February 14, 2007

We finally arrived in Los Angeles 12 hours after our scheduled arrival. The train had to turn around and go back to Tucson because of a freight derailment, further along, and we'd been put on a bus to LA, around the time that the train had intended to arrive.

"I HATE Amtrak!" the woman sitting in front of us spat in regular intervals. "What if I was gettin' married? What if I was the bride for a $30,000 wedding?" she invected to no one in particular.

I thanked my lucky stars that such a wedding wasn't happening, and that I was not her groom.

"I HATE AMTRAK!" she yelled.

Mark rolled his eyes at me.

"I mean, if you're in a hurry, you don't take the train," I said to Mark, sotto voce. He nodded. We watched the desert hills roll by, covered in windmills and peppered with a few houses and the occasional gas station.

The sun was descending by the time we got to the outskirts of LA, the stretching suburbs of suburbs of suburbs. The light shone through a layer of orange air that stirred a little anxiety in my chest. Smog.

Ten minutes from the station a skyscraper came into view with its lights turned on to create a heart, for Valentines' Day.

"That's the Metro building," said the LA native sitting behind us, his sausage-smelling breath wafting up with his words. A few people scrambled to the windows to try to take pictures.

The bus driver fumbled around the Amtrak station, not sure where to let us out. The natives finally sorted him out, and we disembarked into the cool night air. We went to the baggage claim and picked up our bikes and my massage table, where they'd been waiting for 12 days.

"You owe us a lot of money for these things," the shipping employee told me, leafing through a shipment log.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You gotta hand over a lot of cash before I can give these to you," he said. "They been here for like two weeks!"

"Oh, you mean $2 per item per day, right?"

"Oh," he said. "Well if you're not gonna argue with me, then I'm not gonna charge you." He closed the shipment log.

"Really?" I said, confused.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," he said cheerfully.

"Uh, wow, okay, thanks!" I said, probably sounding more disoriented than grateful. "He's not charging us," I said to Mark.

"That's awesome!"

"Yeah don't worry about it," the employee said again, enjoying himself.

Mark and I hauled the stuff outside and waited for Tom to come pick us up in his pick-up truck.

Mark went in search of water to refill the Nalgene, while I used my pocket knife to make salsa with the last of our tomatoes, some soy sauce, cilantro, a packet of onion condiment, and wasabi for spice. It was surprisingly tasty.

We took a picture of MooBoo, our travel mascot, against the heart of the Metro building. I wished my computer hadn't given up the ghost, the previous night. It would be nice to watch an episode of Boston Legal while we waited. But eventually Tom arrived, and all our stuff fit in the truck, and he drove us to our new home without incident.

It was a lot higher up the hill than GoogleEarth had said.

And by the way,

Wow, Hills.

In a daze, we dragged our belongings inside and met our old skateboarder dude roommates. They offered us peanut butter and jelly, helped carry a few things, and introduced us to the 13 year old Chocolate Lab that lives here part time.

Tom used the bathroom and then ran back to finish his Valentines' Day date with his girlfriend.

"See you soon, darlin," he said, kissing me on the cheek. "Later, buddy," he said to Mark, giving him a good looking hug.

Mark and I sat, dazed, for a little while, talking with our new roommates about the train and bus snafus, the grand journey-ness of it all, just trying to make sense. But after not too long we gave up on sense and opted for sleep on the double mattress left behind by the last occupant.

We laid out a sheet across the bed, and used our sleeping bags as blankets. Mike, one of the roommates, had lent us a couple pillows, which felt like pure luxury. It'd been a full month since we'd slept on a real bed.

And boy did we sleep.