The Ink-Pot and the Palette

One of my vivid mental images of Santa Barbara from when I lived here is of the tiles. The place is covered in Moorish-style tiles. And bougainvillea.

( Pictures. )

Santa Barbara has the Queen of the Missions. Bigger than other Spanish missions along the Camino Real, it's also in better condition. The fact that it's situated on some of the best real estate in the world probably doesn't hurt either.

I never visited the mission when I lived here. My brother, who's lived here for thirty years, confessed (ha-ha-ha) to having never been inside it either. Tourist attractions, huh? You gotta be a tourist to see them.

There's an odd feeling to the place, peaceful with an underlayer of violence.

( Contrasting sensations. )

High in the Siskiyous as night falls, evergreen forest rising high up steep hills that block the fading sky on either side, thick, wild, untouched. My ears pop when I yawn.

roseambr, in a red sweater, is reading by a bright little lamp set into the seat back behind her. My computer is plugged in behind me. Our little compartment--just room enough for us to put our feet up on the edge of each other's seat--is like two facing armchairs in a glass-sided box, rolling and swaying quietly up into the mountains.

We shared a dinner table with a brother and sister heading home to San Bernardino County. They had steaks, I had salmon, roseambr had lasagna. Nobody had the game hen.

Dinner was pretty much cooked freight. Good company, though. Striking up dinner conversation with strangers on a train is pretty easy--you can spend an hour just agreeing that train travel is better than air travel, and we did.

We just came through a tunnel into a high vista at the top of the pass. Pitch-black trees against a dark-gray sky, and not a light out there anywhere. Not a highway, not a power line, not a billboard, not a road sign, not a headlight.

It was incredibly peaceful, and then Andrew our Sleeper Car Attendant came over the PA system:

"I have some not very good news. Low vacuum due to our high altitude has made it so that the toilets in car 1130 won't flush. Passengers in car 1130 will have to use the toilets in one of the other cars until we get down out of the mountains, around 1:00 in the morning."

Did I mention that roseambr and I are in car 1130?

*caps water bottle*

Union Station, Portland:

I keep catching myself humming "Ridin' that train, high on cocaine" as I wander around Union Station. I should probably find another train song.

Sample train station dialog:

Me: Where do I wait for the southbound train?"

Railroad person: Where ya goin'?

Me: Santa Barbara.

RP: Oh, nice!

Me: I know, huh?

RP: Coach or sleeper?

Me: Sleeper!

RP: Well then, you get to wait in the Metropolitan Lounge.

Me: Really? Cool. Do I need to show my ticket? Because my friend who's getting on in Vancouver has my ticket.

RP: No, Robert can look you up on the computer. Just tell him your name.

We walk into the Metropolitan Lounge: carpet, old-fashioned windows looking out at the platform, chairs with padding, flower arrangements, our own restrooms, a mini-bar, smell of coffee, a TV playing a football game.

RP: Here we have some nice complimentary juice and bottled water, and there's some fresh coffee for you.

Me: Wow.