California Here I come!

Dear Lucy,

After returning to the hostel and checking out, I was surprised to run into Steve and Phillip again. We were all glad that we had the chance to say good bye and I even more as I had the chance to take their picture.

They talked with me as I secured my panniers onto my bike, and wished me well as I headed out. They were impressed that I was "biking it".

The trip to the train station, downhill, with the wind behind me and all the traffic lights in my favor, took 5 minutes. What a difference.

I took my bike into the baggage area as I knew that on this leg of the trip I would have to put it in a box (15.00 for a box) and check it on as luggage. Thankfully, I showed up early.

As it turned out, I had to remove the pedals and re-arrange the handle bars so that they were perpendicular to the bicycle to fit it into the box. I had assumed that the boxes they sold would have been big enough to just slip the bike in normally. Silly me.

So, after explaining that I didn't have anything even resembling tools, they lent me theirs and watched me as I deftly and with amazing speed and precision--NOT--cussed, used God's name in vain, swore revenge on all who ever assembled a bicycle, and sweated to get the pedals off and the handle bars turned. The baggage people were quite entertained.

We boxed the bike, tagged my backpack and I was soon off on the train for the 36 hour trip to Los Angeles.

My seat-mate on the train was a young lady who immediately, while blowing her nose, swore that she had a cold and not the Swine Flu. I told her that I wasn't anti-social that I had a massive hang-over. We were perfect for each other.

The train took a route that started inland until after San Jose and then wound from inland to the coast. It was beautiful.

Once we hit Santa Barbara, it was many miles of coastal views including surfers and sail boats and leather skinned beach-bums riding old Schwinn bicycles.

I enjoyed the trip, met some characters, and was thankful when my brother Ken and his son Corey met me at the station to take me home.

I was tired of moving...

--Kathy