Good evening
Spring starts here about 6 am tomorrow morning.I am usually in at work watching Amtrak’s westbound capitol(if on time) go by before I punch in.It is also Stacey’s birthday tomorrow. Guessers say more rain on the way this week.
stay safe
Joe
Been waiting for Spring for three months. Dang; I hate Winter.
+1
Spring was here a couple of weeks ago - then it disappeared!
Heck, we’ve had spring for half the winter. Now that spring is here, we’ve got winter.
The good thing is that the temps are dipping below freezing at night and going above freezing during the day - perfect maple syrup weather!
Spring is spring
The Grass is Riz
The Leaves have Come
Upon the Triz
I wonder where the flowers iz…
90 degrees in Lawrence, KS yesterday, high 70’s expected today.
We had 87 here in Lincoln NE. Possible snow showers later this week. Isn’t it great to have variety daily?
afternoon
Had thunderstorms this morning.2 area teams are going for state basketball crowns this week.Ns tie train looked like it was looking for somewhere to park for the day when I left work.Cars for the local were in another siding uptown.Chores to do.
stay safe
Joe
We’ve enjoyed two weeks of perpetual spring in California…took my jacket off when we arrived March 8, and haven’t put it on since. We have to keep our jackets/hoodies handy for the return trip–on Thursday Lombard will have a high in the mid-40s.
But that time is coming soon…here’s what I wrote this morning, to nobody in particular.
Our last full day in California. We are sitting by the beach just east of Linda’s Alma Mater…watching planes take off from the nearby airport, seeing pelicans take off from a runway closer to us, and watching waves roll in. I’m not an expert on tides, but I think it should be going out at this point.
The islands across the channel are visible through the haze, and the wooden pier to our left blocks the view of Santa Barbara’s famous (and infamous) offshore drilling rigs.
In a few minutes, Linda and her mentor will be coming here to have lunch at the nearby restaurant (the pier may have something to do with that place). She’s spent most of her morning after radiation at the UCSB library, doing some work on an annotated bibliography to go with her Mendelssohn studies.
afternoon
nice sunshine here in Nw Ohio today.Ns has a coal train in the siding at work.The have some empties to pick up uptown as well. Heard a news story that under a new budget,Amtrak’s stop in Toledo could be cut.Chores to do as usual.
stay safe
joe
Greetings from the Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge in Los Angeles. It’s upstairs and well removed from the regular waiting room. It’s much more relaxed,and the attendant will ensure that we don’t miss our train (one hour from right now).
Linda is having a hard time wth her platelet level right now…she had an infusion Sunday, and is due for another one tomorrow. Her sister-in-law is replacing us as the helping hands around their place, and she will have her hands full with tired people, particularly a cranky and contrary grandson. He’s improved since we got there, but there’s a way to go.
Linda herself will not be deterred from doing as much as she can. After her filming of Jeopardy! next month, she’s due to fly out to Oberlin College (Ohio) to make a presentation. Other such trips may be in the works; she could Skype the presentations if she can’t travel for whatever reason. But we’d rather see her angry (angry enough to fight!) because she can’t do everything she wants to, than depressed because she can’t keep busy enough.
Determination is a good thing!
Spring is here in central Washington. March is being itself. Work is starting to get busy as farmers can now start to do fieldwork without getting stuck. Supper is ready.
Ok, I give up. It’s 19 degrees at 6am in this tropical paradise, aka FLINT, Mi. We get a balmy 30 degrees for a high today, and 60 deg. on Friday. Then back to the upper 40’s on Sunday. Mother Nature must be ticked off about something.
We apparently didn’t get rid of the gremlins that have accompanied us on our last two Amtrak trips–we’re currently four hours late and losing time.
At Fullerton, we stopped just shy of the boarding area (our sleeper had a great view of the Union Pacific Spaghetti Factory). While we were there, an Amtrak police officer was walking the platform. By the time we got out of Fullerton, we were already a half hour late, and it was dark by the time we got to Riverside.
Good news at this point: the rainy skies along the coast gave way to bright starlight for the ascent of Cajon Pass…I fell asleep at about Barstow.
A little later I was awakened by silence and a lack of motion. We were stopped between Needles and Kingman, on the Arizona side. Several trains went past us while we were there; I couldn’t tell which way they were going, as they were on the other side (biggest disadvantage of the roomette so far is that we can’t see out of both sides of the train at once). We stayed in the same spot for well over an hour. I was asleep when we went through Kingman.
But I woke up again when we were once again stopped in the middle of nowhere. This time the view was outside our window…we were on a third track, and the two main tracks were occupied by trains much of the time… two overtook us and two met us in the hour we sat there.
After we passed Williams, we saw track work–apparently only one track in service in that area (looked like not only tie replacement, but also some serious grading was taking pl
Watch the platform at LJ Carl. - BossH and Duncan won’t be along now, but I’m gonna still probably be around. Amthrax would have to go croak out in Ya-te-he country.
afternoon
Ns was clear when I left work.Cool but nice sunshine.Chores to do.
stay safe
joe
Midnight oil? SWC now showing 5.6 hours late coming into Trinidad, looking like 1 am at LJ. Carl sure has had the Amtrak luck on this trip!
Perhaps Mother Nature needs a new calender. One that shows when spring starts, or a new set of glasses to see the small print on the calender. Gee wizz, we are already on our 4th day of spring, where’s the heat wave!! Not that I complaining or anything, I would not want to upset Mom Nature. The Ground Hog says it’s spring, so, it’s spring. I mean rules are rules and she needs to have a talk with Phil so they both get on the same page here. (It’s 19 degrees again). They’re probably Politicians.