here’s an old picture of an old car. an old car that looks better than a new car.
twenty nineteen was back when i was still going out to shows pretty regularly.
things were in a groove, everything normal.
granddaughter was born.
then covid shut things down for the tiniest bit of time.
anyway, this lovely was from a fundraiser out at the broiler in downey. it’s been sitting in the queue for a while, and i’m just sitting here pondering what to say.
like the overcast, my mood clouds my thoughts. i don’t write as much as i used to, my thoughts kept close in. i don’t have the long daily drive to whittier anymore to make note of fellow idiots on the freeway, or to laugh of my day’s doings.
but, my better half is downstairs, already fallen asleep on the couch, and i won’t wake him. he has a fan blowing across the coffee table, so he didn’t hear me creep back in from a short walk. he’s kept the air conditioner off all day, and it’s taking a while to catch up with the stagnant air.
i was at my mom’s all day, which is pretty similar—she get’s chilled if i turn on the air conditioner—so i slowly melt while i work. thought about dragging the fan downstairs from the room i slept in last night, but got too focused on what i was doing, i forgot about the heat.
we’ve been travelling a lot recently, and have some stories we could tell.
took a three week vacation. on a train to chicago again, and drove back, mostly route sixty-six or thereabouts.
the start of the journey was probably setting the tone for the rest of it.
boarded the sleeper car in los angeles. on time, settled into two roomettes for a long day’s journey to emeryville. my brother’s first trip in a sleeper car. he and my better half get one, and i get one for myself. beats the heck out of coach.
it was iffy for several weeks if my better half was even going to be able to go, much less climb to the upper bunk. he’d slipped and hurt his back. luckily just a terrible internal bruise that only hurt if he breathed or moved. but it actually improved by walking miles every day, reducing the inflammation. that’s another story, if he cares to tell it.
then the conductor announced a delay.
and then announced that there had been people on the tracks in the next city on the route.
and then announced someone got squashed by a train.
and then occasional announcements that the police were doing an investigation, and there was no eta on when we would actually leave the station.
four hours later, the tracks were cleared to go. the rest of that ride was uneventful, save for a worry about who would be cooking dinner, as the crew was about to time-out. i think they found a fresh crew at one of the stops, so we didn’t have to starve or have anything brought onboard.
we arrived in emeryville, just south of san francisco, about two-thirty in the morning. an overnight stay in the hotel across the tracks.
there were only a few of us that got off the train. we three, the only ones that got into a piss-smelling elevator up to the bridge over the tracks. crossed the bridge, pressed the down button for the elevator on the other side.
the doors open to the temporary sleeping compartment of a very large, very smelly homeless man and his worldly possessions. we’d interrupted his slumber, and he sat up groggily.
unsure, i asked if he minded if we could scooch in with our luggage for a minute.
it was an uncomfortable minute to the ground floor. at least this elevator was otherwise clean and unpissed. we left him to his bedroll, and stumbled across the parking lot to the hotel.
we’d warned them we’d be arriving late. the lobby staff were doing their accounting, and fortunately, the friendly voice on the other end of the phone earlier had prepped our card keys for our arrival.
we all flopped onto the two queen beds and slept for the few hours left before the next train.
next morning, was a blur of quick showers, then back to the bridge. our friend from the night before had vacated the space, so the crossing was uneventful. another couple were ahead of us. i wonder if they had been on our train yesterday and got to meet the troll, or if they came from elsewhere earlier in the day.
train arrived on time. scheduled for three days, two nights over the rockies to chicago on the zephyr. first day went as expected. beautiful views of mountains and trees.
next day, same landscape, but things went sideways about half way through colorado.
parts of the story i won’t share, as it had to do with my brother. that’s his story, and not for public consumption.
as far as the train trip, the conductor began announcing inclement weather ahead, and throughout the evening and the night, the train had to slow down, or even stop for periods of time. heavy rain and tornadoes ahead of us, ending up with us arriving in chicago twelve hours later than scheduled, at six-ten in the morning of another day.
all i will say, is that the weather was perfect in the city, and the mile or so walk to our hotel was welcome after all that time stuck on a train.
but we did not get go to wrigley field, or enjoy much of the city, as we made a hasty retreat home the next day, two days ahead of schedule, which was good and bad.
bad, because i’d never been to wrigley, and haven’t really been to a baseball game in a few years.
good, because as it turns out, some wicked weather was on our tails half way across the country. had we gone north, as initially advised, we would have been in the thick of heavy rain, hail and tornadoes.
abbreviated version of the drive: we’d drive several hundred miles each day, book a hotel online, eat, sleep, shower, repeat. for eight days, i think. they blur. didn’t really want to push too late into the evenings. some days we only went a couple hundred miles. short stops here and there for a couple of pictures, but mostly running ahead of some nasty weather.
we would wake up the next day to hear the weatherman on the television say that a tornado head destroyed some town we had driven through the day before. the rain only caught up to us for a bit around st. louis, on the most tangled intersection of several freeways, but better half still managed to stay in the correct lane for the direction we were going.
still got home four days early. we were my brother’s keeper for a couple more days after we got him home as well.
better half and i, took another week, for another journey, that i guess i may write about another day. a vacation from a vacation.
getting late here, and i’ve a buttload of work to do tomorrow and the rest of the week, as my employer was quite glad i came back, so saved it up for me. :)
and i’m spent. g’night.
