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Austin to Seattle - A Train Travelogue
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Chandra Mouli
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San Jose - Los Angeles
Leaving San Jose, the train enters the Santa Clara valley. Near Watsonville, we get a beautiful view of the rolling green hills in the Santa Cruz mountain range -- the whole place looks like a greatly magnified golf course ! Salinas, CA is the place to be for vegetarians -- they grow the largest variety of vegetables in the US. The train followed the Salinas river and we passed the nice little town of San Miguel and entered Santa Margarita.
From here it is a steep climb upwards. We saw spectacular views of the San Lucia Mountains and the famous Route 101 follows the railroad tracks. Before the train entered San Luis Obispo, it passed through two deep horseshoe curves.
From here all the way to L.A, (Ventura), we get an absolutely marvelous view of the Pacific Ocean and the coastline. Route 101 is on our left side, so the railroad tracks are the closest to the Ocean. It was a wonderful experience to sit in front of the window in the lounge car on a clear sunny evening and watch the waves gush almost into the compartments ! Then an amazing thing happened -- one of the train attendant told us she spotted a whale ! In spite of our wide open prying eyes (and several, complemented with binoculars !), we couldn't see anything. After a few minutes, we saw a huge column of water rise right in front of us like a geyser ! And there it was, a huge whale presumably on its long migratory voyage from Southern California to Alaska. The train stopped for several minutes and we could see the whale jump up and down and sprout water above. It was a wonderful and memorable sight. We passed by the Vandenburg Air Force base and could see an abandoned Space Shuttle launch pad. The Channel Islands were visible far away into the ocean. As we entered Point Conception we saw the Santa Ynez Mountains to our left. This amazing view of grazing lands high above the surf is something indescribable and absolutely marvelous !! We could see few off-shore drilling rigs as we entered the Santa Barbara Channel. It was around 4.30 PM when we reached Santa Barbara. Thanks to one of the train attendant's tip, we saw a huge fig tree in the Santa Barbara station -- apparently it is the biggest fig tree in the US -- one of the most beautifully formed trees I have ever seen ! We left Santa Barbara and passed by the Andree Clark Bird Refuge and the famous Santa Barbara Zoological gardens. When we passed the Bates beach we were advised to keep our eyes wide-open or closed, as we prefer, as there were many bathers with little or no clothes ! The view of the sunset on the Pacific Coast was remarkable from the train. We crossed the Ventura river and entered the Simi Valley formed by the Santa Sussanna Mountains and Simi hills. As we left the San Fernando valley and entered the Los Angeles county, we could see the huge L.A. metropolis at a distance. We reached L.A at 8.30 PM -- an hour late -- again, not too bad by AMTRAK standards ! The L.A Union Station was beautiful -- the lobby had several photographs displaying the history of the station and plans for future expansion.
Chandra Mouli
