After a jolly few days in Los Angeles, Captain Morgan rode the rails again, this time setting off at dawn on the Pacific Surfliner - Business Class. This train gets a lot of hype and the fine print talks about “Business”, “complimentary newspapers”, “complimentary snacks at seat” and all the things which make you expect something like Eurostar or the business trains in Germany, Switzerland or even Italy… But no. It’s just another Amtrak train, with the same blue seats. The complimentary newspaper was USA Today (no choice) and the complimentary snacks (for a FIVE HOUR journey) were a Danish pastry and a small carton of apple juice. Later we got a “Snack pack” consisting of a packet of crisps, a bright blue sugar-coated 2 inch jelly in the shape of a smile, and a packet of mixed nuts which was, strangely, sprinkled with salt and sugar and included in the mix a kind of chewy jelly described on the pack as “candied pineapple”. But the views from the train were almost as beautiful as those from the trains which go along the French and Italian Rivieras. We alighted, or as they say here de-trained, at San Luis Obispo (where the word ‘motel’ was coined), bound for San Simeon and the famous Hearst Castle (which we kept being told had nothing to do with Citizen Kane). It’s an odd place. Lots of lumpy church artefacts stuck all over a lot of very dark rooms. The excitement really is from knowing that Clark Gable or Charlie Chaplin probably sat in this chair or slept in that bed. We wondered around imagining what it would have been like to have been guests of Mr Hearst. We agreed it would have been *SO* exciting to get the invitation, so exciting arriving and so exciting being shown around, and, from then on, quite a chore. I think Hearst expected you to be on duty, performing, the whole time and no getting drunk – it was forbidden. I imagine too you’d have got pretty tired as you stared up at yet another lumpy wooden Spanish church ceiling and faked your gasps of marvel. It was only as we took the bus down the hill again that we decided that driving away, duty done, would have been the most wonderfully exhilarating moment of the weekend. It also occurred to me that those weekends up at la cuesta encantada must have been the original source for all the stories with the format of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Niggers/Indians/Then There Were None. It certainly gave me a distinct feeling of that wonderful film Murder By Death. We stayed in a delightful small seaside village called Morro Bay, where the barking Ceals was woken by the sound of seals barking. You can see them bobbing about outside the hotel windows, and sunbathing on the rocks right by the car park. It was quite a wildlife fest, actually. We saw a hummingbird sipping from a lavender bush about 2 feet away, we saw lovely turquoise birds with flicky head plumes, turkey vultures and zebras. We also saw pelicans flying – they completely lose those double chins in flight. I must try it. After that, gripping our individual picnics, we returned to San Luis Obispo where we both took my favourite American train, the Coast Starlight. Only this time Miss I was heading south and I was heading north. I dined alone in the Parlour Car, a feature only found on this particular train. There’s a dining car too, but in there you have to sit with other people. I then went down to the train’s little cinema and watched one of the worst films I’ve ever seen: Transcendence. Why, Johnny Depp? Why? Then I sat in my little cabin and watched the shadows fall over the drought-grey hills. The train rattled through [Do you know the way to…] San Jose, and I discovered that the town’s real name is Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe. Burt Bacharach and Hal David would have had some big problems making that rhyme and scan. We passed many more of those wonderful delights: Salinas – ‘the salad bowl of the world’, Logan – ‘the artichoke capital of the world, Gilroy – ‘the garlic capital of the world’, and I hadn’t realised, when I was there, that SLO was in fact the ‘Clam Capital of California.’ I passed a couple of large prisons: Soledad or Salinas Valley State Prison and the California Men’s Colony (which sounds to me more like a Gay Sauna and Spa – but some of the Manson gang are there, so maybe not) In the black of night the train rolled onto the original path of El Camino Real, but I couldn’t see Rupert Frazer, Laurance Rudic and Patrick Hannaway staggering around in 6 inch platform shoes so… At Oakland many people got off, heading for San Francisco; at Emeryville many people got on, having come from San Francisco, this was followed by a flurry of old ladies staggering down the rattling corridors, gripping toothbrushes and wash bags, and husbands shouting that they couldn’t make it up to the top bunk. The train took a turn and suddenly the Bay was there, with San Francisco’s lights sparkling on the water. Two hours later the train rolled up at my final destination, Davis, which I find from the leaflet is the “Most bicycle-friendly town in the World”. I also understand (which I didn’t before) that I’ll be working at not only “the largest campus in the University of California system” but the “greenest college campus in the US” My digs are within easy walking distance of the station, in fact I can see the rails from my bedroom window and all day and night I can hear the whistles and clickety click of the trains rolling by. I plonked everything down in the deserted foyer and glanced at the clock - 1 a.m. I finished signing all the usual paperwork then looked down to pick up my bags and saw a large beige cockroach scuttle across the lobby. Welcome to Davis, Professor Morgan!
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 21:22:42 +0000
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