It was 47˚ and sunny when I arrived at the Fullerton, California, Santa Fe Station, not bad for December 6!  I boarded the southbound Surfliner with 78 others, joining 18 who boarded in LA, making this, the second FRPA/SCSRA outing, a total of 97 on this tour.  Douglas Stephens, Tour Coordinator, (DougDPS@ yahoo.com) informed me, as we rode together on the second level of our reserved Surfliner car along the sunny California coast,  that the earlier trip in October had been attended in greater numbers.   There were 172 passengers on that excursion which went to Santa Barbara with a bus on up to Solvang.

Doug introduced me to his boss, Gary Herod of Archer Travel in Melrose (GaryH@archertravel.com).  Gary filled me in on future FRPA/SCSRA trips including a Surfliner trip to San Luis Obispo which will include visits to Morro Bay, Hearst Castle, either SLO Mission or Santa Barbara Mission, and a bus back to Santa Barbara and the train home to Los Angeles or Fullerton.  Lunch will possibly be in Los Olivos at the Vineyard Inn.  Another future rail excursion will be a trip to The Grand Canyon including the Grand Canyon Railway to the rim of the canyon.  Finally, they are planning a rail trip to Las Vegas, staying a couple of days.

Lewis Columbus stopped by, seeing my TrainWeb hat, and said he loved the information on TrainWeb.com.  He had recently traveled to Chicago and was unable to fly because of a varicose vein operation.  He was able to reserve the handicapped room on the SouthWest Chief so he would not have to climb the stairs.  He said TrainWeb.com was the best train related site out there.  Nice to hear from satisfied users, Lewis!  He was on this excursion with his extended family.


.Seated near me on the upper level of the Superliner were E. Diane Rodriguez and Brian Armstrong.  We traded passenger train stories.  They had recently traveled to Chicago, returning via Glacier Park (the only National Park where Amtrak detrains) to Portland and back to Fullerton.  They mentioned how they enjoyed the Deluxe Bedrooms on Amtrak.  They had also been to the rim of the Grand Canyon on Amtrak/Grand Canyon Railway, and were very happy with accommodations, right down to the extra free hotel room in Williams because the returning train was extremely late picking them up.  I mentioned my recent trip to Mexico's Copper Canyon and how happy I was with S & S Tours who lead that trip.  I directed them to my Trainweb.com report on the same:  http://trainweb.org/carl


In San Diego, our group boarded two busses and were given a city tour before arriving at 11 a.m. opening time at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park.  During our city tour, our bus driver,  Don, took us through Gaslamp Square and pointed out Croce's, a night club owned by the late Jim (Time in a Bottle) Croce's wife.  Jim's son was performing there tonight.

We passed the new Padres baseball park near the convention center.  It is Petco Park, after the pet food manufacturer, and Don related that the Padres had been playing like a bunch of dogs the last few years.

Wyatt Earp spent some time in San Diego with his wife and two girl friends, Big-nose Kate and Edith.  As legend would have it, the two girlfriends got in a big fight and at the end decided they didn't want anything to so with Wyatt.  Guess this goes to show you, "You can't have your Kate and Edith too."

We soon came to Balboa Park.  Originally started by Kate Sessions, a  retired school teacher from San Francisco.  She got 1400 acres for the park and the stipulation was that she plant 300 trees a year.  She got ship's captains to help by bring in exotic plants from around the world and school children helped as well.  We passed the first tree she planted there as well as her statue nearby.

Balboa Park has 17 museums and originally the buildings were built as temporary buildings for a World Exposition which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal.

They were celebrating "December Nights" formerly "Christmas Nights," in the park.

We passed Spreckles outdoor organ where there are free concerts on Sundays on this largest outdoor organ.

Also, we passed the Open Air Theater which is under the San Diego Airport flyway.  Since it is open air, the landing planes are very close so when one arrives a red light goes on and the actors freeze until the green light comes on for them to continue when they can be heard.

At the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, the tour members enjoyed the excellent displays and running trains.  A special display was in session by Lego.  



For lunch, I found a Wendy's Hamburgers a half-block north of the hotel on the west (beach) side of Orange Avenue.  There I had lunch with Bob Gordon, an Auto Tech Instructor at Fullerton College, who was also on our rail excursion.  We had a delightful lunch together talking about our mutual interest, community college teaching in California.
Back to the bus at 2:15 pm, we drove back over the bridge to the Harbor Cruise pier.  Our harbor tour left at 3:00 pm.  First we looped north of the pier and saw a large cruise ship from London, who spent about 45 minutes in port before leaving.  Don, the announcer on the tour boat pointed out the 140 yr. old Star of India with large sails.  Don mentioned that port holes on these old ships were round for cannons to protrude through and fire.    Don also mentioned that the often seen patch over one eye of a sailor didn't mean many had lost one eye, instead a patch over one eye eliminates dept. of field vision and thus sea sickness?!


We passed the carrier #68, the Nimitz, painted the traditional haze gray like other navy ships because a ship of this color can't be seen on the horizon.

After one hour we changed ships for the southern harbor tour for the 2nd hour.  This is the second largest naval harbor to Norfolk, Virginia.

We observed missile ships with no right angles so radar can't bounce back, making them more stealth-like.

We passed the Harrier Carrier, #3 and the hospital ship, Mercy, with it's white paint and red crosses.  Mercy has 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, and 60 Intensive Care Units.

In answer to why are ships are always referred to as females, Dave replied they are always launched by females.

       

Your comments are always welcome.  E-mail:  Carl@trainweb.com