Los Angeles to El Paso part II

Woke up in the middle of the desert, somewhere between Benson, AZ and Lordsburg, NM. Got up and went to breakfast in time to pass through Lordsburg. Had breakfast with a family of three ... daughter, mother and grandmother. They were on their way to Texas to visit great-grandmother. The resemblance between the three was striking. Back to my room to prepare for arrival in El Paso. When we arrived in Deming, NM I alerted my friend in El Paso, who was to pick me up, that we were about an hour 45 mins late. I guess that with my arrival in El Paso, my Amtrak Adventure is officially over. Still have to get back to Austin with my trailer but that should be just a lot of driving.

The End ...

Thanks for watching.

Los Angeles to El Paso

Slept late .. 8am. Messed around with my computer and headed to El Paseo Inn to see if Chilaquiles were the same as Migas. They're not but were very good anyway. In fact, both meals I had at El Paseo Inn were quite good. Check out time for the hotel is noon and the train leaves today for El Paso at 2:30 so I think I'll hang out in the hotel lobby for awhile. Los Angeles Passenger Terminal is one of the few major Amtrak stations that doesn't have a first class lounge. Got to the station just in time buy a couple of Cokes and sit down. They called my train and I was aboard 30 minutes before departure time. Departed at 2:32, already late. <G> First stop Pomona, CA. Departed there at 3:20, 9 minutes late after just 32 miles. Next stop Ontario, CA. Departed there at 3:37, now 13 minutes late. Looks like I might be having dinner in Palm Springs. Now stopped at the east end of the Ontario airport. Don't know why. Just watched a plane land that had TED in big letters on the fuselage. Need to find out what that is. Well, we just met a UP freight and have now started moving. I guess freight delays will be pretty common on this trip. While I was at dinner we waited for two freights then pulled into Palm Springs, actually North Palm Springs and departed there at 6:47. We are now one hour and forty-six minutes late. We are now skirting the Salton Sea. Our elevation, according to Topo USA is approximately 160 ft below sea level. Hope the dam doesn't break.

Here we are in Yuma, AZ. Too bad I can't jump off and ride the Yuma Valley Railroad. That is the only full size excursion train I missed this summer and some time I'll have to make an opportunity to ride it just 'cus. Departed Yuma at 9:50, one hour twenty-six minutes late. Seems we made up some time. Tucson was in the middle of the night. Looked out the window but didn't check the time. This is another place I would like to jump off and ride a couple of park trains I missed. Someday ...

I awoke in Arizona. It was hard to tell how far behind we were as I was confused by the time. Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time so essentially we were already on Pacific Daylight time. The train timetable was not clear if the station times reflected this or you had to adjust for it. Eventually we settled that by passing into California and we were about two hours behind the timetable. Amtrak timetables have a lot of pad built into the last station stop so actual arrival time was about one hour late.

I had a hotel reservation in LA but arriving so early, I knew there was going to be a problem. I walked the three blocks to my hotel and presented myself about 9:30. Sure enough, the lady at the desk informs me that I can't check in until four o'clock. Perhaps I might like to explore China town or Olvera street nearby. Well I settled down in the lobby with my laptop and started catching up with email. I can read email from my iPhone easily enough but complicated replies I put off if I can. Took care of all of that, checked on my credit cards, anything I could think of. So then nature calls, I look around a little, don't see a restroom in the lobby so I ask at the desk. "No we don't have a restroom here" she says," you can go down the street to" somewhere I didn't catch, "it's only a minute away." Well, that didn't appeal to me so I decided to go to the Subway I had seen next door and eat lunch then use their facility. Had lunch but this turns out to be the only Subway I've ever been to that didn't have a customer restroom. Things are getting serious so I decided to walk back over to Union Station and while I was there I would browse their bookstore. No problem finding the restroom but the bookstore I thought I saw had only magazines. I stopped at the Information Desk at the entrance of the station and a very nice gentleman there told me he bought all his books at a store in Santa Montica. However, if I didn't want to ride the bus out there, I could take the Red Line subway to Macy's Plaza and they had a Borders Express there. Sounds like a plan. $1.25 for a ticket, third stop and off the train and up the escalator. At the top I encountered a metro security guard so I checked with him. Well, "there are two Macy's Plaza'a he says, which one do I want? " "The one with the bookstore." I say so he says" turn right." Went up another escalator and straight out the door and turned right. Walked a block or so and saw no Macy's Plaza. Hmpt! I saw another security guard standing in front of a bank so I asked him if he knew where Macy's plaza was. "NO" he replied with no further explanation. Kept walking a little bit and encountered something called 7 + Fig. Sure enough, lots of stores around a central courtyard and a Macy's department store is one of them. No book store however. So I backtrack. Maybe he meant go left after all but checking down the street that way got me nowhere. Now I'm standing across the street from Metro entrance and trying to decide what to do. Hate to waste a trip but asking for help hasn't been very useful. Then I notice that the entrance to the station is on a corner. I came out the door onto Figueroa street. The other door opens onto 7th street. Coming out the 7th street door, 7 + Fig is on the left and sure enough, a block and a half down 7th street to the right is Macy's Plaza. Found the book store, bought a book and headed back to the hotel. At the hotel there was a crowd around the desk so I plopped back down in the same chair and prepared to wait until 4 pm. Then I realized, even though most of the conversations were in Chinese, that these folks were checking in. I waited until things settled down a little bit and walked over to the desk. I looked at the lady behind the desk. She looked at me. I said, "do you have a room for me yet?" "Sure" she says, "where'd you go?" She handed me the key and I headed for the room. First thing I did was take a nap.

Despite the confusion in the lobby, I can recommend the Metro Plaza Hotel for anyone laying over in Los Angeles on an Amtrak trip. The hotel has been recently renovated, the facade, the lobby and the rooms. The room are nicely done with mahogany doors and furniture and the rooms and bathrooms are spacious and clean. Although the room AC worked well, the lobby and the halls are not air conditioned which seemed a little strange.

Went over to Olvera street for dinner. Olvera street is a small piece of old Los Angeles that contains mostly markets selling Mexican souviners but also a number of nice resturants and small street resturants. One building dates back to 1818. I had my usual Enchiladas Suizas at the El Paseo Inn and now I'm going to bed. They also serve breakfast, starting at 9:30. If I can wait that late I may try their Chilaquiles Sabrosa which they claim is the same as Migas. We'll see.

Up at 6:30 again. Train running about 2 hours late. Over night we paused at Kansas City but I slept through it. Not much to say about Kansas farm land either. Crossed into Colorado about 10:00 am. Eastern Colorado is about the same as Kansas. We arrived in Trinidad at 11:45 and started up Raton Pass. Here I start retracing part of my journey from earlier this summer as we roughly follow I-25 and the Santa Fe Trail from Trinidad to Albuquerque. It's nice to be able to watch the scenery instead of the road. We crossed the summit of Raton Pass at 12:10. After Raton, things sort of flatten out again and the area appears to be mostly ranch land. We just passed a tree off in the distance. Not a very big tree but the ONLY tree that I can see for miles and miles. There has to be a story there somewhere. Las vegas, NM ... they have a unusual building here, next to the depot. It's mission style but built of bricks and had the name Castanada on the center section. First guess is that it's an old Harvey House Hotel but I'll have to look it up.

(Got on the web and sure enough ... check out http://harvey.library.arizona.edu/finding_aid/8nm/3/gr8-3-2.html )

Lamy, NM ... I've been here on a train before this summer, just not this train. Lamy was the destination of the Santa Fe Southern excursion railroad that I rode back on July 26th. Seems like a lot longer ago than that. I had lunch there last time, this time I almost had dinner as we are running a little over 2 hours late and just about a half hour before my dinner reservation time.

Albuquerque ... managed to finish dinner before we arrived in ABQ. I didn't get off even though we had an extended stay. From the train I noticed a building very close to the tracks that had all the doors and windows sealed shut with plywood and signs on the outside warning of asbestos danger, "do not enter without respirators and protective suits." It would have made a perfect place for the Amtrak station which is located instead a long walk away and in a cramped little build near the street. Wonder how long that building was used before someone noticed the asbestos problem.

After Albuquerque we turned west and followed the route of another trip I had taken two years ago. With two friends, we drove to California following the tracks of previous Santa Fe Railroad as closely as possible. Darkness soon prevailed however and I saw little more until the next morning when ...

Washington to Chicago Part II then on to LA

Woke up in Indianapolis just as two cars were coupled on the the back of our train. Referred to as the Hoosier State, these two cars run on their own one day a week and are tacked onto the back of the Cardinal three days a week. I headed into the diner for breakfast just in time as I was followed in by a bunch of rowdy middle age Indianapolis businessmen going to Chicago for a Cubs game. They took all the rest of the seats in the diner. Turns out it was a customer appreciation thing paid for by a shipping company. Several of them started breakfast with a Bloody Mary. Train was a little late into Chicago but not too bad.

Chicago

With plenty of time to wait, I checked my luggage and settled down to use the free wifi in the first class lounge. No luck. I had a good signal and no request for a password or anything, it just wouldn't work. The ladies at the reception desk knew nothing and were no help at all. So, no blog up date. I ventured out on the streets of Chicago long enough to find some supplies for the next two days and settled down in a comfy chair with my book. I checked on the wifi a couple of times and consulted with some fellow passengers but never got on.

Chicago to Los Angeles

Train 3, The Southewest Chief left on time and we headed through the suburbs of Chicago and out into the farm land of Illinois. This is the third train I've never ridden before. Not much to say about the farm land of Illinois except there's lots of it and the farmers are very neat.

Crossed the Mississippi River from Illinois to Fort Madison, Iowa at 7:30 pm. Iowa farm land was pretty much like Illinois land. It got dark so nothing else to see.

Washington to Chicago

Got up early, packed and headed to Union Station for breakfast. The first class lounge, called the Acela lounge in Washington, has a wifi setup so I worked my email and browsed the web some. Pre-boarding for train 51 the Cardinal, was called at 10:40. The Cardinal is the second train I'm riding that I've never been on before, the first being the Crescent from New Orleans to Washington. I got to my room, set up my computer, hooked up my GPS and waited for departure. The Cardinal departed at 11:20, about 10 minutes late. Since we departed by going into the tunnel under Washington, I lost my GPS fix. Sometimes it's hard to get that back while moving at a high speed.

Well, I guess we were moving slow enough so the GPS hooked up right away. Windows Vista however choose that time to automatically install an update and then restart. I think I have that option turned off now. For lunch I got to experience "Diner Lite." In an effort to save money, Amtrak has reconfigured some of it's diners so there is a lounge in one end of a car and diner seating in the other with a preparation area in the middle. Two people are used to run the snack bar and prepare and serve food in the diner that has been precooked and is heated up. The hamburger I had was okay, even though I ordered chicken, so we'll see how it works for dinner tonight.

After an eleven minute stop in Charlottesville, VA we left there at 2:25, about 30 minutes late. It seem strange that a train headed from Washington to Chicago would be as far south as Charlottesville but I guess that has a lot to do with finding a way through the mountains. After after another dip to the south, we cross UNDER the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway in a tunnel. Out of Staunton, VA at 3:38, about 40 minutes late. I've actually been to Staunton before, on my way to the N-scale convention in Chantilly, VA several years ago. I stopped here and parked my trailer in a local RV park so I could visit the Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia via roads that I would never take my trailer on. Staunton is a pretty little mountain town and they have a library with a nice genealogy dept. and free wifi.

We wound through the mountains and met the east bound Cardinal at Goshen, VA. Went to dinner, had the salmon, it was very good. During dinner we passed into West Virginia, I'm not sure exacly where. We followed the Greenbriar river for quite some time then connected with the New River. The New River Gorge is said to be quite spectacular. Too bad we will be doing most of it after dark.

Out of Hinton, WV at 7:39, one hour 38 min. late. Finally at Hinton, it looks like we may be headed north for the rest of the trip.

Genealogy research in Washington

I've known about the Civil War service of my Great Grandfather Simpson Jones Nash for some time. He was a Confederate soldier captured at Gettysburg and imprisoned at David's Island in Long Island Sound. I also knew my maternal Great-Great Grandfather, John McIlheran, had served for the Confederates but really didn't know much about his time in the service. I decided to use my time in DC to visit the National Archives and look up his records.

The records themselves are not actually available and would be hard to use if they were. What the government has done is created a sort of event card from each entry of every sort of military record where a Confederate soldiers name appears. Some came from Confederate enlistment records, some from musters or roll calls during service, others from Confederate hospital admission and discharge records and many from Union prisoner of war records. I'm sure there are many other categories. Once these cards were complete, they were brought together as military units then sorted by name then date. This creates a mini-history for each soldier. These cards have been microfilmed in order and are available for researchers to look up and print copies.

Upon finding my McIlheran ancestor, I discovered that he had been a prisoner of war also. He joined up 11 Nov 1862, a member of the 23rd Battalion, Tennessee Infantry, Company D. He was captured on 11 September 1863 during the run-up to the battle of Chickamauga. According to the records, he went first to a prison in Louisville, KY and ended up in the Rock Island Barracks in Illinois. On May 11th, 1865, a few days after the Confederate surrender, he signed an Oath of Allegiance to the United States and was released. He lived to be 98 years old and is buried in the McIlheran Cemetery near Cowan, TN.