Trip In Progress: Coast Starlight to Seattle: Day 1

By Allen Bacon
Editor
Bosco: The Blog


Editor's Note: My son Felix and I are traveling to the Bering Strait of Alaska to shoot a documentary on a Northern Alaskan town along with friend Kelsy Franklin. We are taking the Coast Starlight Amtrak service from Fullerton to Seattle with stops in San Francisco and Eugene. I will be providing photos and a diary of our trip as we go.

Day one of our journey is in the books. Felix and I have successfully made it to San Francisco. We arrived at our hotel around 11:30 on Tuesday night. The first day was wonderful and a day I will not soon forget.

The driving rain did not stop from Fullerton until we hit Salinas. Somehow, this did not dampen the spirits of Felix and I and our new friends on the train. The wonderful coastal scenery came in gray tones, but it was still nevertheless beautiful and breathtaking. The scenery on this line is supposed to be one of the most spectacular in the country next to the Empire Builder (Seattle to Chicago) and Zephyr (Chicago to San Franisco via the Rockies.) and certainly the rain did nothing to persuade me from that claim.

One thing I must say is that the service on the train has come down considerably since I was aboard last year. Now, this just may be the team on board the Coast Starlight. But I was endlessly hounded by one of the attendants as she tried to exercise her authority over a guy who was just trying to get to San Francisco. First of all, she was on Felix and I for sitting in the lounge before the trip started rolling. Then she got on us for sitting downstairs, saying that these seats were reserved for the handicapped. We saw no such sign...there were two empty seats...and everybody in the section looked able-bodied! When I asked her if we could just hang out until somebody else needed to use the seats she then told us to go back to our assigned seats. And it got better...Somewhere around Pasa Robles I decided to take a walk the length of the train to stretch my legs...I ran into her again as she said in a loud voice, "Sir, sir do you know where your seat is?". Well Felix and I finally went back to our seats as we were getting ready to disembark in Oakland. She again confronted us...in our seats mind you...."Where do you think you two are going?" "Uh, Oakland", I said. "Where are you supposed to be sitting?" "You assigned us to these seats, " I said, "And stop riding my ass!"