Amtrak, a Favorite Mode of Locomotion

Dining on the Amtrak Starlight

   Dad’s sister, Alma, and Mom’s sister, Ella, were good friends all their lives. After each had been widowed, they made train trips together out west to visit us in Washington. As the train screeched to a stop and conductors helped passengers alight from the coaches, we eagerly watched for our beloved aunts.

    Now Hank and I are the ones traveling by rail. One daughter lives in San Diego, another in Tucson, so we travel up and down the Pacific coast on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight. 
We used to drive our own car. That had its advantages, but as traffic became heavier and heavier in the Puget Sound corridor, that part of the drive became less and less appealing.

    Once aboard the train, you don’t have to be concerned about traffic jams or what other drivers may do...you can sit back and enjoy scenery you completely miss from the freeway. And you don’t have to keep your eyes on the road! If scenery is not your thing, you can read, play electronic games, work, e-mail, even surf the Internet if the train’s WIFI is working. You can meet people from all over the world, traveling for many different reasons. You’ll be pampered by friendly, hard-working staff who will do all they can to insure that your trip is pleasant.

    Since it’s a two-days-and-a-night trip to southern California, we always go by sleeper car. That way we have our own private compartment, although we are welcome to ride in the comfortable lounge car as well. At night, the conductor makes up the beds and we travel while we snooze. Meals are included with the cost of our sleeper tickets; a choice of menu items served in a nicely appointed dining car. It’s community seating, so you’re sure to meet new people at each meal.

    At most stops, people get on and off. Many of them are traveling short distances so they pay the cheaper coach fares. The main disadvantage for those of us taking a longer trip is the lack of exercise. Although we do walk to the lounge and dining cars and move about just to stretch, we always welcome the longer stops where we can get off and walk up and down the platform until the conductors call “All aboard!”

    One of the mixed blessings of train travel are the frequent loudspeaker announcements: announcements of upcoming stops, repeat listings of procedures after each new group boards the train, announcements of menus and times for upcoming meals, announcements about special events such as wine tasting parties or movies, announcements of regulations concerning drinking and smoking...disembodied voices making sure that everyone knows everything. The up side is that confusion is avoided and unpleasant situations are forestalled.

    This spring’s trip was our third on the Coast Starlight, but it was the first time we’d seen out-of-control behavior dealt with. When we stopped in one town, we noticed two fire engines and an ambulance waiting at the platform. Emergency technicians pushed a gurney past our window. An employee from the depot retrieved someone’s luggage from the train, then a couple of policemen arrived. Soon they returned with a handcuffed woman between them. The EMTs followed with the empty gurney and we proceeded down the track. One of our dinner companions later told us the woman had been drunk and causing a disturbance. The next day a person was taken off the train for refusing to move away from the open door while smoking on the platform and then being abusive to the conductor.

   But mostly our train travel has been comfortable, relaxed, and enjoyable. And the views have to be some of the best in the whole United States.

    Aunts Alma and Ella would be surprised to see how pleasant today’s train travel can be. They’d be pleased to know that despite the changing culture, there is zero tolerance for misbehavior on the train.
    

Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Nearing Oregon: I-5 and the Columbia River

 

An exercise break while passengers load

Crossing California's coast range to the Pacific

Playing in the Pacific Ocean

California vineyard

California Coastline

Tulip Festival Garage Sale

  What can you do when it’s Tulip Festival time in Mt. Vernon, but it’s too wet to get up close and personal with the tulips or daffodils?

    Well, you can visit the indoor displays at Tulip Town or RoozenGarde. You can go to one of the numerous art shows or the downtown street fair. You can feast at the Kiwanis Salmon Barbecue, daily at Hillside Park. Or if it’s the right weekend, you can attend the World’s Largest Garage Sale at the Mt. Vernon Fairgrounds. The fairground buildings are filled with vendors selling everything from antiques to zoology textbooks.

    Son Rob started a sideline business this spring, with the help of his teenage daughter Annie and her brother Kevin. Have you ever wondered what happens to the contents of those ubiquitous storage units when renters default on their rent? What they’ve stored is forfeited to auction. Rob and other bidders are allowed to look through the door at what they can see. Then the entire contents of a unit goes to the highest bidder.

    Next comes the treasure hunt. It’s amazing what people store, and what they will buy! Rob and Kevin haul the truckloads of items home, where they sort them. Annie photographs saleable items and advertises them on Craigslist. Once a week they have a home garage sale for those responding to Craigslist ads. And during the yearly Tulip Festival they rent a space at the World’s Biggest Garage Sale for the rest.

    Here are some links to help you enjoy the Tulip Festival (and the Garage Sale):

    www.kiwanismv.net/salmon_barbeque.html

   www.tulipfestival.org/

  www.tulipfestival.org/calendar/event/532/
   

   

Waiting for customers

Customers

Donuts and coffee

Love the get-me-out-of-here expression

Bargains galore

Rob and Kevin

Annie and Lydia ready to go to work

Another vendor's offerings

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Happy Birthday, Popcorn and Peanut!

We'd been married almost three years when we spent a weekend with our Central Oregon niece and her husband. On their front porch Mama Cat had a family of seven lively kittens, some white, some with orange stripes, and a couple with black faces and stockings. All of them needed homes.

I've never been able to resist kittens, and I probably played with them too much, because while we were inside eating dinner, their mother carried them one by one off to a hiding place. However, she overlooked a little gray female with a black velvet face. That evening, the tiny cat followed me around the house and cuddled against my neck.

Next morning, I happened to look out the window in time to see Mama Cat slipping up the hillside behind the house. She disappeared beneath a brushpile. Ah ha! When she left to go hunting again, Tami reached underneath the brush and drew out five kittens. She returned them to the front porch nest. But where was kitten number six?

I worried about the missing baby all day. At dusk, we saw a fuzzy white mite balanced on a branch atop the brush pile, wailing at the top of his lungs. I'd already lost my heart to his playful gray sister. Both Hank and I fell in love with the independent little male as well. 


We went home, the two kittens riding in my lap. We hadn't gone far before we christened the bouncy white kitten with the orange ears and nose Popcorn. He soon outgrew his sister, making her name Peanut even more appropriate.

That was ten years ago this May. They were five weeks old when we brought them home, so we celebrate their birthday the second week in April. It's been ten years of entertainment and companionship. Thank you, Popcorn and Peanut! 

Peanut and Popcorn in their new home

Entomologists

Redecorating the house

Mischief in the bathroom (Popcorn behind door)

Evening ritual...listening to Hank read aloud

Reclaimed!

Here’s a little sign seen frequently along freeways, parks, and other public places in Tucson, Arizona.


While vacationing in Tucson last spring, we discovered the Sweetwater Wetlands, a hidden place whose amazing life and beauty depend upon water reclaimed from Tucson’s sewers. The wetlands became our favorite observation spot for wildlife. (See post,
http://rainsongpress.blogspot.com/2012/02/reusing-wastewater-at-sweetwater.html)
 

Sweetwater Wetlands

  This year, we found another place that depends upon this recycled water. It’s called Christopher Columbus Park, the centerpiece of which is a  man-made lake with an island and sandy beaches. It is stocked with fish for the local fishermen. The lake is home to several species of ducks and geese, cormorants that perch on the island to dry their wings, and many species of song birds.

Christopher Columbus Park

Some of the reclaimed water is pumped from the Sweetwater treatment facility into deep basins from which it filters down to recharge the water table.  Eventually, it is drawn up through wells and used to irrigate roadside landscaping and other public places. The purple signs show us where this water is used.

Reclamation Pond with Resting Ducks

Earlier generations told their children, “Waste not, want not.” Today we are again learning the value of reclaiming materials we used to discard. Our house’s sturdy deck planking is made from recycled milk cartons. In places, we drive on road surfaces containing ground-up tires. Garbage companies compost food and garden waste to make new soil.

But the most amazing reclamation project of all history got underway when Jesus came to seek and to save those lost in the garbage of sin. He paid a huge price...his own life...for all that refuse. When he burst out of the tomb on Easter morning, he held in his nail-scarred hands the gift of new life for all who believe in him. He’s still offering this gift to all us wrong-turn people who waste and ruin our lives.

  
He promises to reclaim us and our experiences, good and bad, and help us become who he intended us to be. That’s the Good News of Easter!


Reclaim: Verb
    Retrieve or recover (something previously lost, given, or paid); obtain the return of
    Redeem (someone) from a state of vice; reform.

Sun Power

 

The entrance to the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm

Behind the white, box-like structures what appears to be blue paving is actually a small portion of the thousands of side-by-side solar panels.

Erecting one of the poles which will carry electricity from the solar farm

   Like all good things, our late-winter interlude in the Southwest had to end. After three weeks of sunshine, interrupted only by starlit nights, we headed toward Los Angeles to return our rented car and board the train for our return to the Northwest’s cool cloudiness. As we drove Highway 10 across Arizona, we delighted in the yellow blooms of brittlebush, drifts of Mexican poppies, and wild blue lupines. But we knew the gorgeous wildflowers would soon dry up in the 90 degree temperatures. If only all that sunlight in the desert’s baking heat could be put to use!
  
   We crossed into California. and the desert continued up into mountains, highest peaks still snow-crowned. By now, Hank was hungry, so we watched for a restaurant. The map showed a community called Desert Center.  But when we arrived, it contained nothing except a deserted gas station, an empty school, crumbling homes, and the tall, black stems of dead palm trees. We couldn’t imagine a more desolate place.
  
   For many miles we’d been seeing what looked like dark blue water at the foot of distant hills. As we reached the abandoned community, we saw a road leading off in the direction of the “water” and a green oasis. Maybe that’s where they’d moved the restaurants. So we swung onto the road and headed toward the hills. Deep sand lined both sides of the cracked paving, and signs warned of blowing dust. Across the valley we could see tailings from the Kaiser Steel Eagle Mountain mine, one of the world’s largest open-pit iron mining operations where former inhabitants of Desert Center worked until it closed in the 1980s.
  
   The oasis turned out to be an over-55 community with a golf course and lush vegetation but no tourist facilities that we could see.
  
   We noticed workers erecting tall metal power poles, section by section, on one side of the road.  On the other, the “dark blue lake” was actually a vast number of solar panels covering many acres. Outside the fenced complex, a sign read Desert Sunlight Solar Farm. Our Mission: To Create Enduring Value by Enabling a World Powered by Clean, Affordable Solar Electricity.
  
   So there was a plan to put some of that sunlight to use!
  
   We found out that a group called First Solar is constructing the 550-megawatt solar farm. The Federal Bureau of Land Management manages the property, which is about six miles north of the abandoned Desert Center community. When finished, the farm is expected to provide enough energy to power about 160,000 homes. The group estimates the project will displace 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year. That equals taking approximately 60,000 cars off the road.
  
   Construction began in September of 2011 and is expected to be finished by 2015. Desert Sunlight Solar Farm will help California toward its goal of providing one third of its energy from renewable sources.
 
   We finally found our restaurant, some miles down the freeway, but we were glad for our serendipitous side trip.
 
   For more information about the solar project, go to www.firstsolar.com/en/Projects/Desert-Sunlight-Solar-Farm.

   

Desert Springtime

Greening desert above Tucson in the valley

Fairy dusters blooming in the desert

It’s almost mid-March. We’re inside our vacation rental here in Tucson on a lovely spring afternoon, looking out through “blackout shades”, a tinted mesh that filters out the blinding brightness of the sun and much of the heat. The desert wildflowers are popping up almost fast enough to see them grow and leafless trees are greening fast. Inside, it’s a pleasant 70 degrees. It’s supposed to be 84 outside, but the direct rays feel hot enough to cook exposed flesh. We’re here to soak up the sunshine, but this afternoon there’ll be no soaking...it’s sizzle and shrivel for anyone who doesn’t seek the shade.

A week ago, we sat by this same window watching black rain clouds chase each other across the hills. They swept the desert with downpours and dumped snow on the mountaintops. We bundled up in coats over sweaters to go out between showers, walking fast to stay warm.

Such contrasts in the desert! Delicate wildflowers bloom and go to seed in a period of days, covering the sand and gravel with a haze of green. Tall saquaros grow plump with spring rains, turning themselves into reservoirs of moisture that will nourish each cactus through a long, burning summer. Shrubs and trees put out a mist of tiny leaves that camouflage protective spines. It’s beautiful. For a while, the desert seems a friendly place.

But it’s a hard place to live for people and animals. People, too, must learn to adapt. Today, we’re adapting by staying inside until late afternoon brings cooler temperatures.

Night sky over Flagstaff, Arizona

courtesy of www.scenicreflections.com

From my blogpost, Night Skies, at http://rainsongpress.blogspot.com/2011/08/night-sky.html:

"Growing up years ago in a Cascade Mountain rain forest, hemmed in by tall trees and cloud cover, we didn’t often see the stars.  But on an occasional clear night, we’d go outside, tip our heads back and gaze up in awe at the Milky Way’s glowing path of stardust winding through a billion distant suns. Only the dim gas lamp shining through the living room window competed with the brilliance above. We seldom saw a plane pass over in daytime and never at night. Man had not yet been to the moon or fired a rocket into space."

 I was pleased this week to receive a message from Lauren Nilson, who’d read this blogpost and wished to share a video she’d helped create. It was filmed on the night streets of Seattle, and is all about the hidden costs of light pollution. The short video is an eye-opener, worth watching several times. Here’s the link: http://www.insurancequotes.org/hidden-cost-light-pollution:

This is the video transcript, from the insurancequotes.org website. Brief, but thought-provoking.

“It's more than one billion cars burning 2 billion headlights It's argon gas and less than an inch of tungsten metal swinging naked from the ceiling. It’s beautiful at a distance and blinding the rest of the time. It's sealed glass tubes, mercury, phosphor powder, free electrons and ions bumping and vibrating and dully humming. It's 1898 to 1959 the discovery of neon to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. It's the las vegas strip. It's the sunset strip. It's strip clubs and stadiums . It's streetlights and streetcars. It's malls. It's your work. It's outside your bedroom window keeping you from sleeping. It's insomnia. It's the slow extinction of animals and insects dependent on darkness for migration and mating. It's the device you obsessively check as you walk down the street raising your dopamine levels while reducing your melatonin. It's a carcinogen. It's one of the reasons women in developed nations are five times more likely to have breast cancer. It's looking down instead of up. It's 2 thirds of the global population, 5 billion people, unable to truly see the night sky. It's the indifferent blinking out of 200 billion stars.”


What can you and I do to minimize light pollution? We can choose low wattage bulbs whenever possible. We can choose outdoor fixtures that direct light downward. We can turn our lights off when not using them. If we want to learn more, we can get involved with the International Dark-Sky Association.

Thanks, Lauren!