Riding the Rail

UPDATE: Find all my pictures in my Amtrak to San Francisco album.

I learned this last week Riding the Rail has two meanings, and I completed both of them. The one I would like to focus on though is my train ride from Omaha, NE to  Emeryville, CA.

July 27th 2012
It is now 11:30pm and my adventure begins and ironically I am exhausted already. All the packing playing celebrating, laughing, crying, and reflecting has exhausted me. I hope sleep does not evade me on the train.

July 28^th 2012

Yesterday I started a journey, one that I’m not sure where it will take me, but the one thing I do know is that I will learn a lot, meet new people, and hopefully understand where I am supposed to fit in the big world.

While I am writing this entry I am on the Zepher Amtrak headed to Emeryville, CA.

 This is my first time on a train and the furthest I have gone completely by myself. 

WOW the mountains are truly a spectacular site to see. Coming from Iowa it is truly a site to see how much man has accomplished to live in so many different places. I think school can only teach you so much about what engineers do, and then the marvels of the world can say the rest.

I was listening to a guide on the train and they were talking about how much work has gone into building the tracks and how they truly have shaped America. I have already known this, but to see it first hand, out of a text book is a humbling experience. The time, effort, money, and lives lost to accomplish a task we think so little of today. 

They talked about a tunnel that was 6.1 miles long and before the tunnel and the train were built it took 10 days to get over the summit of the mountain and now it is only 10 minutes! Can you imagine? 

Atmospheric pressure. Awesome. Unfortunately, the food my sister Erin packed for me was not quite enough to hold me over, but it helped majorly with cost because prices on the train are astronomical! I went to the dinning car to eat for dinner and the cheapest thing on the menu was $15! I had the chicken which was actually really tasty but it was not worth $15.75. It got me through the first day though. :)

The windmills remind me of home...

July 29th 2012

I cannot believe that I only got 4 hours of sleep last night. Late stop last night, early stop this morning and the time difference is starting to get to me. Oh and sleeping in a chair 2 nights in a row isn't a super awesome experience. 

I woke up to a new area, no longer the Colorado feel, but Nevada, dry dead Nevada. This was by far the most boring part of the trip. The one thing I did notice though was irrigating. In the midwest you hear of it, but you never really see an extreme case.

It really made me appreciate the midwest when I saw this. After sleeping through Nebraska, waking up to Denver, seeing Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, Reno, Sacramento, I was finally in the Bay Area.

A train over the water! Train on the bridge! Awesome! I was actually extremely excited about this. To see old technology next to new, coexisting and doing their each unique purpose. Did I mention that the bridges in the Bay area are amazing? I will have to learn about the structures and how they continue to stand with the two fault lines in the area- truly an engineering marvel to me.

There is so much traffic here! we just had 10 lanes converge to 4! The bay bridge that connects Oakland to San Francisco is a double decker bridge which means traffic goes west on the top level and east on the bottom. Apparently this didn't hold up well with the 1989 earthquake and so now they are building another bridge parallel to the first on on the east side.. Extremely interesting.

July 30th 2012

I am off the train now, had dinner with Lisa Engler last night, walked home to see more of San Fran, and had a great night sleep. Things have slowed down now and I can breath. I have today completely free and start orientation tomorrow for the school I will be volunteering at. Then next week I head down to Los Angeles for Vincentian Service Corp orientation. Hopefully once all that is done I will be able to tell you all a little more detail about what I will be doing here!

I'm here!

Plan and simple, I made it to San Francisco with no complications. I'm currently on my phone so this post will be petty short. I got all of my bikes and luggage into my new place and was able to take a shower after a 43 hour train ride (more to come on that later). Unfortunately the people that were living here before me are still not moved out, so I will be in a room on the main floor for a week before moving into my room on the top floor. Hectic! More I'm headed out for dinner with Lisa Engler to welcome me to SF! More to come later friends!

Life is moving faster

Life is moving faster and faster for me now.  July 1st came around and I knew after that, there was no turning back for my life. And when July 15th came by, I was pretty much booked until I start my new adventure. Then this last weekend came, and it hit me. I’m leaving.

I think there are 3 times in a person’s life that you truly see how people feel about you. They are the death of a loved one, marriage, and moving. I have a lot to say about all three, but in light of recent events in my life I will stick with moving.

My whole life I have always thought that there was something more out there for me.  I have always had my head in the sky, wondering what was next. I’m still not sure if this is a boy’s fantasy or if it’s a mans goal, but the thing I am sure about is I will not give up. As I have told many in my life, I believe I have been given a unique opportunity and I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers. I am single, I don’t have any debt that needs to be paid immediately, I’m not tied down by a job, I don’t have any “stuff”,  my family is healthy, and so am I. I truly  can do anything I want to do, and I feel morally obligated to do so. If any one of those factors was false it would be a lot easier to make excuses to stay.

Despite this being my decision, it has impacted so many people... something I never really saw coming. In the last few weeks I have had many conversations, celebrations, “one more” drinks, laughs, and tears. The thing though that I have noticed the most is the  honesty in people, including myself. I have learned so much about my friends, my family, and myself recently and I credit that with me leaving. I think we get so caught up in our own everyday lives we don’t take that time to sit with those we love (including ourselves) and just have a conversation with each other and truly be interested in what the other person feeling. With ourselves, I think  sometimes we get so scared of change that we pass off those chances to try something new, meet someone new, doing something crazy, or just doing something as simple as talking to “that girl.”

I learned from a great friend of mine that the community around you will truly shape the outcome of your life. I have truly enjoyed all the conversation I have had with everyone in my life these last few weeks. You hauve made my life what it is... I mean its not everyday you see a catholic spontaneously organized drinking triathlete who’s past times include blowing on a trumpet, abusing his body in the heat, and praising God in a devoted way while continuing to progress in school and nerdy activities and in the cracks of all that quotes Scrubs That 70s Show, Star Wars, The Office... and still has some time for mtv.... I owe this all to you, the good AND the bad.

I challenge all of you to continue to living life to it’s fullest and continue to have intellectually stimulating conversations (between the dumbs ones) with others I hope to sykpe you soon to see your shining robot face over the world wide web!