Home via San Francisco & more Train Rides

We arrived home on Monday, glad not to be mixed up in the hurricane where we were on the east coast of America just two weeks ago!

Walking the Golden Gate Bridge

Following from my last post: The late running AMTRAK California Zephyr got us to San Francisco at about 10pm, and a short taxi ride got us to our accommodation where the host had left a key for us to settle ourselves in. Another very pleasant and roomy apartment, where we quite enjoyed spending the next five nights. As has become our custom on this trip, we started our exploration of San Francisco by taking a 'hop on/off' bus tour to get a feel of the city, and later walked along the waterfront & took a cable car ride. On our second day we repeated the hop on/off bus tour, but alighted at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge and walked the 3 km back across. Like a lot of the infrastructure in the US, it's not in brilliant condition with rust & paint peeling evident.

A Blimp over the Golden Gate Bridge

In Yosemite Valley

We had arranged for the next day to take a train & bus trip to Yosemite National Park. Unfortunately, it rained on & off all day, but the trip was still quite enjoyable and worthwhile. Despite cloud, we were able to see the significant mountain scenery of the valley, and take a walk through the forest. The trip involved a taxi then a bus ride across the bay to Emeryville, a 2 hour train trip to Modesto, then a 2 hour coach ride into the valley. After 3 hours to explore the valley (saw several antlered deer & a coyote close up), we went through the reverse transport sequence back to our apartment about 11pm. A long day, but worthwhile.

Wildlife - A Deer in Yosemite Valley

'World's Crookedest' -  Lombard St with a
Cable Car on Hyde St crossing at the crest

On our final day in San Francisco we did a ferry trip to Alcatraz Island: interesting, but the place is rather shabby & poorly maintained – especially when you hear it gets a million visitors a year, and they charge $26 each (seniors rate) to visit! After lunch at the attractive Fisherman's Wharf area, we walked along the waterfront looking for another cable car ride. We found the cable car terminus with along queue for rides, so opted to walk up along the cable route and take some pictures. And I mean UP more than along. Hyde street is VERY steep. I'd seen photos of the cable car with Alcatraz in the background, (and wanted to get a similar photo), but was still amazed at the grade! Near the crest Hyde St crosses Lombard St, which has a section claimed to be the 'crookedest street in the world'. Not sure if that is true, but it did create a chaotic intersection- with cars turning to drive down the 'crookedest street', cable cars stopping in the middle of the intersection, locals trying to drive past, and tourists (like me) trying to photograph and video the whole scene from various angles!

Cable Car ascending Hyde St, San Francisco

California Street Cable Car, San Francisco

The next day was an early start as we got the bus across to Oakland to catch our final Amtrak ride – the Coastal Starlight, an all day trip to Los Angeles. Another excellent experience. If we are asked to name the highlights of our 9 weeks away, 'Amtrak' will be included. 

The Coast Starlight south of San Jose

'Coach Class' on AMTRAK's California Starlight - roomy!

As we were not on this train overnight, we traveled in the Coach Section but still had access to the Observation and Dining Cars (and more great meals!). Once again, great views of the countryside, (and seaside as we got further south), and comfortable and spacious seating in the upstairs of double deck carriages. (The lower deck has disabled access & seating, baggage room, 3 washrooms & toilets and staff areas.) 

Oil wells beside the railway north of Santa Barbara

The timetabling of this journey seemed pretty generous, as despite running 30 min late at Santa Barbara, we arrived at Los Angeles 30 minutes early. This resulted in us waiting on the front porch of our B&B in Hollywood, as our hosts were no at home on our (early) arrival. No problems however, as we had already stayed here at the start of our travels 9 weeks ago.

Los Angeles (distant, left) & Century City from the Getty Center

Los Angeles was a lot warmer than we experienced in San Francisco (or Chicago, New York etc), and we spent our final 3 days visiting the Getty Centre and Museum, revisiting Santa Monica, and a couple of hours at the La Brea Tap Pits – an palaeontological excavation in the Los Angeles suburbs, where the remains of many now extinct animals have been found, apparently trapped in oil seeps over the last ~40,000 years. 

Finally through the (rather dumpy) LAX Airport and onto Qantas QF12, a rather nice, new, quiet & reasonably comfortable A380 Airbus back to Sydney! After a Cityrail train ride (I won't make any comparisons to Amtrak here) home from Sydney Airport, there were some pretty impressive grandchildren-produced 'welcome home' banners on the garage door!

It's great to be home again and we're feeling very fortunate to have been able to make such an amazing trip! Now there's unpacking and 4500 photos to deal with, and lots of spring gardening to keep us busy!

...and end of the trail for us!

Three Different Cities and Long Train Rides

As our trip progresses, I'm finding it harder to find time to write this blog. Since my last post we have spent time in three large but very different cities – Washington, which is full of American national pride, history and museums; New York which is just chaos & grime; and Chicago, which a clean & tidy architectural showpiece.

The Capitol from Pennsylvania Av, Washington

Coincidentally, the accommodation we had in each city characterized the cities themselves. We had a very comfortable and stylish B&B in Washington – more like an apartment, as the owner was away – from which we were able to walk or take the Metro to sights and museums. Despite rain on a couple of the days there, we were able to take a bus orientation tour, visit the Capitol and the very impressive Library of Congress and several of the many Smithsonian museums. Washington, unlike New York and Chicago, has no skyscrapers, as, we were informed, no building may be taller than the Freedom statue atop the Capitol.

The Magnificent Library of Congress, Jefferson Building, Washington

From Washington we trained it to New York, a 4 hour trip getting brief glimpses of Wilmington, Baltimore and Philadelphia on the way.

Jon at the UN General Assembly, New York

Our accommodation in New York was a shared apartment booked through AirBnB. We shared it with other visitors, the owner living elsewhere. While it was basically sound and well located (29^th St near Penn Station & not too far from Times Square), the cleanliness, and maintenance could have been better. Exactly like New York city! 

Cable Tramway beside the Queensboro (59th St) Bridge, New York

Lower Manhattan from the ferry

We spent our three day revisit to New York taking a ferry ride to Staten Island; visiting the UN headquarters; we stumbled across the cable car to Roosevelt Island next to the Queensboro (59^th St) Bridge which was quite a gem; browsed at Bloomingdales and FAO Schwarz toyshop; Jon went to the Intrepid Air & Space museum while Penny found a quilt & patchwork shop close to our apartment; and we took several rides on the Metro buses culminating in a trip up to & walk across Central Park on our final day there. It was lucky we allowed ourselves plenty of time that day, as there was a half marathon with 1000's of runners in Central Park, and a street parade of Spanish American culture, both of which added to crowds and diverted bus routes! 

Penny showing our 29th St Apartment - ground floor window!

Viewliner car on 'Lakeshore Limited' train to Chicago

We got back to our apartment, collected our luggage and trundled it up to Penn Station to claim our berth on the 'Viewliner' single deck sleeper on the Lakeshore Limited overnight train past a succession of huge bridges over the Hudson River, though Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Cleveland to Chicago.

On arrival in Chicago we took a short taxi ride to the hotel that I had booked on hotels.com – The Buckingham Athletic Club: it was medium priced and fairly centrally located, so we really didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be a gem! Four star quality, on the 40^th floor in a very modern building overlooking the very neat, architecturally marvellous downtown Chicago. Our stay in Chicago was planned mainly for us to link up with the train across to San Francisco, and we had not really done any preparation on what to expect or what to see or do there, so we wandered around a bit at first, and stumbled on a booth selling tickets to the local hop-on-off bus tour, of which we partook. 

From our hotel room, Chicago, north toward Lake Michigan

The Willis Tower (R) - 110 Storeys, tallest in N America

There are SO many magnificent buildings in Chicago. We did the obligatory tourist thing and went to the 103^rd floor of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower, highest building in North America – they've got to have a superlative!), and walked along beside the Chicago River, the flow of which was reversed years ago (by building a canal to the Mississippi R system) to reduce the pollution of Lake Michigan. The one anomaly in the neatness and cleanliness of Chicago is the 'Loop' – an overhead railway system that runs in a rectangular circuit directly above some of the city streets. Built in the 1890s, supported by rusting riveted steel columns and beams, served by narrow stairways and wooden platforms, the system runs what seems to be a fairly efficient service using trains of short stainless steel cars. It just looks so out of place in an otherwise modern and tidy city!

More Chicago buildings and sculpture

Looking down on Chicago - the Loop train running above the city streets

So after only two nights in Chicago, it was back to Union Station for the 2pm California Zephyr train to San Francisco. Unfortunately, due to a faulty dining car, the 2pm departure stretched out to 5.50pm. The train is made up of some double deck coach cars, very comfortable double deck 'Superliner' sleeping cars (though not as spacious as the 'Viewliner' cars from New York), and dining and observation cars (also both double deck). So we eventually settled into our tiny top deck roomette for the 2 night 2 day trip. The meals have been excellent, and it has also been interesting conversing with other passengers and hearing the variety of accents and idiom.

I am writing this post off line on the train near the Nebraska/Colorado border – the train is now 5 hours late, and running at a slow speed due to high winds. So we might get an even longer ride than 50 hours planned! We crossed the Mississippi River late last night – missed seeing it in daylight due to late running, but we saw in anyway – and have passed some interesting and pretty farming country this morning. Out the window are huge cattle feed lots, silos, and a background of dust, blown up by the strong (and cold when I hopped out last stop) wind.

As the day has moved on, we have now crossed the continental divide west of Denver. Great views, and now 7 hours behind the timetable.

When you read this it will be an indication that we finally made it to San Francisco, as we do not have internet access on the train.

Count of US States visited: 27 

... and we made it to SF! 54 hours on the train, arrived 5 hours late. But all OK.

Driving through the USA

We're now in Washington, where it's raining and quite cool. We returned the car to Avis at Dulles airport yesterday, and now suddenly feel a bit immobile, having to either walk everywhere, or work out how to use the Metro to get there. Despite the tension of driving from the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road (which I'd nearly got used to after 2 weeks) there was a freedom in living out of the car around the rural areas and smaller towns. We covered 1500 odd miles through 10 north eastern states. In our fortnight of driving from Boston to Washington we been quite amazed at the magnitude of the US roads system, but at the same time surprised at how poorly some of the infrastructure is maintained, compared to Australia.

Autumn Foliage - New Hampshire

Shaker Village Craft Workshop

My last post took our travels to Mt Washington in New Hampshire, which was the northernmost extent of our meanderings. After a dinner at the rather classy Mt Washington hotel and two nights in a somewhat more economic motel nearby, we drove back down through the very colourfully autumn leaved New Hampshire and Vermont forests, stopping at preserved or scenic railways, craft shops, revolutionary war battle sites etc. Of particular interest was our stop last Sunday at the Hancock Shaker Museum & Village, which had a Village Fair this weekend. The Shakers were a religious order, now extinct, who were very much into disciplined lifestyle, self sufficiency in farming, and quality in their construction. The village fair displayed lots of related and local crafts, and it was interesting to get into conversation with several of the locals. It has also been interesting to find how many people we speak to (away from the main cities in particular) do not recognise our accents, often thinking we are British!

Onward down through the western end of Massachusetts, across New York (state); across the Hudson and Delaware Rivers and the corner of New Jersey into Pennsylvania. There was a moment of PANIC when our GPS navigator thought it was time to reboot and would not start, but fortunately it came good quickly. (Bringing the GPS was one of our better decisions of this trip!). We found a pleasant a motel in the village of New Holland which is pretty much right in the centre of the Amish & Mennonite area of Lancaster County, where we stayed for two nights. It rained pretty solidly most of our time there, but luckily there is the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and many antique craft and (particularly) quilting shops. Also lots of quaint looking Amish horse & buggies (which, very sensibly, if anachronistically, have electric tail lights and turn indicators!)

Amish Country -  Intercourse,  Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Moving on, a quick visit to the Hershey chocolate factory, then to Gettysburg, where we immersed ourselves for two days in American Civil War history. A huge museum with an amazing cyclorama painted originally in the 1880s, and comprehensively mapped and marked battlefields all around the town. I have never seen SO many memorials distributed over an area of countryside as are around Gettysburg! Many more than I recall on the WW1 battlefields in France; Every regiment/brigade/ unit of the Union Army is commemorated.

Gettysburg - Battlefield Monuments

Some advice for Mr Lincoln

Continuing south into the tops of Virginia & West Virginia we stopped at picturesque Harpers Ferry, site of more Civil War actions, and through a section of Shenandoah National Park before driving into Washington.

Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer - Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington

We've had our share of wet days this last week, but fortunately in almost every town of consequence we have had some of the time – arriving or leaving – with good weather. Today, on our first day in Washington we opted for an indoor activity, and spent the day in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. We've 3 more days here, so hope for a fine one to look around the large outdoor attractions the city has to offer, before we move on back to New York on Thursday.