Amtrak Adventures – Sittin’ on the dock of the bay

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

San Francisco

Left Vegas on the bus and transferred at Bakersfield to an Amtrak California train (better seats, much better food), and then transferred again at Emeryville for a bus into San Francisco. Arrived at our hostel in the Mission after a long day’s travelling, without really taking much in of the city. The next morning we ate the free breakfast at the hostel (cake and more cake) and then jumped on the BART to Embarcadero as we wanted to go to Alcatraz. It was fully booked for the day so we bought tickets for the next day and decided to take this day to see some sights around the city. It was some kind of free transport day in San Fran so we took advantage of this by, um, walking everywhere. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf, which I thought was a bit touristy and nothing-y, but we did have a yummy salmon steak sandwich. We then walked through North Beach and Chinatown, found City Lights bookstore and spent a lovely hour browsing. Martina and I went our separate ways in the afternoon and I found the Cartoon Art Museum which was small and quiet but interesting. The political cartoons from around the world about America were particularly good.

Amtrak Adventures – Sin City

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Las Vegas

Woke up knackered but on time to get our bus to Las Vegas (Amtrak don’t have trains into Nevada, but instead put on a ‘Thruway’ bus service between LA and Vegas). I went to get some water and stuff from the store near our hostel and suddenly we were running late. This was made worse by the Metro just not turning up (bloody LA public transport!) and we boarded the train knowing we were going to miss our bus. If we missed the bus, we’d have to scrap going to Vegas as we’d not have time on our itinerary. Whilst panicking about the bus I was franticly going through alternative scenarios involving staying with long lost relatives and sleeping on the beach.

We had ten minutes to spare and legged it into Union station to find the bus stop. We followed sign after sign and asked staff members but just ran round in circles, all the time with our massive backpacks on. We knew the bus had left, but sweaty and dejected we asked a final person. She pointed the way through an open courtyard and we ran for it. By some miracle, the bus hadn’t arrived and we even had time to catch our breath before boarding. (We did have to sit by a urine-stinking toilet though). We watched desert-y California turn into desert-y Nevada, with a brief stop at the no-mans-land that is a place called Barstow. It was basically a McDonalds and a gift shop selling novelty guns and porcelain clowns.

Amtrak Adventures – California Dreamin’

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

Los Angeles

The delayed train had slightly hampered our plans for LA, as what had been a whole day of sightseeing was reduced to half a day. So we went to find our hostel in Hollywood which was near to the Thai quarter of town, on the corner of Hollywood and Western – the Gershwin Hostel. The receptionist was a tad peculiar but the building was really cool. Like many hostels we’ve stayed in on this trip, it felt a bit empty and a bit grotty, but the price was a steal at $16 a night. (Returning to the UK, I’ve found this hostel has a more colourful history – read about it here).

Amtrak Adventures – The Journey of Journeys

This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…

As soon as our 5.40am train pulled out of the station at San Antonio, I crashed out and snoozed my way to 10am. We were on the Texas Eagle/Sunset Limited to Los Angeles and we knew we had at least thirty hours on the train ahead of us. When I woke up the scenery had transformed into desert and shrubland as far as you could see. This, I was reliably informed was the Big Bend National Park. There were vast expanses of intimidating desert and scary looking cacti. Think the landscape of No Country for Old Men. So we scooted off to the observation car so we could get a good look all around us.