Up at 4:30 a.m., and by 5:00, we are heading out to the car to drop off a couple of things before boarding our train that’s scheduled to leave at 5:20 this beautiful morning. Before that though, we needed to stop at the front desk here at La Posada Hotel and hand off our room key and check out. In passing, I asked about what time last night’s Amtrak finally pulled in, “It didn’t show up until after 10:30 p.m., and this morning’s train is already going to be over 2.5 hours late.” Oh no, “We’re on that train!”
We now know why Amtrak is so unpopular. If we could be certain we’d be arriving at our destination in Las Vegas, New Mexico before the restaurants closed, that would be one thing, but then, in consideration of returning to Winslow for our drive home on Sunday, if we were late three hours or more getting back here with another three hours ahead of us to drive home, we might not return to Phoenix before 1:00 a.m.
Talking to the attendant at the hotel’s front desk and to another guest out here trackside, we learned that freight has priority on this route. So, we sit here having a coffee and contemplate our options. This is lamentable as there is no refund for our train tickets, only a voucher can be had. We also don’t know if tonight’s lodging accommodation can be canceled without incurring the full cost. There’s also the idea that if tomorrow’s train is late, we might return to Winslow without any dinner options aside from a frozen burrito at a gas station. We are stuck in a sucky decision that isn’t fun, and we are more accustomed to fun than suck.
The decision to cancel the train and the hotel seemed to be the best option, though if the hotel in Las Vegas won’t refund us, we could also drive up there today. I called The Plaza Hotel and the young man who answered informed me that in consideration of the train failing us and that it was still so early, they’d refund our money. We also now have an Amtrak voucher of uncertain value but hope we might throw it at a ride this summer between San Diego and San Luis Obispo along the coast of California, though we’ll confirm the frequency of late trains on that route.
About the rest of today, we’ll head over to Flagstaff shortly to visit the arboretum and maybe the museum before going home. While there’s some minor sense of defeat, we shouldn’t really sulk too much, as even a single overnight adventure qualifies as something a whole lot better than sitting around doing a bunch of nothing.
This is the train we won’t be boarding because America doesn’t give a damn about sustainable transportation and capitalizing on its exquisite landscape via rail. As a people, we no longer think about a future as we are distracted by trying to survive the moment while maintaining absolute control and avoiding all things that smack of socialism but contradictorily embracing thoughts of totalitarianism. America smells more and more like a house on fire, but we can’t see the flames through the smoke. If you wonder how I can write something so hyperbolic just because we are skipping out on our first opportunity to ride the Amtrak, you’ve not read my previous few thousand posts to better understand where this is coming from.
But there are options such as stopping to smell the flowers, admire the flowers, and photograph the flowers. Then you get back in the car and accept that the plans have changed because they were never set in stone anyway.
Strike this from the proverbial bucket list: we’ve finally made it out to the Flagstaff Arboretum.
Well, this is interesting as I’ve never seen something like this before 56 tubes holding water that absorb the heat of the day and release it overnight to help regulate a more stable temperature in this Horticulture Center.
Only about 50 acres of the 200 owned by this non-profit are under cultivation due to the obvious: lack of funding or donations. What could be a significant draw for visitors simply isn’t, as they don’t offer craft beer, wood-fired pizza, or big-screen TVs featuring live mixed martial arts of badass people kicking the shit out of each other.
Nope, they have plants, flowers, and trees. And trees don’t fight.
But get this: mature ponderosa pine trees offer the scent of vanilla, or maybe they smell more like butterscotch? Since Caroline learned this on a recent trip, she’s been insisting we stick our noses into the bark to see if we can sniff out the elusive aroma.
And there it is: on a somewhat hot day when the sap is running, we agree that we can both catch the scent of butterscotch; wow!
We will now test this on every ponderosa pine tree we run across to ensure this one wasn’t artificially scented to fool us.
Back at the parking lot, we chowed on the lunch we’d packed for our train journey and called it quits for the weekend. All in all, it was a beautiful, quick out-and-back trip away from the desert and, strangely enough, our last travel until the last day of the month.