Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

So today I had to make some tough decisions about what to pack. I have to carry some of our camera gear in my luggage, and I need to leave space for Lisa to give me things to take home with me. My United flight appears to allow two checked bags, so I'm trying to squeeze a soft-sided empty bag into my large suitcase that I'll use to for the homeward-bound overflow. I will also use that bag for the train trips for carrying just what I need in the cabin, so I don't have to futz around with my large luggage.

I saw that the train that will be our eastbound California Zephyr tomorrow afternoon passed by here this morning only around an hour late, so there's a reasonable chance that it might be on time out of Reno tomorrow. That means we need to be ready to leave by about 2 PM to get to the Amtrak station in Reno, get unloaded, and park the car in the garage across the street. I will, however, keep watching the Amtrak status of the train in case of an unusual delay.

While I considered bringing my WSFS uniform, which many of you know was part of the previous Glasgow Worldcon's theme of "Spaceport Glasgow," not only does it not match the current theme, but I'm concerned that there are too many people who would flat-out resent me wearing it. Besides, the hat would be challenging to fit into my bag considering all of the other things like the tripod and a bunch of cables that I'm carrying. It's sort of a pity, though, as I've almost lost enough weight that the uniform fits much better than it has in years.

Because the internet connectivity on board the train is nearly nonexistent, I don't expect to post anything again until after we get into the hotel in Denver on Friday evening.

I have a lot of pictures from the Churchill-to-Winnipeg return train trip, but I haven't had time to caption them, which means they're useless. If you follow me on Mastodon, you will have seen some of them when I had a little bit of bandwidth on the train trip.

We had a lot of people on board from Churchill to Waboden, which is where the people who had come to Thompson to board the train and were stymied by the derailment got stuck. They were airlifted to Churchill, but were returning by train, including a charter bus to take them from Waboden back to Thompson. After they left the train, things got much quieter.

The crew of our train took a liking to our group of six SF/train fans, and near the end of the trip, our sleeping car attendant gave Lisa a big hug. I think they're looking forward to seeing our future episodes of Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories about this trip. We certainly shot a huge pile of material.

Because of the Thompson derailment, we spent more than eight hours standing at The Pas waiting for our schedule to catch up to us. Nevertheless, we lost some time toward Winnipeg. However, as we neared the end of our journey, it looked like it might be just barely possible to get over to the auto shop. I called the mechanic, told him we were nearly in Winnipeg and I would come directly to his shop as fast as I could. He said that he would wait for me, which was a huge relief.

We arrived in Winnipeg at about 5:30 PM, and Lisa and I had gotten our luggage stages so that we were off the train pretty quickly. We got everything to the station rotunda. I left it all with Lisa and ran outside. No taxis waiting, but while I was fumbling with my phone trying to call a taxi company, an available taxi pulled up. I hopped in and we got to TS Auto Service at 5:55. I paid for the repairs and made for Union Station.

I had unwanted excitement pulling out of the shop, as he'd not properly closed the sliding door, and it slid open as I turned onto to the street. Fortunately, it is a relatively quiet street and I could immediately pull over, hop out, and close the door. I then followed the Google Maps directions back to the train station; unfortunately, that ended up leading me around to the back of the station and into parking lots, and it took me a few minutes to get untangled.

Lisa had managed to secure a luggage cart and had made her way out to the curb just a couple of minutes before I got to the loading area in front of the station. She loaded the minivan while I ran inside to use the restroom. The van was ready when I came back out, and I was working out our next stop while she went inside to use the restroom herself. While I was fiddling with my phone, a Via Rail employee came out and retrieved the cart, saving us having to take it back.

We had managed to get so far ahead that Lisa suggested that we go get the stored bags and boxes immediately. She drove and I navigated down to our friend's house. When we got there, I cleared her kitchen and living room of the stuff we'd stored in her house, Lisa repacked the van, and we thanked her for her generosity.

From there, it was off to the downtown Winnipeg Holiday Inn & Suites. They were very nice to us. In lieu of a room upgrade, they gave us free parking and a free breakfast, which I think is a fine trade. They were out of luggage carts, though (customers inconsiderately not returning them), so Lisa and I took only a few things up to the room; it would be at least enough to repack some of the things we'd need for our return road trip.

We made a short walk to the nearest grocery store we could find, where we bought a whole lot of cold beverages. Even if I end up leaving behind half of the 4 litre container of milk I bought, it will be worth it. I was really thirsty!

While Lisa took a bath (something you can't do on the train), I ordered pizza, which arrived as scheduled. Unlike the Delta, which required us to come to the lobby to collect our food, the Holiday Inn allowed the delivery person to bring it to our room. I felt a bit better after eating the pizza and drinking my fill.

I'd love to add photos, but sleep is more important. Originally I was going to work a half-day tomorrow morning, but instead I'm going to get extra sleep before we hit the road to head west across Canada. Maybe I'll someday get those photos arranged and can write about the "missing" days from my timeline.

The Churchill trip was great, and I could even see doing it again, but I'm glad to be back in a large hotel room instead of a small compartment, especially a room that we can cool to suit ourselves. I have an extended checkout on Tuesday morning. Sleep awaits.

As I write this, we're packing up our hotel room in the Delta and fretting over (1) Leaving behind things we probably should have kept and (2) Finding enough space for everything we have kept with us. I'm sure we will manage somehow.

After we finish packing, we'll take a taxi to the station. Even if we felt up to walking with the luggage we still have, it's threatening rain here.

Leaving the hotel means going offline until (at best) we get to Churchill. There's no internet on the train, I do not have data roaming on my phone, and even if I did, much of the trip is going to be through areas that have no connectivity at all. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. We can probably relax in a way we often do not get a chance to do.

Meanwhile, our advance research on what the train is like means that Lisa and I will almost certainly be recording material for at least one episode of Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories, because just about everything we've seen has led us to say, "We can do better than that."

Our lodging in Churchill says that it has internet. If it does, we'll check in again from there.

Even though it's still six months until Worldcon, I'm going through fits trying to work out our train travel plans. If I'd had about 2,000 more Amtrak points a month ago than I currently do, I would have booked the trip already, but I needed to wait for the next cycle on my Amtrak credit card to go through and deposit more points into the Amtrak account. Unfortunately, in the meantime, a bottleneck has appeared, in that the small number of bedrooms on the Amtrak Cardinal (Chicago-Washington) have disappeared.

( Bedroom versus Roomette )

Our planned trip broadly consists of five segments. We intend to take sleeping compartments on the first four and ride in coach for the day trip up the coast.

1. Bay Area-Chicago: California Zephyr (Superliner Bedroom)


2. Chicago-Washington: Cardinal or Capitol Limited (See Below)


3. Washington-New Orleans: Crescent (Viewliner Bedroom)


4. New Orleans-Los Angeles: Sunset Limited (Superliner Bedroom)


5. Los Angeles-Bay Area: Coast Starlight (Superliner Coach)

Segments 1, 3, 4, and 5 do not appear to be a problem right now, and our only question is whether we should lay over for a day at Los Angeles. But Segment 2 (Chicago-Washington) is a challenge.

We initially intended to take the Cardinal, which is longer but more scenic. However, it operates Viewliners and thus only has at most four bedrooms available, and as of now, all the bedrooms are now taken on the one day that would work for us to travel. The other possibility is the Capitol Limited, which leaves later and arrives earlier (it's a much faster route), and operates Superliner equipment and thus has more bedrooms.

However, the reason that the Cardinal has sold out its bedrooms is due to a fan group (TrainCon) putting together a trip on that route, and the rooms are blocked for them. I have put in a request for one of the bedrooms they have blocked. If we can get that, the rest of the trip seems to work itself out.

There's not much constraint on taking the Capitol Limited, which does have the advantage of Superliner Bedrooms and a Sightseer Lounge car, but putting it into the mix makes the "point deficit" more than I prefer. And it would probably be more fun to travel with fans as part of TrainCon, albeit that there's no full lounge car on the Cardinal, only a combined diner-lounge.

You may recall me talking about a glitch in Amtrak's pricing system that radically undervalued Amtrak Guest Rewards (AGR) points. I checked today, and they've fixed this. Assuming it holds until I can get the rest of the points I need into my AGR account, I should be able to buy either two or three of the sleeping car legs of the trip on points. I might end up having to buy AGR points to top up the account to make some of the plans work. I've done that math, and it costs less to buy the top-up than it would to buy the equivalent travel directly.

So far, I have worked out Plans A through D. We won't be able to decide until I learn whether we can get one of the Cardinal bedrooms. Fingers crossed that we can make this all work!

Lisa has been sleeping days and up nights this past week (in part as a reaction to the hot weather), so at the end of her day and the beginning of mine, she took me in to Reno to catch the train to the Bay Area, where I'll be working for the next two weeks.

( Train Travelogue )

Because of the recovery time build into the schedule, the train was only about 30 minutes late into Emeryville. I was able to reclaim my checked bag, make my way over to the Emeryville Public Market (which is under a total renovation and thus only a few food stands were open), grab a meal to go, and get back over to the station with ten minutes to spare before the 5:35 Capitol to Fremont arrived. That was a relief, because the train on which I was actually ticketed was almost two hours later, and I really didn't want to hang around Emeryville that long.

I ate my dinner on the Capitol and in good time (early, actually; the train had to wait on its schedule time before departing) they deposited me in Fremont, at the Centerville station where I used to walk many evenings when I lived a couple of blocks away. In this case, I walked the other direction to my mechanic's shop, where by previous arrangement I collected the Rolling Stone using Lisa's set of keys. The brakes have been completely rebuilt and the rear springs (which were sagging) replaced. He didn't have time to get to the fuel tank switch issue, so I'll have to leave it with him again when we go to Westercon and repeat the process of vehicle swapping with Lisa.

It was a good trip, and I enjoyed it. I'm sort of glad I'll have to do it again in a few weeks. Although I'm tired, it's not the same kind of tired as when I make the drive, and I do enjoy the train trip much more than driving the 300 miles. If it were a bit more convenient to do so, I'd be tempted to leave the RV in the Bay Area all the time and use the train to get back and forth between home and work stints.

Last night, I went to one of the "Open Houses" that Caltrain and the High Speed Rail Authority are holding to show materials on the various possible ways that the Caltrain line may be rebuilt as part of the California High Speed Rail project. Because I'm packing for SiliCon, I don't have time to write as much as I would like on this, but here are a few observations:

( As brief as I'm likely to be )

Some of the suggestions I saw were so crazy that I can't tell whether the people are just clueless or are deliberately trying to make the project so difficult and expensive as to destroy it so that it will Go Away. Folks, it's very likely that the project will cause some individuals a lot of trouble. We must weigh this against the overall good. Letting a relatively handful of NIMBYs hold back the entire state is wrong and I hope the agencies involved are able to resist the naysayers.

Now I admit that I think that strategically, the route selected by the CAHSR is wrong -- I think the Dumbarton-Altamont route made more sense -- but I also say that trying to hold out for the perfect system is a great way to get nothing at all. If the only choices are the suboptimal Pacheco alignment and No System, I'll take Pacheco. I only hope I live to see the day when you can travel by train as easily between the Bay Area and the LA Area as I did between London and Paris.

We got to sleep later than we intended last night, but I still woke up just before 6 AM and decided to go ahead and hit the shower early while there was nobody waiting. We made the early breakfast seating and everything was pretty routine. We watched the world go by along the Water Level Route, but there is not much I can say about it. It's a nice enough view, but we were both sleepy and kept dozing off along the way.

Timekeeping had been excellent throughout this leg of our journey, including an early arrival at Rochester that gave us time to take a stretch walk down the length of the train outside on the platform, and to see where they break the train at Albany into Boston and New York sections. Syracuse did cause Lisa a fright, however, when she heard the announcement of "Syracuse" in the Lounge car and thought it was "Schenectady" and she came dashing back to the car all a-lather. I reassured her that we still had a ways to go. And we ended up having even longer than I expected.

( Beyond Syracuse, things started to go wrong )

I got the queued-up LJ entries posted, but we have a bunch of photos and video -- including our dastardly Terrorist Threat Video -- still awaiting processing. It's late and we're tired. It does help that the hotel upgraded us to the concierge floor -- the Platinum status working -- so we can take advantage of the complimentary continental breakfast in the morning.

I've read most of the backed-up e-mail, but LJ and blogs are bankrupt.

I left Lisa to sleep in for a while this morning while I caught up on my e-mail. We made a light breakfast in the hotel room and repacked for tonight's trip on the train, then checked out of the room and stored our six pieces of luggage (eek!) with the hotel.

( Into the Rain – for Science! )

( Kuma Bear Gets a Fright )

( No Food at the Court )

I enjoyed my second trip here, and could easily see coming back again.

17:25: After our train arrived at the station, we decided to walk to the convention center, it being only a few blocks away. When we got there, we couldn't find Worldcon registration. There were signs for a cattlemen's convention, but nothing about Worldcon. Oh, that's right: that was last year.

( Time on Our Hands )

19:30: We got back to our car with plenty of time to spare before they told us to be here. I fired up my computer and fished for internet access. There were four sources, one of which was open, but that one required a password once you connected. I didn't think it was wise to try running over to the nearest Starbucks with only fifteen minutes to spare. Besides, it was running with my laptop computer that may have damaged the other one to the point where it eats hard drives. So yes, I'll have to go more than 56 hours without internet access. Boo, hoo.

I found the lower bunk much more comfortable than the smaller roomette bunk coming down from Oregon. Also, we got four big pillows rather than two thin ones, which helped a great deal. Shortly after we left Elko, I set up my CPAP machine – Lisa having run an extension cord so I could do so more easily – and let the train rock me to sleep.

( Lisa was not so lucky )