when the whistle blows.

Day 1 Thursday. Train Station. Oregon. 4:15 pm.

The train's late.
What does that mean, late? Like ten minutes? An hour?
We don't know. We'll update you as soon as we hear anything.
Ok. - she turns to her husband - I guess we get to go across the street and get a drink.

Freakin good thing I left work early.

This would become a pattern for our entire trip down to california.
The train's late. What does that mean? We don't know. I guess, ok?!?

Skip ahead to: Day 2 Friday. Train Station. California. 8:45 pm.

We're 7 hours late. SEVEN. We were "en-route" for 25 hours. Wait. Let me say it again. TWENTY-FIVE HOURS.
And the trip was nothing but one rude amtrak employee after another. No one provided information. Or help. Or anything frankly.

We missed the one opportunity we had to hang out with all the adults in our family without the kids around. They sat in a sophisticated sushi restaurant, drank expensive saki, laughed, and enjoyed adult conversation as we sat on the train, sometimes with no explanation, in the middle of nowhere, not moving, just sitting still, for 20 minutes.

Every stop we made at a station, they would come on the intercom and announce that we would only be stopping for 5 minutes...forty minutes later we'd pull out of the station at a speed never to exceed thirty miles per hour except for the rare occasion where we'd finally be faster than the cars on the side road next to us...which would last for too short of a time. Frustration. Anxiety. Anger. Not what we'd planned...but oh well. We arrived.

So. We're here. Safe. And on our way to the reservoir. On to the family photos from our bbq at Peter and Mary's house yesterday.