Disaster and Rescue

After the washout of the Empire Builder earlier in the trip, we were re-routed on to the California Zephyr out of Sacramento to Chicago. Some scrambling meant that I was able to save most of our trip, losing only a day in Chicago and half a day in Niagara Falls. (It would turn out to be worse than that, but I'll explain why later.) We'd also have to ride straight through to Buffalo, making for 4 nights on the train, in coach. Not an ideal situation by any means, but okay. So, after an evening in Seattle that Amtrak still refused to pay for, we grudgingly boarded the Coast Starlight back south to California, expecting an early morning transfer to the Zephyr the next day. We settled in and I got to doing some blogging.

My blogging was interrupted, however, about halfway between Portland and Salem, OR. The conductor came by to ask me if I had received a call from Amtrak. It seems that some of her other passengers had been called and informed that the Zephyr that we were trying to transfer to would be cancelled due to flooding, and that buses were on hand in Salem to return passengers to their origin stations. I told her that, no, I hadn't received such a phone call, and that I really hoped that I wouldn't. Sure enough, three minutes later, I received just such a phone call. I got on the phone to Amtrak's Customer Relations department, who informed me that they'd be happy to bring me back to Seattle. I informed them that there was nothing for me in Seattle, and that returning me there was tantamount to tossing me onto the streets, and they refused to provide any sort of accomodation in Seattle for me. They also offered to deliver me to Denver, where they would also leave me to my own devices. I informed the agent that I would not be leaving the train until I had either a place to sleep or a plan to get to Chicago, and hung up.

Salem, OR came and went, and most of the people in our car emptied out onto the waiting buses. (Amtrak, on long-distance trains, seats passengers by destination. Our car was all Sacramento passengers, and 90% of them were Empire Builder refugees heading for Chicago.) We stayed, and I tried different tacks with Amtrak's customer relations agents. Nothing worked. I was finally re-routed via the Southwest Chief, but that train (the only remaining route from the west coast to Chicago) was so overbooked that the agent was unable to get me aboard earlier than 5 July. (It was 27 June.) That, of course, was when I would be able to board the train- it wouldn't get us to Chicago until the 7th, or to New York (our eventual destination at that point) until the 8th. This itinerary would have us cooling our heels in Riverside for a solid week, and would eat Chicago, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal, and most of our visit to New York City (and therefore, most of our visit with my best friend, who is currently in exile in Brooklyn). We were both devastated by this outcome, but since we didn't have the money for a flight or bus to Chicago, we were resigned to booking it.

I then, fatefully, texted my mother about our situation. She expressed incredulity about the awfulness of Amtrak's customer service (unsurprisingly- I can't quite believe it myself), and asked if there was anything she could do. I said that, barring a last-minute flight, there wasn't. Surprisingly, she replied with "Your dad and I will look into things- give me some airport options," which I did. At this point, we were in Eugene, OR, and about to lose cellular service for the spectacularly isolated stretch of track over the Cascade range, so (not thinking that much would come of it), I told her I'd call when we were back in cell range.

When I called her, she informed me that my grandparents were prepared to foot the bill to fly us to Chicago the next morning, and that I should arrange to get off in Oakland. Who am I to argue? (Thanks again, Grandma and Grandpa!)

The next morning, we arrived in Sacramento nearly an hour early. I took the opportunity to get off and stretch my legs. By the time we were in Oakland, however, we were magically half an hour late. Somebody, someday, will have to explain to me how that works. My grandparents picked us up from the station and took us out to breakfast at a wonderful breakfast place called Dell's in their town of Castro Valley. It's the sort of dive that many towns have- decor that hasn't been updated since the place opened, cash only, but phenomenally good and phenomenally cheap food. We chatted about what we'd seen so far, and the abysmal treatment we'd received at Amtrak's hands, and headed back to their place to relax and wash up for our 14:00 flight. We also made use of their laundry machines, which turned out to be a tremendous mistake. I thought that two hours would be enough for a load of laundry, but we were running later than everyone concerned would have liked when we finally got the clothing out of the dryer. They dropped us off at the airport, and (after thanking them profusely once more) we headed off to our gate.

Our flight was overbooked, and we were subject to the usual requests for volunteers to be bumped. The offer was tempting enough, but after our recent troubles Dani wasn't feeling lucky enough to give it a try. We boarded the plane nearly last in line, and weren't able to find two seats together. A tip to everyone who fills in the window and aisle seats on a sold-out plane- if you see a couple come down at the last minute, it'd be kind of you to move and let them sit together. As-is, we were both sitting in middle seats, and two rows apart from one another. We tried to keep the shouting back and forth to a minimum, but there was an instance in which I dropped my sunglasses in the lap of the gentleman between us. The flight itself was rather miserable- four hours of flying through a thunderstorm, listening to the cries of at least two clearly distressed infants. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for earplugs! However, when it was over, we were back in Chicago and back on our originally-scheduled itinerary... or so we thought.

You see, when we were first re-routed, we changed our reservations for the Lakeshore Limited from Chicago to Buffalo. Considering the ease with which we'd changed them, and the opening we'd made with our own cancellation, I thought that it would be relatively simple to switch them back again. Not so! It seems that, not only had the 30 June train (which was our original reservation) filled up, but the 1 July train (our first re-route) had as well! Our reservations had been changed to the 8th of July, and changing them back was going to be... problematic. We decided to take the El into downtown Chicago, get some sleep, and deal with it first thing in the morning.