Travelling - Transport
Date: 13 January 2009 09:44:32
Fortified by the fruit of the blessed Juniper berry, I continue the story of my travelling -- the telling of which appears to be longer than the actual holiday!
While being where you actually want to be is a great experience, I find the travelling to a place often equally as enjoyable. There are a number of ways to get from A to B, and each country, each city even, has its own unique style of transport. Something as everyday as a car, in that case my friend's, is an adventure: being on the opposite side if I found myself in the front, and even seeing and experiencing the different rules, such as U-Turns at roundabouts [verboten here in Sin City] and right-turn on red lights [when safe], makes you realise things are different everywhere you go.
Taxis are interesting enough in your own city, well taxi drivers at least!, but when you in San Diego [one day of work on my holdiay] are only a couple miles away from Mexico and can see it [including a giant flag I did not manage to catch], another country! [eternally fascinating to a resident of an island home like I am], there is something special about hurtling past it along a freeway -- so close, yet I imagine a million miles away from anything I could imagine. And then you have the familiar, such as a Westfields Shopping Centre, with the extraordinary: not only different shops, but a off-site parking courtesy shuttle that takes you right to the door.
Even something as everyday as a bus can be interesting, taking you through places you have never seen, and may even surprise when the route number and destination change to wish you a festive greeting:
Trains are a transport I find fascinating. I am not sure that is true for local network, but perhaps familiarity does breed contempt. A short walk from my friend's place in San Jose was a Light Rail station. A very convenient ad enjoyable way to get downtown [again, a new word for me -- we say CBD [Central Business District] or "the City"]. Interesting to see that they had decided to build it down the middle of a freeway: makes sense:
In San Francisco there is the BART, and I used it this trip to get to San Franciso airport from the Caltrain station. The Caltrain is for longer journeys, from San Jose up to San Francisco: the carriages are rather large, and the steps rather steep in comparison to what I am used to here. But, again, interesting experiences: especially to see how popular bikes are around San Jose and San Francisco -- and the presence of a "bike car".
Another mass transit train was the Amtrak train I caught from Flagstaff to Williams -- supposedly a half-hour or so, but due to slow freight trains ahead it was an hour or so longer. Still, as I mentioned previously, I was chatting to the conductor so time went by reasonably quick. Compared to the station at Flagstaff:
Williams Junction was rather sparse, particularly with the snow. A shuttle bus awaited to take us to Williams.
Planes featured heavily in my travels given the distances I was often travelling. They ranged in size from jumbos down to propellor planes. I do enjoy plane tavel: though I will say the last half-hour on a trans-Pacific flight can be the longest ever experienced: I just want to land! Denver was a city I never saw -- though the mountains looked nice from the airport -- arriving there well into the night and leaving early the next morning. The airport was rather nice though, even if I couldn't make heads nor tails of this display [I enjoyed a Jamba Juice while pondering]. It was also interesting to see that the toilets were also used for another purpose, fortunately not needed while I was there:
My adventures from Denver to get to Yellowstone need a post of their own so I shall leave that for another day.
The smaller planes I flew, those from the very large Phoenix airport [stunningly surrounded by hills] to the charmingly-smalll Flagstaff airport and back, were good fun. On the way out we had a very funny flight attendant who had us in stitches with the safety demonstration. From my window on the plane I had a nice view of what went on before take-off, such as taking the covers of the propellors, to seeing the change from take-off and the dry and dusty desert land around Phoenix to the snow-covered mountains near Flagstaff, which is at 2,106 metres (6,910 ft) compared to Phoenix's 340 metres (1,117 ft). Landing in the snow was a first-time experience for me.
Heading back we had clear skies:
but this soon changed once we were on-board. We had to wait until the storm passed, and when it was clear the wings had iced up. So the de-icing machine was called. Having a window seat over the wing I had a prime view:
Then it was take-off, and heading back out of the snow to the dusty plains [with a bit of green for the golf course] of Phoenix:
Very enjoyable travels, very enjoyable experiences, and some of the most wonderful views from car, bus, taxi, train or plane.