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Uncle Markie out and about.

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Thu
24
Mar '16

Trip Report: El Paso & The Train Home

Another week, another trip, or so it seems. This week it’s the red-eye after closing the shop after a special Château Nuef du Pape Tasting. Getting home at 8 left just enough time to put together a chef salad and grab an Uber (click on Uber for your first $15 ride free) to the airport. Luckily, the Alaska Upgrade Gods smiled on both Rach and myself – seats 1D and 1F (after a little switching around)

He looks comfortable – as for me, I’m just crazy:

It’s a red-eye that leaves at 12:50am, so you don’t get much in the way of food:

Rach slept after food, I, foolishly watched all sorts of movies, drank all sorts of drinks, and generally DIDN’T look this good at our 5am arrival in Chicago, the three-hour layover (which I did sleep), and our eventual arrival in El Paso:

I actually know a couple of people in the El Paso area, and one of them (Aaron – a former couchsurfing guest of mine) met us at the airport for the ride to our hotel – The El Camino Real.

Got checked in on the second try and the room was adequate. I was hoping for nicer considering how cool the lobby is, but more on that later. First up it was lunch at Anson 11 Bistro. I had the pork belly tacos, as did Aaron:

Rach had the Tomato Mozzarella Sandwich with Prosciutto after his Asparagus Soup – and the fries on the right are Truffle-Parmesan Fries (YUM):

And, of course, there were cocktails!

After that meal, both Rach and I needed a nap since we (Uncle Markie, Aaron, Aaron’s Ex, Johnny [who also surfed my house], and Aaron’s 22-year-old US Army husband) are headed out for a Mexican food dinner tonight – actually Brandon (the husband) is just joining us for cocktails in the lovely lobby bar with stained glass Tiffany Dome:

And the rest of the lobby rocks as well – love the stairwells:

Actually, downtown El Paso has a lot of nice old Art Deco era buildings that have survived:

Later I’ll show you the train station, but that’s tomorrow! First we have to get through dinner at Kiki’s Mexican Restaurant:

I had the Chicken Molé which was tasty and I could only finish half it – in the background you see a glass of sangria that wasn’t overly sweet – went well with the spice:

After dinner it was off to the scenic overlook where you can see all of El Paso, and Juarez on the Mexican side of the border:

Beautiful sight – but CROWDED with people. Lots of couples.

I headed back to the room, Rach and Aaron headed to a brew pub to wait for Brandon to get off work – then we all reconvened in the room for cocktails – it was a great evening of catching up and getting to know Brandon.

Morning brought me sleeping in late (as usual) with Rach up early to journal (usual) – and a late (just prior to the lunch menu) breakfast at the restaurant in the hotel – La Huerta Café:

We both had the “Divorced Eggs” [$8.00), mine with Green Chile, Rach’s with Christmas Chile [half red, half green] – funny that it’s served with a small quesadilla, but it was all tasty. I almost had to go back to bed after this breakfast – but at noon we were off to the railroad station – which was a TAD further than I expected. Probably should have had the hotel shuttle take us with all the bags we had. We went shopping in El Paso yesterday after lunch to pick up Bourbon and Ginger for the trip.

Found on the trek to the train station – it was a great day for a walk:

And the train station itself – now if the train weren’t running late, though after the late heavy breakfast, not sure if I’d be ready for lunch at 1:30:

And a gorgeous interior – I love how Amtrak and the cities they serve have been resurrecting and renovating their old stations:

THE TRAIN BOSS! THE TRAIN!

Settled in for lunch, at almost 3PM, well past the usual time they serve, but they extended it for the El Paso folks. Burgers for both of us:

I like that shot! And the lunch view – yes, that would be Mexico on the other side of that fence:

Steaks for dinner (see other Amtrak posts for pictures) – but I had to rush through dinner so I could get a “platform hug” from my buddy Joe:

He didn’t have long, but enough time to see our Bedroom unit on the train. This is my compartment selfie with him:

This is his compartment selfie with me:

I think I like he surreal one better.

From past experience – time to take a shower because we arrive in Los Angeles VERY early in the morning, and I’ve found I’m cranky if I’m not clean while waiting for the next train:

And then bed:

Alas, you can no longer leave your shoes for the car attendant to shine while you sleep – the door, long since removed on the outside, just the frame left on the inside of the closet:

We arrived in Los Angeles early – which I didn’t really want to happen, since the arrival time was already early: 5:35am. At least we have the Metropolitan Lounge to hang out in until our 9:30am boarding:

Even the non-First Class passengers have a nice space to hang out in:

There is even a piano for people to play!

Lots of Amtrak trains coming and going from Union Station in Los Angeles:

We get boarded – and get comfortable – making early morning Bloody Marys as we roll out of the station:

Between the two of us we have great connectivity – Rach has an ATT HotSpot that I’ve been using since ATT coverage in the Southwest is better than my T-Mobile coverage which we switched to after our Eugene, Oregon stop. You can see his HotSpot attached to a mount on the table mount. But Eugene is a long way from where we are at the moment – one of the most beautiful chunks of this trip, the stretch between Los Angeles and Santa Barbra:

And here is a little video clip from that section of track:

Salads for lunch after our big breakfast in the morning (and my return to bed):

More good weather as we head north – here was are at a “smoke break” in San Luis Obispo – also a crew change stop for the train engineers:

Please note the fetching Hello Kitty cap from my trip to Maui.

And talk about a little snack before dinner (since we have a late reservation), how about chopping up the remainder bagel dog from breakfast (they were $5 each, or two for $8) – with a little dark mustard. I had one for breakfast while Rach had a ham and cheese croissant – decent food (and a small grocery store) in Union Station in LA:

The sundown waiting for dinner:

Dinner – the braised lamb shanks in the Parlour Car. This is one of their most popular recipes!

Sorry for the blurry photo, but it was as good as always – click here for the recipe.

After dinner, it was another “platform hugs” moment – once again with Onyx and Lunetta in Emeryville – this time no delivery of mixers needed!

Breakfast at 8, lunch at noon, an early dinner at 5:30 – means that it’s our last day on The Coast Starlight.

And now for a station break, starting with Eugene:

And Portland:

And a shot of our lovely Parlour Car exterior. For those that don’t know, the Parlour Car is reserved for use by Sleeping Car passengers on The Coast Starlight, the only train that has Parlour Cars.

To close this post – Mount Rainier in the background, passing over the Columbia River headed into Vancouver, USA.

Such a lovely journey.

[217.8]

Mon
1
Apr '13

Monday In The Print Shop With Roxy.

I think I know the owner’s motivation – another full day of training in how to run the print shop. Personally, with the half-hour crossover between our shifts, I get how this works, and if I don’t, it still goes out that day because pickup is at 4pm.

The way Roxy deals with this is “its work hours, I’ll as many as they give me, it’s all over in mid-June”. This from the guy who is working a 40 hour week at Nordstroms as well as this 25 hour a week gig.

Worked until 6, then it was back home for a quick cocktail before heading off to dinner at The Brooklyn downtown. The boys (CouchSurfers) wanted a truly Seattle meal and were willing to drop bucks on it.

We all started with the oyster samplers:

  • I went for Vodka Sampler (4 ½ ounce shots of different vodkas, four different oysters)
  • Aaron went for the White Wine and Oysters (same combo pattern)
  • Johnnie went for the MicroBrew and Oyster sampler

Four different oysters, four different vodka/beer/white wines.

  • For dinner, I had the duck entrée
  • Johnnie had the Goat Cheese Pockets (Pockets my expression, they had some Italian name for it)
  • Aaron had a cup of the chowder and the foie gras over scallop

Bottle of Writer’s Block for dinner – it’s Jed Steele’s son’s label if I remember correctly from my time in Lake County north of Napa and Sonoma.

And then it was time for dessert. Poached Asian Pear with mascarpone:

With no Grappa Sampler anymore, I had (another) Manhattan, with the Bullet Rye I believe (or some local rye):

The boys split the Port Sampler (I think that makes FOUR samplers for the night!):

We lingered so long at the restaurant that the bartender had the key to my car – avoided a $9 valet charge! But with a two-seater, the boys took the bus back to the house – and got there 15 minutes after I did – shocking! They hit the bus stop downtown the same time the bus showed up. No traffic at 9+ at night.

Stayed up (again) too late – must work in the morning.

[207.2]

Sun
25
Oct '09

Silly Sunday.

Couldn’t Get A Cheap Fare For Christmas.

So Going To The Bay Area Three Times.

Wow — and I thought Saturday was lazy… Sunday beats it hands down.

I read twelve chapters of Aaron Elkin’s A Creative Clarity, and tried to figure out if I can get to Santa Fe for Christmas (as well as Thanksgiving) for something under $500. At the moment, it’s $400 to ABQ (which I hate flying into) and $600 to SAF (which is Santa Fe’s tiny airport).

Looked at other alternatives… like the routing I’m doing for Turkey Day which is flying Alaska into Flagstaff and then taking the train to Lamy (station stop for Santa Fe and 5 miles from my parents house), or flying to Kansas City and doing the rail (in a sleeper) in the opposite direction.

In the end, with all that looking at travel sites….. noticed that SEA-OAK was $101.20 round-trip — so I booked three of them. One for Wednesday to Saturday, one for after Orlando, and one for mid-December. It will be nice to see the boys again. And hopefully (speaking of boys) my Bangladeshi Hottie is is still up to hanging out.

As for Santa Fe for Christmas, the colonels are going to be there and I’d love to see them… if I can find a deal.

Other than that it’s been a quiet day at the house with Raf returning late last night after I was crashed and leaving before I got up working at Mick’s place and staying out tonight for date number two with a “hottie” from CraigsList.

For me, dinner tonight is sauteed chicken breast chunks over a bed of salad — which I need after last nights steak and baked potatoes where both Jonathan and I passed on salad.

[219.6]

Mon
2
Nov '09

Monday In The Air.

God I hate morning flights – I think I’ve gotten spoiled with the mid-day flights to Oakland.

Up at 5. Out of the house at 6 with Raf driving me to the airport (thanks Raf), through security and in the Board Room by 6:30 for my 8:45 flight.

Why so early — well, it’s me, and there is the free breakfast and drinks at the Board Room. I have to get my money out of that $300 a year membership.

Off I go to the land of the mouse — Orlando. And not in first class. I asked at the desk and I was number eight on the list. At least I’m one row behind first class, in 6D. Unfortunately, when I looked last night at seats, the one next to me was open. By this morning is was filled with someone larger than me who as spilling other both sides. Not big enough to require a seatbelt extender, but close. That’s OK — it’s only a 6 hour flight. It could have been worse, at least he didn’t have body odor.

Slept for part of the flight, read for the rest. Finished Aaron Elkin’s A Glancing Light and am now two thirds of the way through David Sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim which I’ll leave with Dan and Lisa.

Speaking of Dan and Lisa, they picked me up at the airport about 20 minutes after I got in. My flight was half an hour early so that wasn’t bad considering they started out in St. Pete. Luckily they brought enough food and booze for at least the first night so we went straight to the WorldMark Orlando at King’s Reef. Such a weird name — and where is the reef?

p1090500

Like what we did to the place? It’s all the streamers and balloons from the Window 7 Launch Party Kit. Gives the place a festive look.

Dinner tonight was chicken thighs in a pan sauce (thanks Dan) and broiled asparagus (thanks Lisa) and a lovely bottle of wine following a couple of rounds of Manhattans.

Dessert was a little WII Bowling since they brought their setup, and I brought my WiiMote.

Add a little time in the hot tub and it was off to bed.

[221.1]

Sat
17
Apr '10

Cabin Fever.

Woke up with a feeling of “cabin fever”… the need to just get out and about. What to do about it — drive.

I gathered all the stuff laying around needing to be delivered and headed out the door:

  • Panama Taxi license plate and taxi meter for Tom, Marybeth’s son who is getting the Checker Marathon as his car when he gets his license
  • Lowes for a replacement grill grate for the BBQ and batteries for the scale
  • Fluffernutter’s to drop off an enamel public telephone sign (and chat with Aaron, his roommate)
  • The apartment to pick up a DVD (which reminds me, I really have to watch If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium since I had it for months)
  • Darcie and Jeannes to drop off a book — and have cocktails and enough snacks that it made dinner

Started at a little after noon and got home at 7.

Poking around the WorldMark site I realized that I could put together the Yellowstone/Montana prison trip for mid-May. Last night I had been playing around with a trans-Atlantic crossing with a stop on the way to London in Iceland so I could do a land-air tour of Greenland and a couple of spare days in London — the Norwegian Epic (which I’m planning on cruising with on my birthday) has studios available on the inaugural London to New York transatlantic crossing before going into service on the Caribbean routes for the next year (around $3-4K by the time all was said and done) and the evening before that it was a trip to Jasper up in Canadaland before dismissing it as too expensive (for the sleeper — $1200 round-trip from Vancouver). I never should have made that damn travel hit list!

Fence project tomorrow, I promise.

[223.2]

Tue
25
Sep '12

Hello Vancouver.

Up and out of the house one time at 9:15 for a 10:15 BoltBus to Vancouver – the cost for the two of us to get to Vancouver… $13. Not bad.

CaddyDaddy and I on the BoltBus getting ready for the 3 hour trip to Vancouver.

Got to the condo at 1:30 or so, and of course the room wasn’t ready so it was drop the bags and go out to lunch and do the grocery shopping for dinner. Hummingbird met up with us at the restaurant and wentshopping with us. Room still not ready upon our return, and Hummingbird wasn’t feeling the best so he picked up his presents and package in the game room at The Canadian.

At 3:30 the condo was ready and Epick and Aaron were waiting for usat the door when we got to the 22nd floor. Apparently they were right behind me coming into the lobby as I was leaving.

So they showed up early, Helene showed up late, Solus+ showed up late, dinner was ready at 7 which by that time it was just three of us for dinner, Solus+ left, Helene returned and I woke up at 2am on the couch.

I must be on vacation.

[206.9]

Tue
28
Oct '14

Trip Report: Santa Fe To Visit Mom

My little “Board Room Ritual”—a Red Baron (also known as a Poinsettia) to start the travel day. That would be sparkling wine and cranberry juice. Kill the liver, cure the kidneys.

My good travel luck is holding – got assigned Seat 1C without even having to log in a move it. Maybe the computer finally knows what seat I like. Uneventful flight. So uneventful that I forgot to take a picture of my lunch which was a warm chicken thigh sandwich that was actually pretty good.

Albuquerque has one of those consolidated rental car centers that I despise and it didn’t help that the customers in front of me were playing twenty questions with the lone rental car agent. Even if I had status with Alamo it wouldn’t have been any quicker with just one agent.

Luckily right next to Alamo was their sister company, National, and that agent did my paperwork and I was out the door in a 4-door Nissan Sentra lickity split.

Here is my little “Leaving Albuquerque” video:

Got to Santa Fe, swung by the office at El Castillo to pick up a parking pass – something I’ll have to do daily as parking is at a premium with the construction of their new Alzheimer unit.

Here are a couple of shots of the building that my mother is in:

Before long, the in-laws start showing up, all in separate cars. Brother-in-law Kennan, sis-in-law Jen, niece Karen. Off to dinner we go, to Rio Chama and boy was the food good.

Starters of oysters – lots of them. Half a dozen for me, a dozen for Mom, and another half dozen split by the Pruett/Girdners (the in-laws).

Then for my main, there wasn’t much of a decision since rarely to you see Elk Tenderloin on the menu – with a little broccolini, on a bed of pancetta roasted new potatoes and quash.

Yum, yum, yum.

Mom was in bed by 8, me by 2…which meant not rolling out of bed in the morning until 10am.

Fed myself some leftovers and headed out on the errand run – working through the “honeydo” list.

  • Staples for pens, paper, and ink for Mom
  • Albertsons for soda and bourbon for both of us

As I was loading the trunk this guy came up to me and asked if he could talk to me about shopping bags. Turns out Santa Fe banned plastic bags in an effort to get people to bring their own. But since they didn’t put a fee on paper bags, needless to say it isn’t reducing waste and it’s costing the grocery stores more. He even took pictures.

Some of the results of my shopping – like mother, like son:

Cocktails at 4 with two other residents of El Castillo whose daughter also went to Evergreen. Martinis for Mom and I, white wine for The McCarthys. Mom loves good gin – and her favorite was the Tanqueray Malacca Gin which hadn’t been produced in a decade before last year when they came out with a limited release in liter bottles. That’s all gone, but she snagged a bottle of Tanqueray’s latest limited release of their Old Tom Gin. Damn tasty, hence the plug here:


Of course it isn’t cheap, but might have to pick up one on my next trip.

Dinner was take-out from Whole Hog BBQ. The food is good, but I’m always surprised that there aren’t many people in their – guessing they do a huge lunch business through:

Thursday was the big day for us, especially when one more item got added to the list. I got an email in the morning from Kristina Hagman asking if I was in Santa Fe, as was she. Turns out she found out about me being in town because I made the front page of the Santa Fe New Mexican – above the fold!

That would be me on the right. Guess there goes my 15 minutes of fame…

Here are the links to the newspaper article and the link to my picture: ARTICLE
PICTURE

So Kristina popped over for a bit, and posed for a “groupie”.

Then Mom and I went out to lunch at SantacaFé. I had the Rueben (with enough left over for dinner) and Mom had the onion rings to start and the Lobster Roll for her main, but didn’t eat much of it after filling up on the onion rings which really were good:

We ate outside which was a little chilly when the breeze kicked up but still nicer than being cooped up inside on a sunny fall day.

Next up was the bank to add me to the checking accounts. It was the final item financially that needed taking care of so that there won’t be anything going through probate. I’m on one, by brother is on another, and my sister-in-law is on the third with all of us being on the brokerage account. No houses, no cars, just some possessions and we aren’t the haggling kind of family.

When 4PM rolled around it was time to head next door to a building-wide cocktail party. Man those old people know how to drink! Lots of wine, and more importantly for me, Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. They next door neighbors last name is Jameson so it was quite appropriate. Helped myself twice before we headed back to Mom’s apartment.

And I wasn’t kidding about enough food leftover to make a nice dinner:

That is the Dill laced hot potato salad that came with the sandwich.

My last day in Santa Fe (Friday) had me up and out so I could have brunch with my buddy Aaron from Las Cruces that had driven 4+ hours to Santa Fe to see me. Luckily his sister lives in Santa Fe and he’s going to stay a couple of nights.

Bunch was at the Swiss Bakery. Yes, those would be mimosas. With Eggs Benedict on the way:

I passed on the potatoes.

Walking back to the car I spotted these two train cars…

A little digging around and I came up with pictures from the interiors…

Seems these are now part of the Santa Fe Southern Railway which runs tourist trains between Santa Fe and Lamy. The last time I was on them they only had an enclosed car and an open car. Funny that the train ran right by my parent’s old house.

And digging further, I seemed to remember something about an outfit that wanted to run a high-speed privately financed train between LA and Las Vegas. Turns out that X-Train are those folks. What two of their cars are doing in Santa Fe is a mystery to me…one worth digging into.

So… X Train Rail Holdings Corporation (Ticker Symbol: XTRN) is an odd little beast of a company offering upscale rail holidays, rail car financing and leaseback, and apparently a roll out plan to have 20+ cars by the end of 2015 judging from this slide I found on their site:

The whole PowerPoint Presentation is here: http://www.vegasxtrain.com/uploads/2/5/7/8/25787513/x_rail_asset_fund.ppt

The slide mentions Mid America Railcar which lists both of the cars that I saw in Santa Fe as being in their fleet…stranger and stranger (the Keystone Grill and the Mohave).

Enough digging and you find that they now own Santa Fe Southern Railroad, but oddly they have suspended service. It will be interesting to see if they do the Holiday Trains as they usually do.

And here is their description of what they do:

About X Train Holdings
The company Las Vegas Railway Express, Inc. DBA X Train Holdings Corp., has developed a robust infrastructure of call center, travel agency, logistics planning management, food & beverage and unique passenger rail cars of the purpose of acquiring or affiliating privately owned passenger rail companies under the X Train Holdings umbrella. Independently owned and operated passenger rail companies can enlist the services of X Train to grow market share, improve operating margins by consolidating costs, and providing access to capital for asset purchase, repair and improvement. X Train is a publicly traded company under the OTCQB: XTRN symbol. It is a fully reporting company and its auditors are BDO and its securities lawyers are Sichenzia Ross of New York. By consolidating either acquired companies and/or affiliated companies, X Train Holdings can create economies of scale for its array of member companies. This is much more difficult for small privately held companies where the principals frequently must guarantee personally capital purchases or loans. X Train Holdings relieves that burden and provides a path to liquidity should owners wish to sell.

And the link to Yahoo Finance with all their press releases, news, etc.: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?uhb=uh3_finance_vert&fr=&type=2button&s=XTRN

But I digress – I really did go down the internet rabbit hole…now where was I…

Time to get back to Albuquerque and catch my plane to Seattle-Taco – or at least that’s what they sign says:

Would a Seattle Taco feature Seahawk meat?

No lounge at Sunport (the name of the airport), but a nice observation area to watch all the New Mexican Air National Guard jets, helicopters and transport planes take off and land.

It’s upstairs and underutilized – guess most people don’t know it is there – and soon enough I’m settled back into Seat 1C.

I’m so happy that my Friday night plans fell through (dinner with Josh and moving a painting). Nice to just chill at home.

[222.4]