I still say its better than flying

So after a relaxing morning stealing free wi-fi in a park in Centralia, eventually boarded the train to San Francisco.

So it was supposed to be 20 and something hours. Started pretty well, nice spacious seats, plenty of leg room, nice Washington and Oregon scenery to enjoy out the window…and then we stopped for the first time in the middle of a forest while they rebooted the train computer for 25 minutes (did lead to a great conversation with some dude in the café about the chances of a zombie attack).

Then just after I got to sleep, there was a thunk, the brakes got slammed on and we again sat in the middle of nowhere while they tried to figure out what we hit. Turns out it was a tree and it managed to damage the engine so we limped to the nearest town and stayed there for nearly 2 hours while waiting for a replacement engine.

By the time we reached California we were already 3 hours behind and so got stuck behind other trains at Sacremento and lost another hour there. So after another hour and a half on the bus around San Francisco and another train to San Mateo only 4 hours later than planned. Not too bad, and hey, at least there was no turbulence. I mean, imagine if I was on a plane and it hit a tree, ugh. Plus the scenery along the way was stunning.

Spent a relaxing night catching up with Doug, Joyce and Hathaway and scheming for the rest of the week.