sean's place

Trip Part 3 – The Return

Back in SLO. Back at work.

The trip back was ultra lame for two reasons: 1) I had to leave Sarah behind, and 2) I screwed up and wasted a perfectly good day I could have spent with her.

The first one is self-explanatory, so I shall explain the second.

Sarah rushed me to the train station after a brief (ok, not so brief) stop at Koffeeheads. I had a very delicious iced mocha. Quite nearly perfect in every way. We also shared an eggspresso, which surprisingly (as I think I’ve mentioned before) are quite good. We arrived at Amtrak FNO with plenty of time to spare (8 minutes) and then I was off on the train south to Hanford.

The conductor of said train was a complete twit. We got a warning about 5 minutes before Hanford station that we “were approaching Hanford.” No further warning or instruction at Hanford. So we rolled to a stop and I peered out the window expecting to find some sort of indication that a station was around. No such indication existed, it appeared to just be dirt, rocks, and some spare tracks stacked in a neat pile off to the side of the train. Reasoning and experience dictated the train halted pending the egress of another train at the station. Not so.

So the train sped up, and we passed Hanford.

Crap.

Granted, I should have been more vigilant and actually gone down to the lower-level and prepared to detrain. I didn’t. It was my bad, entirely. The conductor really bears no responsibility for my goof, but an instruction to deboard like I’ve come to expect on my other Amtrak voyages would have been nice. I am thinking of writing a letter to Amtrak California describing my situation and asking they be more diligent in providing these instructions.

Some 20 minutes passed and we stopped at the Corcoran station. An Amtrak staffer aboard train told me to simply catch the reverse-direction train (#715) coming in a short while. That short while turned out to be about an hour and change. I tried to work for a few minutes, but didn’t get very far. Oh well. An hour rolled by in that desolate little town, and after two talks with Julie (Amtrak’s automated voice system) and a good chat with David-yo, I was on my way back to Hanford.

I proactively disembarked at Hanford. I even sat on the lower-level this time. When I heard that warning that Hanford was approaching, I jumped up, grabbed my bag, and stood by the door. It turns out that Hanford station is quite squat. It’s no wonder I didn’t see it last time. How could I? It’s nearly invisible from the upper-deck of the coach cars.

This time, the conductor of good ol’ train #715, told us explicitly that we had arrived and to disembark. Three points.

The conductor on my car told me that the next SLO-bound bus wouldn’t be until 20:20. Crapatola, since it was only 14:45 or so, and all I had were my laptops and some Krispy Kremes. I ultimately situated myself in the corner of Hanford station, near the various guide pamphlets. Luck would have it that a single electrical outlet was nearby, so I plugged in my laptop and proceeded to work. I even setup an ad-hoc wireless network to stream music from my TiBook (since I could only plug one laptop in, I didn’t want to waste battery by having spiritfolk’s CPU decode MP3′s/AAC’s). I worked for a few hours undisturbed, and I made quite the progress. Awesome.

At about 16:30, I ate 3 Krispy Kremes for carbs. Mmm. Carbs.

Somewhere in the middle of that 6 hour expanse at Hanford, a train rolled up carrying PointShot wireless. My laptop picked that network up no problemo, and for a few short minutes, I had internet access. I checked /., my email, and CNN. I also shot out a quick email to my CSC 300 group telling them that there was no chance in hell I was gonna make it.

Now that I think of it, I also missed pub night. Shizzle.

Finally, around 20:30, we took off for SLO. I slept most of the ride (for some reason, I was oddly tired). David graciously picked me up at Amtrak SLP (Cal Poly SLO bus drop) and I was finally home. I watched the new SG-1 ep while chugging beer and eating wheat thins. Carbs!!!

I ultimately stumbled upstairs, unpacked, and crashed around 0100.

And my tri-city tour was complete.

Lessons learned:

1. Don’t over-schedule yourself.
2. Don’t let your Mom guilt you in to #1.
3. Pay closer attention when traveling.
4. If you have to do #1, drive instead.

Ultimately, it worked out for the better I think. I had a few hours of virtually uninterrupted time to work. That was glorious. I wasted a day though that I could have spent with my Sarah, which sucked

Anyway. That’s it.