Choo-Choo

The task at hand: Get myself from New Orleans to Vista, California in North San Diego County. Toward this end I ordinarily would take a plane from New Orleans to San Diego, but my father said to me, I can't pick you up at the San Diego airport; he is 87 and does what he can to keep his freeway driving to a minimum.

Just southwest of Vista is Carlsbad, California, which has an airport. However, a one-way flight from New Orleans to Carlsbad runs about $350 - about $100 more than a corresponding flight to San Diego - and I was hoping for something cheaper.

What about non-airplane possibilities? I wasn't in any sort of rush, so why not take a train - I hadn't ridden any kind of train in almost twenty years - or even a bus*? Both Amtrak and Greyhound could take me to Oceanside, California, just northwest of Vista and at which my father said he would be willing to meet me. Figuring that train travel would be more comfortable (or at least less uncomfortable) than bus travel, I booked a NOLA-to-Oceanside Amtrak trip for $191.

(*Bus fans, did you catch the AP's recent "New breed of buses draws Thanksgiving travelers" article? Unfortunately, neither Megabus, BoltBus, nor Wanderu could be used for the trip I wanted to make.)

Getting to New Orleans' Amtrak/Greyhound station was no more difficult than taking the St. Charles Streetcar to Lee Circle and then walking a few blocks downtown - no $35 cab ride to the airport required. Gratifyingly, at the station I wasn't subjected to any TSA-type degradation: I wasn't groped or irradiated but merely had to show a photo ID to an agent in order to print out my ticket, and I can deal with that.

Trip specifics

My trip had two legs:
(1) I traveled from New Orleans to Los Angeles on a Sunset Limited train and
(2) from Los Angeles to Oceanside on a Pacific Surfliner train.
This is the most direct Amtrak route from New Orleans to Southern California - the total trip time is just over two days - and also the cheapest, and its only departure days are Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday (wildly circuitous and much more expensive alternative routes are available on other days of the week).

Scenery

In Louisiana and East Texas we saw mile after mile of bare tree 'forest', and in West Texas and New Mexico we saw mile after mile of tumbleweed country - not exactly postcard photo material, shall we say. I did get a nice view of the Pacific Ocean toward the end of the Pacific Surfliner leg, however.

Food

The Sunset Limited train features a dining car and a lounge car. Price-wise you would expect train food to be marked up in a major way as train passengers are a captive audience of sorts, and it is: you, too, can pay $2.25 for a 12-oz can of Coke. It was my original intention to not eat anything during my trip, but I gave in:
(1) On the first day I bought a $1.25 apple and a reasonably good $2 cup of coffee from the lounge car.
(2) On the second day in the dining car I had a $7.50 scrambled eggs breakfast comprising two scrambled eggs, a portion of roasted potatoes, a small whole-wheat biscuit, and two cups of weak coffee.

A welcome respite from food captivity occurred at the El Paso station, at which the conductor exhorted us to get off the train and avail ourselves of the homemade burritos sold by Juanita the Burrito Lady. I duly snagged two of Juanita's green chili/potato/ground beef burritos - muy bien! - this was definitely the highlight of the trip.

Overall comfort level

Not bad; still, two days is a long time to spend in transit for a somewhat fidgety person such as myself. I don't regret traveling by rail but I'm not so sure I wouldn't fly if I could do it all over again.

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Getting my person to Vista was relatively easy. Getting my belongings to Vista was another kettle of fish - I'll tell you about it in the next post.

Escape from New Orleans

My long 'tour of duty' in New Orleans has come to an end. Financial hardship has compelled me to leave the Big Easy and travel to the West Coast to temporarily live with my father in Southern California. If I recall correctly, however, this sort of thing happened to Syd Barrett and also to Lou Reed at one point, so I don't feel so bad and would seem to be in pretty good company, eh?

During my 18+ years in the Crescent City I lived in two different apartments, each of which was highly problematic in its own way. The latter of these apartments was situated in New Orleans' Touro neighborhood, a good location in many respects; however, it was plagued by a noisy environment that made getting a good night's sleep a hit-or-miss affair. Obstacles to that good night's sleep included
(a) the tenant directly above me who frantically tramped back and forth on Hurricane Katrina-weakened floorboards at all hours of the night,
(b) the Touro Infirmary's delivery trucks, which made loud beeping noises at 5 AM several days a week, and
(c) the tenant to my right who would come in at 12-2 AM and turn on his TV cranked to a loud volume (maybe you can sleep through TV audio, I can't).
As an ultralight sleeper, I'm really glad to be out of there.

Is there anything about New Orleans that I'll miss? I won't miss the long, numbing summers. I won't miss having to deal with the hurricane thing every year. And I definitely won't miss Mardi Gras.

"C'mon, anything?" OK, I'll miss the Latter Library and its CD collection. I'll miss the local cuisine to an extent; interestingly, some of the stores at my new location carry Zatarain's products. I'll miss drinking coffee at the CC's at Loyola University. Above all, I as a non-motorist will miss the mobility that living in a relatively large city afforded me. ("Isn't it time you got a driver's license?" Yeah, I really should put that on my to-do list, shouldn't I?)

Now then: How did I get from New Orleans to Southern California? We'll get into that next time.