After three months, we are finally at the beginning of our much anticipated adventure. Like our last cruise of several years ago, we are starting off with a train ride. Rather than flying to the cruise port, in this case, San Francisco, we choose to take the train. We find it so much more relaxing and pleasurable than flying, which gets us immediately in the right frame of mind. No TSA, or having to arrive over an hour before the flight, no fighting crowds at airports, (and very important for us – more restrooms and being able to get up and walk around), comfortable seats which actually recline and have leg rests, and lastly good food and enjoyable dining 😋.
The station at San Luis Obispo is great. We sat on a bench in the shade, waiting for the train after checking our two suitcases. We had a nice chat with a gentleman who had driven down from Seattle the day before to bring his son back for his senior year at Cal Poly. He was leaving the car for his son and taking the train back with his wife. His son was also majoring in the IT field here like TJ, our son, did as well several years ago. His son had just spent the summer interning with Boeing down at Vandenberg, so Trish discussed with him briefly her own experience working in the defense industry.
The train arrived on time, we boarded at just before 3:00 pm, much less hectic than the cattle call boarding one experiences at the airport, found our comfortable seats and began enjoying our trip. Going north out of SLO, we saw the horse stables where the students board their horses, and as the students were back, many of them were riding. In the fields and in the hills as we climbed out of the valley we saw a small herd of deer running away from the train, a flock of wild turkeys and a we neared the top of the pass a small buck running up a ravine.
I signed up at the dining car for a six pm reservation. We sat across from a couple from Los Angeles who were taking the train up to Seattle and, from there, taking the Empire Builder to Chicago (This is one of the most scenic Amtrak routes across the northern rockies – the other scenic routes are the Coast Starlight we were on, and the Zephyr in Colorado) . They were in a sleeper cabin like the one we were in when we took the train to Vancouver, B.C., for our cruise to Alaska. We talked about our families, their trip, our cruise, and Trish’s cheesecakes (because the dessert was a white chocolate blueberry cheesecake – which was way too sweet and not nearly as good as the ones Trish bakes). But other than that, the food was tasty, unlike airline food – on the rare occasions where they do serve food.
We arrived in San Jose, picked up our luggage, and grabbed a Lyft to the hotel. Tomorrow morning, we go back to the train station to take Caltrain to SF to embark on our cruise!😎
