makeup of pigments to match Fen Green is a closely guarded secret and only the owner of the Red Sox and the head groundsman for Fenway Park are allowed to purchase the paint. I'd suggest there is a fair bit of licence in that explanation, but I'll run with it anyway. <br />
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Anyway, here are the pics of the Green Monster...<br />
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Finally, I took a video of the field from ground level seating in left field...<br />
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After the tour, which ran for about 75 minutes, Diane was waiting for me at the Team Store. We decided to have a quick coffee to warm up before jumping back and continuing the trolley ride. We had a coffee at Jerry Remy's, a nice big bar/restaurant adjacent to Fenway Park and owned by Jerry Remy, a former Red Sox player and legend.<br />
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We must have just missed a trolley as we had about a 20 minute wait to get back on the trolley. It was freezing at the unprotected trolley stop. Finally the trolley turned the corner and fortunately for us, it was our old friend Buck. We continued on the rest of the loop until we finally did the complete loop. A few pics taken on the second half of the trip...<br />
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Finally, just to drive home how cold it is here, even the dogs won't go bare footed...<br />
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We got back to the hotel to thaw out for an hour before heading off for a chinese meal. When we got there at 6:30, the place was packed and it was a 40-50 minute wait. We decided to wait because the food must be good. As it turns out, we were very close to the Theatre District and that made it peak time as people dined early before heading to a show. However, the food was good and quite reasonably priced.<br />
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We are currently bunkered down in our now warm hotel room. When we came in this afternoon, the aircon was pumping out cold air. We called reception and a maintenance man was up within a few minutes and fixed the problem. Apparently it needed resetting. Reasonably early night for us, need to be in a taxi by 7am to the station for the next leg of our trip.<br />
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Boston thoughts? We have not had nearly enough time here, only one day really. Lots to see and do if the trolley driver is anybody to go by, but he talks everything up to be good and I guess he would tell people that MtDruitt Westfields was a must see if he was running the same tour in Sydney. Diane and I have decided it would be a city we would like to spend a few days in, so in the years to come if we get back to this part of the world, a few days are on the agenda.<br />
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We arrive in New Orleans in 2 days from now, so I'll get two days worth of entries up then. Thanks to all who have left a comment. As you can tell, keeping this up to date is pretty time consuming, but it's a labor of love and I'm enjoying it, but it is nice to get comments so I know at least some people are reading.<br />
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Later all...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-20540587294021894342011-02-20T21:37:00.000-08:002011-02-20T21:56:59.969-08:00Chicago to Boston...Day 18, Feb 20th<br />
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<i><b><t>W</t></b></i>oke at about 8am after a pretty good nights sleep. The Viewliner’s top bunk is wayyy better than the Superliner. I can actually sit on the end of the bed with enough headroom to sit up and the extra width of the bed at the head and shoulders end makes a world of difference to comfort. The window is also good for those times you wake in the night where you can look out and see what’s going on. Surprisingly, the times I awoke during the night usually coincided with a stop. I guess the rocking and rolling of the train helps you to sleep but when it stops, the body reacts by waking up.<br />
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We took the ‘Journey to the Centre of the Train’ for breakfast. Fair dinkum, I thought we were never going to get there. Carriage after carriage of coach passengers all curled in weird and wonderful positions trying to get comfortable. I had the daily special which was spinach quiche with a side of pork sausage and Diane had scrambled eggs with a side of bacon. Juice and coffees were consumed as the train rolled into Buffalo. We returned to our room where Bill had just finished making up our room into day mode.<br />
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We had a lazy morning (sort of hard to do anything else...lol) reading, writing blogs and sightseeing from our room. We decided to either skip lunch altogether or get Bill to get us something when he goes up later. One thing I have learnt about AMTRAK so far is that there are a lot of people who prefer to eat in the privacy of their room than in the dining car. This requires the SCA to order and pickup the meal and deliver it back to the room. I guess it’s part of his job but an extra tip is expected I’d imagine.<br />
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Some of the scenery from today...<br />
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One of the numerous multi-lane highways you see whilst crossing America. How they managed to think 2 lanes either way was going to be OK for the M5 is beyond me..<br />
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The Viewliner. Note the top windows in the sleeping car which are for the upper bunk..<br />
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They like colourful housing in NY State and Massachusetts...<br />
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Many of the rivers are either fully or partially frozen. The second shot is not great, taken from the train at high speed and dodging pylons, but it was a pretty amazing sight. An ice breaker had travelled down the centre of the river breaking the ice into small chunks and creating a channel about 5 metres wide. At different times along this trail, the ice pack had fractured and you could see the cracks open up and reach all the way to the shore.. <br />
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Late morning the Lead Service Attendant (LSA), the dining car boss, came around for lunch reservations. Diane and I looked at each other and to be honest, we both couldn’t be bothered taking the trip back again. She said she would let Bill know and if we wanted lunch to let him know and he could deliver it. That was the last we heard or saw of anybody for ages. Bill is rarely seen at all, unlike Cindy who was constantly making sure we were comfortable and had enough water or coffee etc. I knew it was inevitable we would have varying levels of service from our SCA’s, but Bill suffered badly in the giant shadow cast by Cindy. Another big difference between the crew on the Southwest Chief (SC) and this train, the Lake Shore Limited (LSL), is the amount of announcements and the lack of information provided over the intercoms on the LSL. During lunch and dinner on the SC, the LSA would come on every 15mins and invite passengers with an 11:45-12:00-12:15 etc reservation to make their way to the dining car. No such announcements whatsoever on the LSL. On the SC, the Lounge Car Attendant would make announcements about what was available in the Lounge Car after every couple of hours, plus advise when she was going to close and reopen for her employee meal break. I wouldn’t even know if the LSL has a Lounge Car as we heard nothing.<br />
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Bill, the invisible SCA, materialised at our door around 1pm and asked if we wanted lunch. Diane said we weren’t going to bother taking the walk and Bill said he knew because the LSA had informed him. So we both just ordered a sandwich and off he went. He returned 15 mins later with 2 meals nicely presented on AMTRAK plates. He then vaporised again until I had to crash tackle him as he made one of his infrequent walks down the corridor about 4pm to get him to take the plates away.<br />
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After the train was ‘split up’ at Albany and Train 48 made its own way to New York, I read on one of the brochures that there would be no dining car on the Albany/Boston run and a hot meal would be served in the Lounge Car for sleeper passengers. This was not communicated in any shape or form whatsoever. Diane commented that she wondered what happened to the LSA as she hadn’t come around for dinner reservation times and I told her that it looks like its dinner in the Lounge Car.<br />
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Another thing that troubled us was that at Albany a large group of 15/16yo kids got on the train, possibly as part of the long weekend getaway. After the train pulled out of Albany, a steady stream of this group, all girls, made their way thru the sleeping car to ‘have a look’. Now it sounds harmless enough I know, but it is strictly prohibited for all different reasons. If any one of these girls is on some sort of reconnaissance with a view to stealing valuables, they just had a blueprint. Wander down the sleepers, have a look to see who has a laptop or camera out and wait for them to pass back thru the coach car on their way to dinner. Bingo, they’ve got 30 minutes minimum to go thru your belongings.<br />
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<strike>Casper</strike> Bill stuck his head in the door about 6:15pm and told us dinner was being served in the Lounge Car for the few sleeper passengers that were left on board. I mentioned to Bill that we had a steady stream of young ‘visitors’ in the past hour. He looked at me and said ‘really?’ I told him we were uncomfortable going to dinner and leaving our belongings unattended in the room if it was open slather to have a wander thru the sleeper for all and sundry. He told me that it wasn’t acceptable and he would stop anybody entering the sleeper. A few minutes later we made our way to the Lounge Car which fortunately was closer. There were only 2 coach cars between us and the Lounge Car in the new configuration.<br />
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We were greeted and seated at the Lounge Car by none other than Bill. That’s right, Bill who was also back in Car 4820 protecting our belongings...wtf? The dinner was a choice of a beef hotpot and ravioli pasta, a far cry from the 6 or so quality choices in the main Dining Car. Fortunately the ravioli was nice so it wasn’t a complete shutout.<br />
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After dinner we made our way back to our room with all our belongings seemingly still there and waited to roll into Boston. After looking like we would be about an hour late, we made up a heap of time and arrived just after due time at 9:30. We grabbed a red cap who carted our luggage from the platform all the way out to the taxi rank and than loaded the bags into the taxi. Those guys are gold and for the few dollars you tip them, they are great value. The taxi delivered us to our hotel which at first glance seems really nice. I rang when we were a few hours out of Boston as it looked like we would be checking in late at around 11pm, I didn't want them to think we weren't coming. When we checked in, we were told we had been upgraded to a deluxe King. Thank you sir!!<br />
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A nice hot shower was needed and we are currently ready for bed, being just after midnight here in Boston. Tomorrow we will do a city tour, hopefully it's not too crowded as it is a Public Holiday here in the USA. The one thing I want to see is Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. They have ballpark tours and that is what I'm aiming for.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-17901086458658405842011-02-20T20:58:00.000-08:002011-02-20T21:08:09.157-08:00Missouri to Chicago, Illinois...Day 17, Feb 19th<br />
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<i><b><t>E</t></b></i>ight hours sleep, woohoo. Yep, slept right thru from 11pm until we were awoken when the announcements started as we approached Kansas City, Missouri just after 7am. Right thru except I had to get up to visit the bathroom at 4am. This involves climbing down from the top bunk, not easy, putting on some trackies by opening the door and hanging my bare backside into the corridor and hoping to hell the curtains don't come apart at the velcro as I bend down to put them on, going to the bathroom and climbing back into bed. All up about a 15 minute job...lol <br />
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That said, I slept pretty well, so I'm pretty happy at this point. Breakfast was French Toast for Diane and a cheese and egg toasted sandwich on sourdough for me. Juice and coffee complemented it nicely. Both Diane and I showered after breakfast because we wanted to get to the dining car before all the passengers who got on at Kansas City decided they needed breakfast.<br />
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Today we travelled thru the state of Missouri in the morning, before crossing into Iowa. The stay in Iowa was brief, crossing the mighty Mississippi River before lunch and entering Illinois, arriving in Chicago about 15 minutes early at 3pm. A few pics of the scenery include a line of cars stopped at the crossing because the train was way too long for the platform. Those cars at the front were waiting well over 5 minutes. Even Jan wouldn't be happy...<br />
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Most of the scenery was same old, same old, miles upon miles of fields which had been freshly ploughed, most lightly covered in snow and ready for the spring planting and sowing which will begin in a few weeks. We crossed the Missouri River mid-morning which was just like crossing the Yarra except 10 times bigger. Apparently it is affectionately known as ‘Big Muddy’ in these parts, very fitting as the water was quite heavily silted. After passing thru Marceline, which the conductor announced was the birthplace and childhood home of Walt Disney, we crossed a smallish river into Iowa. A brief stop at Fort Madison saw us continue east towards the crossing of the Mississippi. Just before crossing the Mississippi the train travels adjacent to the river for a short time whilst the conductor gives a short narrative of the history of the area. We passed a big barge which had been converted into a casino, but I believe the conductor said it is no longer operational...<br />
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The bridge used to cross the river is an old double span, double deck bridge where the trains cross on the lower level and cars cross above on another level. It is the world’s longest such bridge. The river itself was full of ice and quite frozen on the shoreline, ice reaching out into the reduced stream of water flowing down the centre of the river. The river also marked the border of Iowa and Illinois, which would be the final state visited by the Southwest Chief. <br />
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Lunch was served early due to the mid afternoon arrival into Chicago. Diane was resting and opted out of lunch, so I made my way up to the dining car for the final time. I had lunch with an African American couple who had just completed a 10 day cruise with friends out of San Diego and were travelling back to their home in Chicago. We got to talking about cruises and discovered we’d both done similar cruises to Alaska and the glaciers out of Seattle. He relayed a funny story about when they were at Glacier Bay, his wife was using a camcorder they had just purchased and were still getting used to, when a giant piece of glacier broke away and fell into the water. To their delight, she had recorded everything at exactly the right moment and was quite excited about this footage. On their way home, they stopped into visit their son and family. The grandkids wanted to play chasings around the house with poppy, so Nanna got the camcorder out. At this stage I knew what was coming and said “This story has a bad ending, I can tell” Of course Nanna got the chase around the house perfectly, but had recorded it over the top of the ‘one in a million’ glacier footage...lol<br />
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After lunch I went back to the roomette. Originally I was going to go to the lounge car because I had not stepped foot in that car the whole trip, but our SCA Cindy had come up to the dining car to get something. She asked where Diane was and I said she decided to give lunch a miss and rest in the room. Cindy came back with a bag of chips and a cup of hot water for Diane to make a cuppa. I took them back to the room and couldn’t be bothered going back, so I stayed in our room until it was time to gather our things for the arrival into Chicago. <br />
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Impressions of our first train leg? <br />
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Great!! I don’t think I was ever bored the whole way over. Obviously if you are a fidget bum and need to be doing something all the time, it may be a trial, but if relaxing, reading a book, watching the scenery or doing something on the laptop can keep u occupied and happy, it is a great alternative mode of travel. If they ever manage to get wifi on the trains, it will have the lot. The staff were excellent and it will be interesting to see if the other crews we travel with meet their standard. It will be a tough ask, the bar has been set very high.<br />
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We arrived at Union Station Chicago early and were met by a red cap who transferred us to the First Class Lounge (think Qantas Club). From there we checked our luggage into temporary storage so we could wander outside into chilly Chicago to look around and get some dinner. I tried to log onto the allegedly free wifi service in the lounge, but was having no luck even finding the network. I enquired at the desk and was informed it sometimes just goes in and out. I grabbed the laptop and went to the Macca’s outlet upstairs where I could logon, but my battery level was low and there were no power outlets. Soon enough, I was out of battery and that was that. I took the laptop back down and re-checked it.<br />
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We had quite a few hours to kill before we were due to board our train. It didn’t leave until 9:30pm, but boarding for sleeping passengers was 8pm because there was wine and cheese tasting in the dining car. This was in lieu of obviously not serving dinner at such a late hour. We headed out of the station and were immediately hit by the cold. I wasn’t exactly dressed for very cold conditions, but I can handle it unless it is extremely cold and windy (think Niagara 2008). The temperature was -13 on a display screen near the station, but with little wind, it didn’t seem anywhere near that cold. The Willis Tower, formerly Sears Tower, is only a block from the station, so we decided to take a look at it and go to the observation deck before grabbing a bite and heading back to the train. When we got to the ‘Skydeck’ entrance we were informed that it was a 2½ hour wait. We abandoned that idea and decided to head straight to a Giordano’s which was across the road...<br />
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Giordano’s is a large restaurant chain in Chicago which specialises in ‘Deep Dish Pizza’. It takes between 30 and 40 minutes to actually cook the pizza, so the procedure is to order straight away any pizza you may want, even if you don’t have a table ready. Even though the restaurant is across 3 shopfronts and it was barely 5pm, the place was still packed, so we went to the bar to have a drink whilst we waited for a table. The waitress came and got us from the bar after about 20 minutes and we went to our table. Diane ordered a clam chowder soup and some calamari and I just stuck with my order, a small ‘deep dish’ with pepperoni, jalapenos and anchovies. It came soon enough and all I can say is, you better like mozzarella cheese and tomato paste...<br />
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As you’d expect, I didn’t let it beat me. How could I come back to Australia and admit I couldn’t polish off a small pizza? Of course, same as everybody usually does, I did leave behind a few of the crusts...<br />
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We made our way back to the station and the sanctuary of The Lounge, whereupon we grabbed our bags and sat down at around 6:40pm to await boarding. I found a power point and started to recharge the lappy. I then tried the wifi again and it was there, strong signal and all. This gave me an opportunity to upload photos and videos to my blog and cut and paste into the blog what I had written onto a word document as I crossed the country with no internet access. To my surprise, the wifi connection and upload speed was very good and allowed me to upload all the pics I wanted and the video of the train. <br />
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At 8pm, they announced they were boarding sleeping car passengers onto the 48/448. We grabbed a ‘red cap’ who loaded us onto the cart. When he drove onto the platform he told me that the train was much longer than normal and had been setup differently to normal. This train is a dual train which splits towards the end of the trip. Those going to New York are on the 48, those to Boston are on the 448, but it is the same train for ¾ of the journey. Even though our sleeping car, Car 4820 was the first car after the 2 engines and the baggage car, he drove to the other end of the train because that is where our car is normally hooked up. He was checking people along the way making sure they were in sleeping cars 4811 or 4812 because they were NY bound. Along the way we picked up one elderly lady who was walking the wrong way. She was a regular commuter between Chicago and Boston and just went to where she always goes.<br />
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Now this train in this configuration is extremely long. Firstly two engines, then the baggage car, then us in the Boston bound sleeper. The next 5 carriages are coach, then 2 lounge cars followed by the dining car. After the dining car comes the NY bound part of the train. There are another x amount of coach carriages followed by the 2 NY bound sleepers. Under normal circumstances, as with the Southwest Chief, all the sleepers are on one side of the dining and lounge cars and coach is on the other. Coach passengers are not allowed to enter the sleepers and the SCA soon moves on anybody who attempts to enter the area. This is everything to do with security, you leave laptops, cameras etc in your sleeper when you go to the dining car, but you cannot lock your door unless you are actually inside the sleeper. That’s what makes this trains configuration unique, because they run with one dining car in the middle. Because the coach passengers don’t go thru the sleepers, the sleeping passengers have to walk thru all the coach cars. Because the train is fully booked as it’s a long weekend in America for President’s Day on Monday, there are extra carriages. So for us to go to the dining car for wine and cheese or for our meals this trip, it is a walk of 8 carriages!!! That is a fair walk thru slim corridors when the train is rocking and rolling. <br />
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We decided to give the wine and cheese a miss, as did all bar one couple on our entire sleeper from what I could gather. We’ll have a better handle on the ‘Journey to the Centre of the Train’ after breakfast tomorrow morning.<br />
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We asked Bill, our SCA for this trip to give us an hour after leaving Chicago before making up our beds for the night so we could sit and watch the lights and sights as we rolled out of Chicago and out thru the suburbs. We settled into our roomette and it soon became apparent that the single deck Viewliner sleeper roomette we were now on was quite different from the Superliner sleeper roomette we travelled over on. For starters, one seat is much smaller than the other because there is a toilet and basin in the roomette. The seat next to the toilet is noticeably not as wide to accommodate it. Now to be honest, I cannot imagine how anybody would actually think a toilet in a room for two would ever be a good idea. And a small, very ‘intimate’ room at that!! Diane and I have agreed that #2’s are definitely out and we will do each other the courtesy of using the public restroom which is in the next carriage. I spoke to a few people about the subject and we were all of the same opinion that it was just not nice. Even if I was staying in a roomette alone, which many people do, I still doubt I’d be happy stinking up my roomette when I can stink up the public restroom and get the hell out of there!! There are considerably more ventilation options in the Viewliners, lots of different vents and outlets that you can open and close. I guess with the crapper in the room they need all the ventilation options they can get. The upper bunk appears much roomier and better designed in the Viewliner, being wider at the top end to allow you to rollover with ease. There is also a window just for the top bunk which lets you look out whilst in bed. Obviously I’ll know more in the morning after a nights sleep. <br />
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That’s all for today, hopefully I can get this edition up online when we get to Boston tomorrow night, the 20th.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-77770006995735843732011-02-19T17:49:00.000-08:002011-02-19T17:49:10.077-08:00New Mexico desert...Day 16, Feb 18th<br />
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<i><b><t>W</t></b></i>ell I know you all want to know, how was the sleep? It was...acceptable. As you’d expect, I have been allocated the top bunk which is not quite as ‘roomy’ as the bottom but there was actually more room than I thought there would be, quite easy to turn over from one side to the other, safe in the knowledge that the harness which attaches to the roof will stop me from falling out....maybe.<br />
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I did wake reasonably early at a few minutes to 5am, but as a few know, that is not much earlier than I normally wake. I thought I may as well get up and try the shower. The shower was surprisingly good, plenty of heat and plenty of pressure. There is an endless supply of fresh towels and soaps inside the area. The shower itself is enclosed by a glass door with a magnetic latch. Not a hell of a lot of room to change afterwards however because of the box which you drop the used towels into takes up a bit more room than it probably should. If it was outside the shower in a better spot, the dressing area would be plenty big enough.<br />
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Breakfast wasn’t served until 6:30, so I thought I’d wander down to the SSL (Sightseer Lounge/Observation Car). Here is where my first gripe for the trip was. There were coach passengers scattered all over the car, on the seats, on the floor, everywhere. I had nowhere to sit, not that I now wanted to sit there anyway. Staff were already up preparing breakfast and the conductor was also doing the rounds. I’m surprised that these passengers weren’t moved on, it was feral. One guy asked me where I got my coffee which I brought down from the sleeping car. He was jittery and looked like he needed a hit of something, I’m just not sure it was caffeine. I told him where I got it and legged it back to my sleeper.<br />
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Shortly afterwards, we came into Flagstaff which is a key stop for transfers to Phoenix, Arizona and also for coach tours to the Grand Canyon. The station itself is pretty underwhelming, but I jumped off and stretched my legs in the sub zero temps. I took a shot of the station plaque illuminated by a weak light and the lone bus who had either delivered or was picking up passengers...<br />
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Diane woke early as well, so we were one of the first for breakfast. A brilliant red sunrise greeted us and I regretted not taking the camera to breakfast. After breakfast we went back to our room where we spent all of the day looking out the window at desert and mountains, punctuated by lunch with a nice couple from Ohio who were on their way back home after spending time with their son in Phoenix. <br />
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Today the sights were all about deserts. We were still travelling in Arizona when the sun rose, but not long after breakfast we entered New Mexico. We travelled across New Mexico all day, crossing into Colorado on dusk. The train followed the famous ‘Route 66’ for most of the day and it was rare not to see a parade of trucks alongside, racing the train. There are some weird and wonderful rock formations to see, including the ‘Continental Divide’, a row of mountains which just spring straight up out of the flat desert. These mountains signify the distinct line that separates the water tables of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Apparently this line runs from Alaska in the north to the tip of South America...<br />
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As well as land and rock formations, there were also numerous American Indian reservations and art and craft roadside stalls along Route 66 that you could see from the train. Arriving at Albuquerque, I took the opportunity to get off the train for a stretch as it was a refuelling stop. I took a few pictures and a short video of the train. The sun was really strong and I couldn’t see the viewfinder on the camera, so my apologies when things get a little out of whack late in the vid. It shows just what a big unit the train is anyway...<br />
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I was a bit surprised just how small Albuquerque appeared to be from the train. Very little modern multi-storey buildings in what appeared to be the city centre and open plains could clearly be seen from both sides of the train. For a city which obviously took its name from joining Jessica Alba with one of the Swans finest, it was a bit disappointing.<br />
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As the sun was setting, we made a slow climb up Raton Pass and passed through a tunnel which signified the border between New Mexico and Colorado. This line of rail is the highest point of the Southwest Chief trip at 2,310m. By the time we had descended back down the other side of the mountain into Trinidad, Colorado, it was pitch black and looking out the window became pointless. We again chose a late sitting for dinner, so we had a few hours quiet time before going to the dining car for my now regulation rare steak.<br />
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So far it has been very enjoyable. We spent the whole day in our roomette, never once feeling cramped and not feeling the need to go to the SSL or Lounge Car. I’m interested to see how tonight’s sleep goes, hopefully it is OK and I can officially stamp our papers as ‘dedicated railfans’.<br />
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Now all I need is to find an internet connection and I can get this blog off this word document and online....lol<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com92tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-56576642183301702982011-02-19T16:45:00.000-08:002011-02-19T16:48:10.160-08:00AMTRAK adventure begins...Day 15, Feb 17th<br />
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<i><b><t>T</t></b></i>oday is the day we’ve been waiting for for some time. It is with some trepidation that we undertake this huge train trip aboard AMTRAK. We have committed ourselves for a BIG first time experience of long distance rail travel and if we find it is not for us, it is going to be a long 2 weeks until we meet up with Clive and Lorraine in Reno.<br />
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We took the opportunity to sleep in and it was a pretty easy thing to do, the bedding and pillows were magnificent where we stayed, the Sheraton LAX Gateway. They gave us a 3pm checkout although we were out of the hotel and on the shuttle to LAX by 1:30pm. We caught the shuttle back to LAX where we jumped off at the arrivals terminal and boarded the ‘FLYAWAY’ bus which shuttles passengers back and forth from LAX to Union Station in downtown LA, a trip of about 30-40 minutes. This is the Los Angeles equivalent station to Central in Sydney or Southern Cross/Spencer St in Melbourne. At $7, it is a quick, efficient and very cost effective mode of transfer.<br />
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At the unload spot at Union Station, the guy who unloads the bags from the buses offered to take our bags and walk with us to the AMTRAK ticketing window. It was a fair walk and well worth a $5 tip for the service, delivering us right to the sleeping passengers ticketing window.<br />
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It took a while to get us ticketed, but the lady behind the desk was very efficient and had all the legs of the journey printed, sorted in order and stapled to a sleeve so the conductor just tears off the top ticket each time we travel. We checked our 2 biggest bags thru to Boston after repacking a few items to reduce the weight and make sure we have our essentials in our carry-on baggage.<br />
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After the check-in process was completed, we still had about 3 hours to wait until departure. Being complete noobs, we needed advice on what we should do with our bags if we wanted to look around etc. From reading <a href="http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/index">AMTRAK Unlimited</a>, an independent travel forum and an absolutely excellent source of information of all things AMTRAK, I knew to look for the guys with ‘Red Caps’ who were AMTRAK employees who acted as porters, hosts, information guides and just about any other job needed in the terminal. I bailed up a guy, Mark, who was only too happy to help. He checked our bags at the secure check-in/office so we could wander around the station or beyond and gave us instructions to just return to that area later to retrieve our bags and he would transport us up to the platform when it was time to board. <br />
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We firstly needed to get something to eat as we hadn’t eaten at all. We decided on Wetzel’s Pretzels, a typically American fast food outlet that made the pretzels and different pastry items behind a glass wall in full view of everybody, putting on quite a show in the process. I had a Wetzel Dog which was a thick frankfurter wrapped in pastry with strips of Jalapeno encrusted in the pastry. I have to say it was very tasty...<br />
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We briefly ventured outside where I managed to grab a few shots of the outside of the building before we came back in and I grabbed some of the old style interior...<br />
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We retrieved our bags and found some comfy chairs in ‘Mark’s’ area and waited for the call to depart. The train was a bit late getting prepared but soon enough Mark had loaded us and our bags onto a cart along with 2 other couples. We made our way to the platform via the pedestrian underpass which was very busy with commuters as you’d expect at 6pm on a weeknight. As we drove along, I’m sure I heard “Hey Timmy, there are the cart people. Wave at the cart people Timmy”. Seinfeld fans will understand...lol<br />
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As we drove onto the platform, the Southwest Chief was reversing in from the far end and the first thing that struck me was the sheer size of the carriages, they are so high. I will get some good shots of the train when the light is suitable and hopefully it will show the enormity of them, but I took a few anyway which shows the carriages almost scraping the roof of the terminal. Mark dropped us off at where he said the carriage would come to rest and after receiving the tip he so richly deserved, departed, probably never to be seen again by us...<br />
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We boarded the train and were directed to our roomette. Almost immediately the fears we held due to the jibes we’d received about being crammed into a roomette were alleviated. The seats are plenty wide and comfortable enough. Legroom is certainly an issue if you want to stretch your legs, not because there is no legroom per se, but sitting opposite each other you just need to work out a strategy with your partner. So far we’ve worked it out pretty well.<br />
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The SCA (Sleeping Car Attendant) came around and introduced herself as Cindy, although her nametag said Cynthia. Each carriage has a dedicated SCA who looks after all your needs. From early impressions, it appears we have been lucky enough to get a good one. Nothing is too much trouble and she is very accommodating. For example, when it came time to make up the beds, we were not long back from dinner and weren’t ready for bed just yet. She told us she would come back in about 30 minutes after she had fixed all the other beds and if we still weren’t ready for bed, she whispered there was a spare roomette downstairs that we were quite welcome to use until we felt ready to go to bed.<br />
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Stepping back a bit, not long after we rolled out of Union Station, the Dining Car Steward, who is more or less the boss of the dining car, came through the car and introduced himself as CJ. He asked us what time we would like dinner and we chose the late sitting of 8:15pm. He informed us that breakfast was from 6:30am until 9:30am and was first in, first served. Lunch and dinner are strictly by reservation only, yet he comes through before each meal and agrees a time. We went to the dining car for dinner where I had a BIG steak, cooked rare to perfection whilst Diane had crab cakes which she said were ‘nice’. Our dining car attendant is ‘AD’, an older smooth talking African American guy who I would guess has worked the trains for years, such was his level of expertise.<br />
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It’s obvious from first impressions that AMTRAK take customer service very seriously. Maybe I have hit the jackpot first up with a good crew, but in a fortnights time I’ll probably know the answer.<br />
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If the sleeping arrangements are satisfactory, early signs are that we are on a winner. The expectations in the sleeping department are not high, so they will have to be pretty bad for me to regret the trip at this early stage.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-1117459022031955482011-02-17T00:28:00.000-08:002011-02-17T10:57:57.718-08:00Bye bye Big White...<i><b>Day 14, Feb 16th</b></i> <br />
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<i><b><t>A</t></b></i>fter most of us finished packing last night, when we woke this morning it was just a matter of showering, packing the toiletries and wait for the shuttle to arrive. Before it did however, Penny, the ski school girl who babysat the kids on Saturday night, arrived as planned to relieve us of any leftover food and drink we may have had. There was way more leftover than anybody thought there would be, so Penny called one of her housemates who had the day off to quickly come around and get more. That party house will be well stocked for quite a while. They even got a carton of beer that Clive and I failed to finish off!!!<br />
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The shuttle arrived promptly at 09:30am and we quickly packed the bus and we were on our way. As we left I took a few parting shots of the houses on the back side of Raven + a shot of the little dropoff which we negotiated each afternoon to ski back to our unit...<br />
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We had an interesting trip back down the mountain. It had snowed during the night and the road was pretty slushy. Brian, the shuttle driver, said it was quite slippery on the way up the mountain to pick us up. As we picked our way down the mountain we followed a logging truck for quite a way until we turned off Big White Road onto the highway proper...<br />
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As we made our way around a corner on the highway, we needed to brake heavily as we were confronted with a guy in the middle of the road with a stop/slow lollipop and police, fire rescue and ambulances everywhere. It soon became apparent that a car had gone over the edge. From our vantage point we couldn't see where the vehicle had come to a stop, but the flotilla of emergency services vehicles which roared past us as we made our way down toward Kelowna would suggest that things were a tad grim. A check of local news <a href="http://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/60222/Hwy-33-crash-sends-car-down-bank">here</a> shows that there was a single occupant in the car and he survived.<br />
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As we approached the outskirts of Kelowna I got some nice shots of snow covered fields...<br />
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We arrived at the airport just before 11am in plenty of time for our flights. After a light lunch in the terminal, 'The Gang' bid their farewells to Diane, Casey and I as they boarded a plane to Edmonton, en route to the lights, sights and sounds of Las Vegas.<br />
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Our plane was running a bit late but we were assured everybody would make all connections. We made up a bit of time and landed in Vancouver just before 3pm. We had a MONSTER walk to make our connection to the LA flight, but the fun had only just begun. When we finally got to the 'US Connection' area, the queue to pass the security check was at least 100m long. After finally getting thru the security check tempers were a bit frayed. They make everybody take off their shoes, but there is NOT ONE SINGLE chair in the area after you pass thru to sit down and put them back on. I mean wtf, is it that hard??<br />
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It was at this point that I realised why it was such a shitfight, the Yanks control this area in Vancouver airport. You actually pass thru 'US Immigration' in Vancouver Canada, because when you land at LAX, you arrive in Terminal 2 which doesn't have immigration facilities, so you get processed before you depart. Well this whole episode took us past the scheduled departure time, but I wasn't unduly concerned because we were assured 'everybody will make your connection'. Diane was struggling with her still sore left leg so we headed for the gate when over the loud speaker came 'This is a final call for passengers Inman departing Westjet flight 1628 to LAX, this plane is about to depart' Casey and I upped the tempo and rushed to the gate to ensure we made our flight. Diane made it and we boarded, much to the disappointment of some wanker who had made our seats his own thinking he could get the whole row to himself. The plane pulled back a few feet and stopped. Shortly after the captain announced that there were some passengers on standby (who probably had designs on our seats) and had even got so far as to their luggage being placed on the plane. As they were not on the flight, they had to remove their luggage. This took way longer than anticipated as they couldn't find the bags. We finally took off about 40 mins late.<br />
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After arriving in LAX, having passed thru immigration in Vancouver, it was just a matter of getting your bags off the carousel and walking out the door. We waited at least 30 mins for the 'every 10-15 min hotel shuttle service' to arrive. A very short trip to our hotel, 'Sheraton Gateway LAX' where we checked in while Casey waited in the lobby. After we got to the room and taken the bags from the porter, I went back downstairs and Casey and I headed back to LAX to hopefully put her on a flight back to Australia.<br />
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The shuttle delivered us to 'Tom Bradley International Terminal'...<br />
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Casey and I went to the check-in and hoped. She was delighted when the ticketing agent told her that she was upgraded to Business Class and she received her boarding pass straight away, no need for panic, she is on her way. We had a quick 'farewell meal' at Macca's and soon she was off into the departure lounge for the long trip home, via Melbourne...<br />
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So now the second leg of our journey begins. Tomorrow we checkout and head to downtown LA to link up with our train at Union Street Station.<br />
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Let more fun begin...<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-88487489404068496012011-02-15T22:27:00.000-08:002011-02-17T10:59:37.871-08:00Final day on the slopes...<i><b>Day 13, Feb 15th</b></i><br />
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<i><b><t>W</t></b></i>e awoke this morning to brilliant sunshine for our final day on snow, this after about 4 or 5cm of fresh snow overnight.<br />
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After breakfast we headed out for our final fling. Clive, Karmen, Casey and I headed to Gem Lake for a play whilst Lorraine and Brenda took all 4 kids to cruise the greens. It soon became apparent that the brilliant sunshine was going to be short lived as clouds started to roll in. The runs at Gem Lake were busy and even though it was only mid morning, the fresh snow had been chopped up and it was tough going. We skied down Kalina's Rainbow but decided to abandon another run down as it was very chopped up and all of the other runs off the chair had not been groomed overnight. Casey managed to take the camera out and got some shots of the snow ghosts. After the snow last night, it was a very pretty, if not very cold sight... <br />
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We also got some shots at the top of the Gem Lake Chair. You can see the snow and ice stuck to the signs...<br />
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We headed over to the Powder Chair and skied a few runs off that chair, but it was very cold up top and the weather was beginning to turn. Furthermore, the chair appeared to be running at half speed, so it was a slow, cold trip up the chair. It was now closing in on midday, so we did an almost non stop 'hoon' from the top of the Powder Chair to the VCM for lunch.<br />
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We met up there with Lorraine, Brenda and the kids. Darren also arrived, a bit disappointed as he wanted to go snowmobiling this morning, but he was the only person and they need a minimum of 2 people to run. Lorraine decided to call it a day and arranged to give Darren her lift ticket so he could have a ski.<br />
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After lunch, 10 of us headed up the Ridge Rocket with the intention of heading over to the Black Forest. On the way over, you pass a new house in the Feathertop Estate which defies belief. It is monstrous and the detail in the woodwork is amazing...<br />
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The shuttle bus driver was telling Brenda and Lorraine earlier in the week that the owner stays for a few months and had the house built 'back east' where it was disassembled and transported and put back together in Big White at a cost of over $20 million. I'm not sure of how much of that is urban myth, but it is a very very impressive house. <br />
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We then skied the Black Forest area the rest of the afternoon. Towards the end Brenda and Riley broke from our group to join Darren and Kody who had earlier sought the sanctuary of the warming hut at the base of the Black Forest lift at about 2pm. <br />
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We skied on and I took a few videos. Tayla is fairly motoring down the runs now and Jack just loves the trees, lol. Casey is really skiing beautifully, very clean and relaxed style...<br />
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<i>Note: All the videos are taken in HD, so open them up to full screen (bottom right corner - 4 arrows) and the quality remains...</i><br />
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Karmen suggested she ski down and get a video of me, so I gave her a quick lesson on how to work the camera. She did a pretty good job for a first timer getting me coming down, but didn't stop the video at the end. She placed the camera back in the case and handed it back to me at the bottom of the lift. It wasn't until we got back to the unit and I downloaded the camera contents to the computer that the video of me skiing down is 1.9GB and 42mins in length...lol. If I work out how to cut and edit it, I'll post it up later in the trip.<br />
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Tonight is packing night. We have a 09:30am pickup in the morning to take us to the airport in Kelowna. 'The Gang' head to Vegas via Edmonton, whilst Diane, Casey and I head back to LA via Vancouver. Diane is still restricted a bit, her knee is sore and she has given her ribs a bit of a hit, but she'll be OK and should have no real trouble finishing off the trip.<br />
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We've had some drama getting Casey a flight back home. When we looked last night it was looking very grim on QF12, the A380 which leaves for Sydney at 22:30. There were just a few seats left and 34 staff listed!!!! Diane logged onto the staff travel system this morning and it hadn't improved and QF108 which leaves an hour later was also not favourable.<br />
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A few changes has her now listed to fly into Melbourne on QF94 which looks a good chance. She then has to board a domestic flight to Sydney, so her day will be very long. I'll take her to the airport in LA and make sure she gets on the flight OK, but she'll be on her own when she gets to Melbourne, a scenario she hasn't encountered before as she has always travelled with Diane and/or me. Melbourne international and domestic terminals are next to each other, so she should be able to work it out OK.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-45996878081174977852011-02-15T07:46:00.000-08:002011-02-15T07:50:36.237-08:00Happy Valentine's Day...<i><b>Day 12, Feb 14th</b></i><br />
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A mixed day for all 'The Gang' today, a lively day for some, a lazy day for others.<br />
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We woke to a reasonably overcast morning, lightly snowing and hard to assess what it would be like as the day progressed and what it would be like at the top of the mountain.<br />
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Diane, whilst certainly bruised and sore, appears to have suffered no breaks or injuries which will keep her from continuing the rest of the trip. She had me up at 3am tip toeing around the unit like a church mouse getting ice for her leg. With a foot of snow on the balcony, I guess I could have found an easier method...lol<br />
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The first real movement came around 9:30am when Clive and Karmen decided to bite the bullet and head out. Karmen still had a day left on her lift ticket, so it was a bit of a no-brainer for her. Clive took Brenda's lift ticket which also had a day to run and they headed off, lonely figures as they walked the 30 metres up the road to click in and ski down to the gondola...<br />
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I made the decision to stay in as Diane needed a bit of a hand so that swayed my thinking. I could bullshit a bit here and say because it was Valentine's Day I wanted to make sure she was comfortable etc, but most of my family and friends reading this blog would see thru that immediately...lol. The honest truth is, if it was a bluebird day I would have been out there, but given the uncertain conditions I decided to play the devoted husband. She did get breakfast in bed and frequent cups of tea during the morning.<br />
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Casey stayed in bed the whole morning and caught up on some sleep. She hasn't been real well with the sniffles and I guess she is missing somebody's company.... I think she is just about ready to go home although she has some big plans to teach Tarrant to ski and make a trip somewhere, sometime in the future.<br />
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About lunchtime, Brenda headed out with the 4 kids......and Darren!!!!!!!!!<br />
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They headed up to the VCM (Village Centre Mall) and Darren rented some boots and skis for the afternoon. Clive and Karmen met up with them and took Tayla and Jack for the afternoon whilst the Franks family went skiing together for the first time ever, doing laps off the gondola. From all reports Kody is doing well on the skis and Brenda is confident we get him up the mountain and down the easier runs tomorrow.<br />
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The afternoon in the unit was very quiet and comfortable. I played some poker online and won enough to cover my lift ticket for tomorrow and then some...shhh don't tell the wife...lol<br />
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A roast lamb dinner was prepared and consumed by all and it was an early night in preparation for our final day on snow tomorrow. I intend to take the camera out tomorrow, but it looks like the weather may be questionable again so I'm stuck a bit on what to do.<br />
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Looking forward to a big final day tomorrow before Diane, Casey and I fly to LA and farewell Casey back to Sydney before we head off for the rail leg of the adventure. The rest of 'The Gang' make their way to Vegas and Disneyland. The internet access has been sensational at the unit, they have their own private wireless network and uploads and downloads are at great speed. I suspect the rail leg will be much different, especially on the 2 and 3 day legs at the start and finish. I will keep the blog updated daily and the train trip should give me a heap of chances to get some great shots from the train, but I may be restricted to uploading and publishing the blog every couple of days.<br />
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Enjoy...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-20358157521625116742011-02-14T10:56:00.000-08:002011-02-14T10:56:19.507-08:00That's more like it...<i><b>Day 11, Feb 13th</b></i><br />
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Great fun day on the slopes today. On a personal note, I seem to have found my snow mojo and had a great time.<br />
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Clive and Karmen took the 3 bigger kids out at about 9:30 after the the rest of 'The Gang' had all left earlier for a shopping trip to Kelowna. Casey and I were about 10 minutes behind them, but just as we were about to leave the 'spa guy' turned up, so we waited for him to finish his spa magic and headed out.<br />
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We took a few pics of the unit from ground level as we headed for the gondola...<br />
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Brenda hung the Aussie flag upon our arrival on the balcony which is also home to the spa. The balcony on the other side of the unit is also our balcony which houses the BBQ and a small outdoor setting.<br />
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The plan to meet up with Clive got a bit muddled between us and although we were skiing in the same area, we were on different runs. Casey and I skied the Powder Chair for a few runs then I suggested we do a run to the top of the cliff on the T-bar. We then skied down to the Falcon Chair and took our first ride of the week up to the very top of the ski area. Being a Sunday the chair was open, so I told Casey we may as well take the opportunity to ride it because it was likely to be closed on our last 2 days here. I didn't bring the good camera out, but Casey had the point and shoot so we took a few pics up amongst the snow ghosts...<br />
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We made our way back down the mountain and decided to head in for coffee and an early lunch at the Village Centre Mall. We skied down past the Ridge Rocket Cafe, jumped on the Plaza Chair and headed for coffee. As I was taking my gear off whilst Casey went and bought the coffees, my phone rang and it was Clive. They were having lunch at the Ridge Rocket Cafe which we skied past not 5 minutes earlier..lol<br />
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We agreed to meet up at the Black Forest. On our first run up the chair we spied the kids darting in amongst the trees so we yelled to them from the lift. We quickly made our way down where we finally met up as a group and it was now 1pm!!<br />
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The rest of the afternoon was spent in the Black Forest. The snow was in magnificent condition and everybody was enjoying themselves. Casey skied down ahead of us on a run and did a quick video of us all skiing down, one by one...<br />
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We got the last lift call just before 3:30 and it was time to head back to the unit. Unfortunately being a Sunday there was no night skiing, so we couldn't have a few 'last runs' off the Bullet Express which stays open on night skiing days. Everybody would have been happy to stay out for a few more, even though it was starting to get cold. We have the ski back to the unit sussed right out by now, it is really very easy except for the drop into the back of the unit itself is a bit scary, but doable, even for the kids.<br />
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We arrived back to the unit a few minutes before the day trippers arrived home with the news that Diane had taken a heavy tumble on the ice just after getting off the bus down at Happy Valley. She was obviously a bit shaken and has a very sore left arm and left knee. With plenty of ice on the knee and her arm now in a sling, we'll know a lot more tomorrow, but hopefully no severe damage has been done. As long as she can walk to the train on Thursday, she is going to have ample opportunity to put the feet up and recuperate whilst railing across the country. <br />
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Casey took the kids down for a swim in the pool which gave Clive and I a chance for some peace and a few quiet beers in the spa. After our spa, Clive and I showered and got back into our ski parkas. We had a BBQ to cook and parkas were a must out on the frozen balcony. Fortunately the BBQ was a success, no complaints were heard from 'The Gang' on the quality of the meat and there wasn't much left at the end.<br />
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At 8:30pm most of us settled back with our red wine/white wine/girly drinks and watched the Grammy's live. Fortunately we had the resident expert, Casey, who was able to identify every performer and every celebrity head that was picked out by the cameras in the crowd.<br />
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A bit unsure what tomorrow will bring, there is forecast for light snow and most of us have exhausted our '5 of 6 day' lift tickets. If the day looks so-so, there will probably be just a skeleton crew from 'The Gang' out on the mountain.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545198210071597463.post-2611340444524812192011-02-13T08:38:00.000-08:002011-02-14T11:00:15.790-08:00Rest Day...<i><b>Day 10, Feb 12th</b></i><br />
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Today was our planned rest day, a plan we were reasonably happy to stick to when we woke to a sunny day, but a fairly stiff breeze was blowing and it was quite cold early. Even though it was a sleep-in, I was still first up as usual, not helped by the garbage truck. Now this garbage truck obviously comes a very long way to collect the trash...<br />
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...yep, all the way from BFI.<br />
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In the morning Clive decided it was time to clear the snow from one of our balconies in preparation for our BBQ dinner tomorrow night...<br />
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After lunch 'The Gang' went down to Happy Valley for snowtubing. I took the opportunity for some quiet time and stayed back in the unit. From all reports they had a great time and the kids, big kids and small, have decided to spend our final night on Tuesday snowtubing again.<br />
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This also gave me an opportunity to take some pictures from our unit balcony...<br />
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A few shots of the ice climbing tower down at Happy Valley which rises above the tops of the buildings...<br />
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...and finally a nice shot of the Monashee Mountain range in the distance...<br />
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In the evening the babysitter arrived at 6pm to look after the kids whilst the 8 adults went out to enjoy dinner. The babysitter was one of the girls who works in the ski school/kids centre and was a private arrangement brokered by the girls. We had a lovely meal at Snowshoe Sam's, finished off with their famous Gunbarrell Coffee before making our way back to the unit. The weather had turned decidedly dodgy by this stage and we grabbed what we think was the last shuttle at about 10:45. This time around we had more luck bribing the driver with a tip and we were delivered directly to the garage door.<br />
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Diane, Lorraine, Brenda, Darren and Kody are heading down the mountain on the shopping shuttle to Kelowna in the morning whilst the rest of us will dust the one day old cobwebs off and hit the slopes.<br />
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Later...Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18399573694535558520noreply@blogger.com0