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| Waiting room at LAX Union Station. |
It’s was nearly 11 a.m. as we arrived at the Amtrak Station in Anaheim, Calif., located behind the Los Angeles Angels’ Stadium. The temperature felt like it had already reached 90, just like it had for the last seven days of our stay. During our visit the year, also in July, the temperatures had stayed in the 70s range.
The air conditioning in the ticket office was welcoming, but the agent directed us to some steps outside that would take us up to the platform, where we would wait for the Pacific Surfliner that would take us back to Los Angeles Union Station. There, we would board the Sunset Limited 2 for our return trip to Lafayette, La.
Benches lined a walkway next to the station’s platform. While my husband, son and daughter walked along the platform, I sat down next to an older black woman, who was fanning herself with a wide brim brown hat that matched the lightweight floral dress that reached to her ankles. She was a thin woman, and her carefully styled hair fell just above her shoulders. She had an air of grace about her that extended to the slight movements of her hat.
Without turning toward me or smiling, she said, “I will be so glad to get home and away from this heat.”
“Where do you live?” I asked, thinking maybe she was from the Northwest.
“I live in Oxnard,” she replied. “We are about an hour north of LA, and the weather is always wonderful. The temperature is rarely above the 70s.”
In spite of her apparent refinement, she seemed friendly. “Have you always lived in California?” I asked.
“All but the 10 years I lived in China,” she answered. “I went to China to teach English. I didn’t know a soul there, nor could I speak a word of the language of the people I was going to teach. I was supposed to teach for a year and ended up staying there for 10 years.”
We chatted about her work in China until we heard the train whistle.
As the train moved briskly toward Los Angeles, I thought about the hour and half we had spent on I-5, a few days before, crawling in the same direction. In about 20 minutes, the train pulled into LA’s Union Station. We gathered our luggage and tried to catch up with a tram, stopped near by. But it started moving before we reached it.
As we carried part of our luggage into one of the tunnels, I made a mental note: In the future, only bring luggage that has wheels. The tunnel was long, and there was no signage. When the tunnel we were walking in intersected with another tunnel, we just followed those around us and turned left. We hadn’t gone far when we came to an enclosed area that appeared to be a ticket counter. Stopping there, an agent directed us to the waiting area, just to the right.
The beautiful Spanish waiting room was large, and although without air conditioning, was still comfortable. Most of the chairs had peeling yellow leather but were still comfortable. (On a visit to the station a few years later, we found all the seats had been refurbished.) We had about an hour to wait until time to board the train, which originated at LA.
A few minutes later, the Baton Rouge couple, whom we had traveled with on Sunset Limited 1, came through the front entrance of the station and sat down near us. I asked her if she knew if The Refrigerator Kid and his grandmother had been traveling with the reunion group or wedding party on the trip out.
“He and his grandmother were traveling alone,” she said. “I didn’t know them. He was a great big kid, but he acted like a little kid a lot of the time.”
“He looked like a very lonely kid,” I said. She agreed that he probably was lonely.
As we talked, we noticed a line forming in front of the ticket counter. We gathered our luggage and joined the line. While we were waiting in line, my son told me that as soon as we were told to board, he was going to run to get the seat with the electrical outlet. We had learned on the way out that there was only one outlet in each car. (On all the trains we’ve traveled since this trip, all the seats had electrical outlets.) Some kids had the seat with the outlet on the way out and kept their techno toys plugged in all the time. We had to charge phones in the outlet downstairs.
As soon as the boarding announcement was made, my son sprinted off down the tunnel. I hoped he knew where he was going. The rest of us were moving much slower, as we lugged and rolled luggage. When I got to the train and boarded, I saw my son already seated with his headphones on and playing a DVD on his laptop. I put my luggage in the bin overhead and sat down next to him
A couple with three young blonde daughters took seats behind my family. The husband said they were from Fresno and had spent the night on a train traveling to Los Angeles. He said he was a first grade teacher, and his family was traveling with him to Orlando to attend a teachers conference. They would be taking the train to New Orleans, and then renting a car for the remainder of the trip. While in Orlando, they planned to take the girls to Disney World. All three girls, who appeared to range in age from about 4-8, were daddy’s girls and began fussing about who would sit next to daddy. He worked out a rotation for sitting with him, and the girls returned to good humor. They were all excited about riding on the train and about visiting Disney World.
A Buddhist monk sat down alone in the seat in front of my son and me. He was dressed in a garment that looked like a robe and was barefoot. He was traveling with an Asian couple who were riding in the adjoining car. The three of them were going to Houston. This couple would come back periodically and check on him. They also brought him food. The monk only left his seat to go downstairs to the restroom.
As the train began slowly moving, we retraced our route into the city the week before. When the train went by the apartment buildings that The Refrigerator Kid had called the ‘hood,’ I noticed a converted school bus sitting in the parking area. Painted on the side of the bus was ‘Dream Center.’ Nearby was a volleyball net, and a group of kids, some looked like college students, were playing volleyball. I remembered the name, ‘Dream Center’ from an episode of ‘Oprah,’ with the founders of Dream Center talking about their work with Katrina victims who had relocated to Los Angeles. I found it interesting that volunteers of Dream Center had come to the ‘hood’ to play volleyball with kids, instead of taking the kids out to another location to play.
When the train stopped at Ontario, a young couple with a tow-headed toddler boy boarded and took seats behind the Fresno Family. The husband was an Air Force pilot, stationed at Laughlin Air Force Base at Del Rio. They had traveled to Ontario to attend a wedding anniversary celebration. The wife, who was pregnant and four weeks away from her due date and not allowed to fly, had her blonde hair pulled back in a pony tail. She was wearing khaki shorts and a sleeveless blue top. The couple said they had enjoyed the train trip out, and their son was very excited about riding on a train. Each time the little boy walked through the car with one of his parents, he was all smiles. Since the Air Force Couple had the last seat in the back of the car, the wife made a pallet in the extra space at the end of the car for herself and the little boy to take naps and to sleep at night. She said she had been sleeping on a pallet at home to relieve back pain.
Almost as soon as the train left the Ontario station, it stopped again, near the Ontario Airport. A car attendant had come through with DVD player rentals. The Air Force Couple rented one and so did the Fresno Family. During our two-hour stop waiting for three freight trains, they watched a movie.
In front of me, the Monk took out a small bag that held thin strips of leather. He began weaving strips of leather together. It wasn’t long before he had completed a bracelet that he gave to the toddler of the Air Force Couple. He continued to weave those thin strips of leather into bracelets. He made a bracelet for each child in our car, including my two children.
Finally, the train began moving again. It was still daylight when we reached Palm Springs, but we were already three hours behind schedule. As we moved slowly through the California desert, I lost count of the number of times we stopped for freights. After the sun went down, lights from homes and business stretched across the desert as far as I could see. Yes, this was a different kind of desert.
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