I borded the Cost Starlight train in Seattle at 09:35 on Firday August 24th prepared for my 35 hour starlite coastal ride. We rode through Washington and down into Oragon. The name of the train promised me plenty of Cost and Starlight and I had driven this route  up until Klathmouth Falls last year on the way to Burningman so i did not pay close attention to the scenery for most of the first day instead i explored the actual train. As it turns out, there was no coast, and only minimal starlight. The highlight of my train journey was when the horrible parents sitting next to me decided to subdue their 3 year old daughter with music as their endless screaming was not working. They placed the headphones on her ears and moments later the otherwise quiet train car was filled with a tiny voice singing Baby you can drive my car…”hours later she would make me and half the train car laugh when she started singing Soul Aslyum 

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow Im neither here nor there

Her 3 year old mind could not understand just how right she was… Sometime between 02:00 and 05:00 Saturday Morning a freight train broke down on the track in front of our train and we sat just outside of Redding California for 3 hours.  Unfortunatly our costal starlight train can only travel 55 mps. And asthe day proceeded we  continued to tack on more and more hours of lateness. I was prepared to be a little late. But when the already 5 hours late train arrived in Salinas and we were told  there had been an accident down the rail line and that part of the track had been ripped up and the estimated  repair time would be 5 hours. YAY! I decided this was a good time to go outside to get some air. And its a good thing i did as i walked out looked around and discovered the bag i had checked in sitting there. I was told that since i had inquired about getting off at an earlier stop (Van Nuys) instead of LA my bag was pulled with the people scheduled for that stop that were given a bus option. I took this as a sign and rushed to the bus that would then drive me the rest of the way south just before LA to Van Nuys. I got on the bus with another ocuple just as confused that was also told this bus owuld take them to Van Nuys. We were lied to. The bus then drove us 2 hours north to Merced where we boarded a fast train south. The new train was aparently having just as many problems but by this point we were happy to be moving in thr right direction and drunk with sleep depervation that we didnt care. 3 hours later we exited the train ( an hour late ) and boarded buses to our destinations. most of the original costal starlight crowded was bound for Santa Barbra, while me and a German couple was bound for Van Nuys. The bus ride was only 2 hours and i managed to sleep most of that. We arrived in Van Nuys at 03:13 sunday morning, 6 hours after we were due to originally arrive in LA. I stepped off the bus retreived my luggage and took a deep breath. The fumes from the  car fire up the road warmed my lungs. Ahhh…. I thought…. Welcome to L.A. and i wondered what had happened to the other passengers on the Cost Snail Starlight Train.

It seems i have already angered the travel gods and they are plotting against me. My train ticket to L.A along with my plane tickets are missing. I have not taken them out of this house, and i only once took them out of my room and that was weeks ago. I last saw them last week. The house has been very busy with lots of moving and clearing out. It is possible they were somehow thrown away, which seems odd but the other alternative is that someone took them, and that just doesn’t make sense either. As of now i have to re-buy my train tickets because Amtrak no longer reprints tickets. I am still waiting to hear back about replacing my plane tickets.

This is starting out in true Quinn travel style. What can go wrong probably will.