TAR and Amtrak
Mark and Bill did WELL this week. I think they would have been first to the Pit stop if Mark's pack hadn't broken, and if Bill had been able to be a little more deceptive with the whiney blond wife of the football player. Interesting that they were the only ones to try the computer route rather than the physical one, definitely a better move for them. Hopefully they'll have more alternatives like that in the future. I was so hoping either the frat boys or the chicks in pink would be eliminated tonight, but no luck. Ah well, hopefully next episode.
In other news, I took my first train trip to see Vence, this was the first time I'd been up since ExpressJet went out of business. It kills the entire weekend for sure, which is very different from the flight. It's definitely doable, though the scramble to get downtown by 4 was quite stressful. It sucks to basically have 30 hours of travel time for a 6 hour visit, but it beats driving. I got a lot done (despite the very inebriated Sox fans going to the game on the way up, replaced after Anaheim by inebriated UCSB students for the rest of the trip, and the inebriated birthday party on the way back--sense a trend?), so that helped quite a bit. Still, it's a looooooooong trip, and the ability to get any sleep along the way is nonexistent, because apparently the concept of not disturbing those around you is not present as it is on a plane. People yell and talk very loudly across the car (mostly because they are having a mobile party with LOTS of alcohol, apparently that's quite popular), or parents let kids run up and down the aisles, jumping in and out of seats, disturbing the people sitting there, etc. But the conductors don't seem to care. That surprised me, to be honest, because flight attendants wouldn't allow stuff like that to happen. I sure didn't allow any of our fourth graders to act that way when we took the train to Capistrano. I felt very sorry for this older man who was trying to sleep and had the unfortunate luck of having the seats behind him empty--the kids thought playing with the seat back trays and footrests was the thing to do. He got no rest at all. I can only imagine how bad a bus must be, if a train is this bad.
Anyway, as long as I'm not counting on getting any sleep on the train, it should be something I can deal with for the remaining time Vence is up in Lompoc.
In other news, I took my first train trip to see Vence, this was the first time I'd been up since ExpressJet went out of business. It kills the entire weekend for sure, which is very different from the flight. It's definitely doable, though the scramble to get downtown by 4 was quite stressful. It sucks to basically have 30 hours of travel time for a 6 hour visit, but it beats driving. I got a lot done (despite the very inebriated Sox fans going to the game on the way up, replaced after Anaheim by inebriated UCSB students for the rest of the trip, and the inebriated birthday party on the way back--sense a trend?), so that helped quite a bit. Still, it's a looooooooong trip, and the ability to get any sleep along the way is nonexistent, because apparently the concept of not disturbing those around you is not present as it is on a plane. People yell and talk very loudly across the car (mostly because they are having a mobile party with LOTS of alcohol, apparently that's quite popular), or parents let kids run up and down the aisles, jumping in and out of seats, disturbing the people sitting there, etc. But the conductors don't seem to care. That surprised me, to be honest, because flight attendants wouldn't allow stuff like that to happen. I sure didn't allow any of our fourth graders to act that way when we took the train to Capistrano. I felt very sorry for this older man who was trying to sleep and had the unfortunate luck of having the seats behind him empty--the kids thought playing with the seat back trays and footrests was the thing to do. He got no rest at all. I can only imagine how bad a bus must be, if a train is this bad.
Anyway, as long as I'm not counting on getting any sleep on the train, it should be something I can deal with for the remaining time Vence is up in Lompoc.