March 22
Gusty was awake before I was. She was looking longingly out the train window at the buildings passing by. I wasn't sure what made it so special; to me it looked kind of dry and barren and the buildings weren't that much different than they had been in Oregon.
Before I could wish her a good morning, she turned around and saw that I was up, and her face lit up in a broad grin.
She kept her voice low to respect our sleeping companions, and started to tell me all the stuff she'd seen already, and then motioned me over to the window beside her.
I flew in a short hop to avoid accidentally stepping on Aquamarine or Cayenne, and sat down next to her.
She told me that she'd been awake since Sacramento, which was the capital of California.
I thought that since she was up and I was up we ought to go to the Viewliner car and get a better view of California, and she agreed with me. I was a bit surprised that she hadn't just gone up on her own, but maybe she didn't want to be alone.
We were just to the stairs when she remembered that she was only wearing her sleeping robe and had to go back to the room and get dressed. It seemed silly to me, and such an inconvenience to want to wear clothes all the time. Peggy was always changing from one thing to the other, too.
It took her nearly forever to get dressed, 'cause she'd pick one thing and then decide that she wanted to wear something else instead, and she kept getting distracted when a building went by the window, but she finally had clothes she thought were suitable, and we went up into the Viewliner.
The two of us were the first ones there, so we had our pick of seats. Gusty wanted to sit on the right side, because she said that we'd be able to see the ocean. That was something I'd been looking forward to, as well, so I took her advice.
By the time we got to Martinez, Aquamarine and Cayenne and Miss Parker had joined us. Miss Parker said that Mister Barrow was back in his room making arrangements on the telephone but would be along, and if we wanted to get breakfast he wouldn’t mind.
So we ate our breakfast while the train was coming up on Oakland, and were just finishing when it slowed down for the station.
Alongside the tracks, there were big flags on poles, and the buildings were nicely painted. Gusty was just staring out the window, her spoonful of oatmeal hovering forgotten above her bowl. The conductor announced that the train would be stopping for ten minutes in Oakland, and Gusty dropped her spoon, said that she was done, and rushed down to the door.
Miss Parker shook her head and asked if one of us wanted to join her. I was done with my breakfast, so I said that I would, and hurried down to find her, just in case she tried something dumb like jumping off the train while it was still moving.
She waited, but she almost crowded the conductor out of his position. She had her hooves up on the door when I got down the stairs and the conductor sort of pushed her back, so she just went to the other side and stared through the window.
When he finally got the door open and the little stepstool down, she hopped right off it and started dancing around on the platform, which of course made a bunch of people stare at her, but it was obvious she didn't care.
She wrapped her hooves around me and kissed me on the cheek and said that being in California was the most wonderful thing ever, and her mood kind of rubbed off on me a bit, so pretty soon she was cantering up and down the platform while I flew overhead, keeping pace with her.
It was warmer than anywhere we'd been yet, and I could smell the salt air. Seagulls were perched on lightposts and the edges of roofs, and they'd fly off when I got close and then circle back in case I'd accidentally dropped some food. Seagulls are weird like that. The ones who live close to land get really fat and lazy.
The two of us had made quite a spectacle of ourselves by the time we got back aboard the train. I noticed that Cayenne was watching from inside the car, but she didn't dare show her face on the platform while we were fooling around like a couple of schoolfillies.
We'd both hoped that we'd be along the coast from now on—we were so close!—but the train went back inland instead, and we were treated to dirt-covered hills instead.
They were kind of pretty, but not in the same way that Washington and Oregon had been. It was the kind of stark beauty that was nice to look at but why would anyone want to live there?
As we got further south, it got greener and the hills got further back (and they got greener, too). Then it got kind of dry again, and we went up into hills. We'd taken up seats on both sides of the car, so that we could go back and forth and look at the scenery on either side. That had been Mister Barrow’s idea.
I was glad we did. We went up into the hills and the highway that ran alongside us didn't, and it almost felt like we were flying. Unlike in the Space Needle, Gusty stuck her muzzle right up to the window and took in the scenery. I guess it made a difference to her that the train was only two stories tall.
The train went around a really sharp curve which the conductor said was called Horseshoe Curve. Cayenne laughed at the name, and then we all looked out the window at the front of our train making the curve.
I could tell that they were using some kind of artificial irrigation on the fields around their buildings, because those were a nice vibrant green and everything else was desert-y. Aquamarine said that it was kind of a waste, since humans couldn't eat grass. They'd do better to use the water on useful crops, rather than something decorative.
When we got out of San Luis Obispo, Mister Barrow told us that we'd be able to see the Pacific soon but he'd been saying that for a while, and I think Gusty was starting to not believe him any more. But then I saw off in the distance how it looked like the land was falling away, and I wished that the train windows could be opened, 'cause I know I would have smelled it.
The Pacific is gorgeous, and it only got more beautiful the closer we got. All of us had abandoned our chairs and just had our noses up to the window. I was starting to think that maybe Gusty was right about California after all. It hadn't seemed all that special before, but now that I was seeing what it had to offer, I was really liking it. We went along coastal bluffs and the track curved along to stay close to the shore.
We had to wait for a while just after we left Santa Barbara. There was something wrong on the tracks up ahead was what the conductor said, but he didn’t say what it was. Sometimes cows and stuff will wander onto the tracks and then the train has to wait until they move, so it was probably something like that..
I didn't mind all that much. We took the opportunity to eat dinner by ourselves. Miss Parker and Mister Barrow stayed in the Viewliner so that nobody would take our seats, which was really nice of them.
The train started moving while we had dessert, and it was kind of slow at first, but then it picked up speed again. After we’d been going for a little while, we passed a different Amtrak train that was sitting on a side track; Mister Barrow said that was the Surfliner.
We had the best view ever for the sunset. The train was nearly on the beach, and all of us watched in awe as the sun touched the ocean and then sank below. Everybody in the car was completely silent until the sun was all the way gone.
Just after that, the train turned inland, and as it got dark we went through bigger and bigger cities. Gusty didn’t want to leave the Viewliner to pack up her stuff, so Cayenne said that she’d do it for her, and Gusty gave her a great big hug and then just went back to looking out the window in wide-eyed wonder at all the buildings and lights of California.
I will never understand fans of california.
Well living here. Even if we have earthquakes, there is no season called earthquake :)
North to south California is 2000 miles, longest of any state. Frank Lloyd Wright said "if you stood the USA on end & shook it, California is where everything loose would fall.". They should see Disney Land.
Even if her obsession with California is weird, Gusty confirmed for cutest unicorn
Isn't Calfifornia the home of the Sequoias? Could be fun to see how Silver would react to giant trees...
Not exactly a typo, but...
For a second there, I was like "Why did the conductor drop her spoon? That's... oh, right." I'm not sure if that's just an unclear pronoun reference or if it's due to me being extra sleepy this morning.
7223380
I believe they have already passed them.
What surprises me was they could not see the ocean when they where in Oakland. That is almost on San Fan bay.
SLO got a mention!? Yay!
7223454 A missed occasion!
I tought the aera of distibution of the giant Sequoia (not the redwood, the other one), was more southward though.
7223267 As someone who's lived in multiple states, and currently resides in California...
California is the best state in the Union.
Hell, it's better than most other countries!
The only thing that REALLY sucks about it it is the higher tax rate you have to pay to live in SoCal, but it's SoCal, so you don't really mind.
7223528
I would rather live in a more geological stable aria the SoCal. I say give me a home where the buffalo roam.
7223380 yeah, it would, but the Sequoias are in the sierras, which are like four hours drive inland from SLO. And the redwoods are coastal, but up in the part of California where the train is way inland.
7223122 That's what I thought at first, that they were just using the gems as barter with Spike. But then the CMC extort gems from Spike to buy an electric hairdryer from a 3rd party, and Spike is pressured into donating a gem to the Filly Scouts for some sort of charitable fund. Mining town is probably a great example. I remember in Deadwood you could use dollars, or a pinch of gold. I suspect bits are the only "official" currency of Equestria, and you can only buy real estate and stock with bits, but everyone seems to have a recognize the relative worth of gems and be willing to take them for most day-to-day transactions. Let's say that gems are not on equal footing with bits, but they are more of a functional currency than say, bitcoin.
7223267 the interior sucks. hot, dry, arid and barren. The coast and mountains are nice though.
7223493 i know right. I would have loved to see them meet up with a Cal Poly pony.
Man, there's so much I would have liked them to see. But they are on a tight schedule. It's the classic debate. Should I see everywhere very briefly or spend a decent amount of time in one place.
Gusty is supplanting SG as cutest pony.
There are a few places where you wrote Mister Parker and I assume you meant Mister Barrow.
7223640 or maybe he meant miss Parker?
Or maybe it's a changelling that keep messing up it's deguise and changing sex?
I never really realized how much love I had for my home state of CA until an adorable unicorn was capering about on a train platform. And they passed through Oakland! That's several miles from where I lived until recently. It didn't make me feel homesick, but it did give me a serious case of WaFF to see Gusty enjoying the sights.
I wonder how Aquamarine felt about CA, with its being the seat of much US agriculture.
The thought of an earthquake terrifies me. Pretty sure I'd scream like a little girl.
No homeless people approached them in Oakland asking for handouts?
N.b. the Oakland station sits directly across from Alameda island, which effectively blocks the view of the Bay. You can probably see some of it as you go south towards San Jose, but the south San Francisco Bay is rather boring.
I hope they'll take a van up the Pacific Coast Highway on their return. So many beautiful things to see between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, and so wonderfully sparsely populated: Moro Rock and the Hearst Castle and the Purple Sand Beach in Big Sur and the seals. Maybe they could stop at Nepenthe for dinner and see the ocean illuminated by the moon rising over the coastal hills - one of my very fond memories of the area.
Uh... It's mostly fields up until Simi, which is only separated from LA by a really small mountain range. And LA is just gonna look like one big city that just gets denser the closer you get to Union Station.
I mean, yeah, the train goes through Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, and Moorpark, but it doesn't spend hardly any time in any of them. It cuts through Camarillo's narrowest point, going from strawberry fields to citrus, and then it sortof clips the back of Moorpark.
[source: This is the middle of my home area, and also the middle of the area I cover at work (I drive a schoolbus), which is somewhere north of 18,000 square miles]
7216394
Share the results! Preferably in a video.
Should that be "now on" or is it Sliver Glow having trouble with Text To Speech again?
Silicon Valley is a cool place. Everything else is crap. Including Hollywood.
Maybe San Francisco is okay, but only because of Emperor Norton.
And Irwindale, because sriracha.
7223528 as someone who's literally been around the world east to west, including california, it is not nicer than most countries except by the sheer technicality of how many tiny third world nation states there are. (I'm looking right at you Eritria)
It's overpopulated, overpriced, overlegislated, and overirrigated. Seriously, who decided to grow rice out there? Oh, and remember the rolling blackouts a few years ago? California is the posterchild for ambition's triumph over common sense, something the coming water crisis seems set to prove.
Assuming the san andreas doesn't just dump the whole thing in the sea.
7223665
I thought of that but the person is also referred to as 'he' in the same sentences.
fun fact, you know whats the purpose of a lawn actually is? They started as a trend of the French monarchy - the ones revolutionaries beheaded for being self indulgent assholes.
It exists purely as a status symbol that says, “I have land but I don’t have to use it for anything productive. I can invest time, money and resources in maintaining an entirely useless crop on land I’m not farming just because it looks pretty.”
Back in the 1950s and 60s in Australia when we (well...not me, i wasnt born yet) started getting large waves of Southern European migrants one thing the Italians and others would often so is buy a little suburban home, then tear out the ornamental flower beds and lawn and useless trees and plant fruits, vegetables, grapes and even olives. It was considered completely scandalous by their Anglo-Saxon neighbours because lawn was considered an aspirational thing and the ideal was to go from not needing a kitchen garden and having an ornamental garden to show how well you were doing.
yeah, totally not someone who thought his car was fast enough to ignore the "warning, train" blinking light
7224029
broodingdetective.com/shows/venice/s1/morbo.jpg
Even if faults worked that way (which, as Morbo would like to remind you, they don't), the San Andreas wouldn't do that. It's a strike-slip fault: the motion is along the fault, not across it. It'll eventually put San Francisco up by Los Angeles (well, the land associated with those cities...by the time that happens, H. sapiens will be long gone, let alone the cities), not out to sea.
7224424 another dream dashed by science.
Seriously though, good catch. I suspected I was misrepresenting things, but its good to have the better-informed on watch. I usually try to be accurate in my statements, so thank you for the correction.
Obsessive much Gusty? I wonder why she is so passionate about Cali? I've been through California, and I liked the scenery. I'm a fan of off road trucks, so I would love to drive through the diverse terrain that the natural side of Cali has to offer. Other than that, eh the rest is overrated.
7224529
To be fair, driving through Cali kinda sucks because the major interstates go through the most boring route.
That and its a gigantic state with tons of people, so a "drive through" won't really be enough to get even a minor point of view.
I mean shit, once you leave the buttes behind, the 5 is just the central valley... Which is dry and mostly flat with a few rolling hills and some ranches/farms. Its when you follow the coast by car and then further inland that it really shines.
Then again, I'm not sure where your from that someone hyped Cali so hard that its overrated to you. But then again, I've been asked at least once per vacation out of the state/country if I know x movie star or if I'm into surfing and shit like that.
7224529 Oh also, if your into offroading, go up towards Kennedy Meadows(further east than Strawberry) and the rocky terrain there is awesome since theres so much you can go to. Though word of warning, I've wenched a bunch of college kids' jeeps back on four wheels there, only go where you are comfortable with and know your machine.
You should listen to the pony. She knows what she's talking about.
Southern California; Welcome to LaLa Land; everything along the coast pretty much from north of Marin County south to San Diego. A place so crazy, the citizens are more than willing to tax businesses so highly that they are forced to either fold or move elsewhere.
7223441
Added a 'Gusty' for clarity.
7223640
I did. I have corrected them. (It gets confusing because I have a customer named Mr. Parker.)
7223952
Nope, that's me fat-fingering the keyboard.
7223879
I guess it's pretty obvious that I've never been to that part of California.
I spent many years in California, and I'm rather fond of it, but I'm very curious about Gusty's excitement.
7224702 I'm actually from Michigan. Many people I have met have commented how they would love to go to California. I've talked to various people and their opinions of the various places to live and I have gotten some feedback regarding the high cost of living, taxes, and the various other strict laws regarding emissions from said state. I've heard the governing side hasn't been the greatest (then again no state is perfect). Finally, Hollywood, nuff said. Not to mention the overall large amounts of coverage Cali gets in the general media on a daily basis. Then you mentioned the stereotypical type of questions you get asked and I can see that getting old quickly. Honestly, if not for these things Cali would be a great place to be.
7224879 well, it's close enough that I'm going "I can kinda see it" especially if I make the assumption that the entry cuts off right before the train actually gets to Los Angeles. See, there are two tunnels in that small mountain range I mentioned, which would make sort of a natural break, and if you saw the sunset before heading inland, it would be pretty dark by the time you got to Simi. Then, from the train I could see looking at the farmland, especially around dusk, as spaces between bigger and bigger cities, and the cross sections you would see would look bigger and bigger... But then, after the tunnels, LA just blows them completely out of the water.
The line in question brought to mind a quote from a comic strip I like
though in this case, it's not really cockeyed a'tall
7223267
As someone who lives in Cali I can sympathize. I have never seen what was so "great" about my state. Been here all my life and let me tell you the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" sure looks good.
Maybe I should move to where
7223528
lives he/she/it seems pretty happy wherever they are.
7224709 Im running a stock JK so I cant really do much. But yeah when I mean travelling around Cali I mean the back country dirt roads and some of the easier off road stuff. I know the highways can be a logistical nightmare.
7224029
7225176
Obviously, I can't speak to everyone's experiences in California, only my own.
Los Angeles, born and raised. Currently reside in the Inland Empire. I'm 30 Mins from LA, an hour away from the Mountains where I go Snowboarding every winter, an hour away from the beach, where I spend my summers surfing, an hour away from the desert where I go paintballing and off roading. It's warm all year long, highly diverse communities so all kinds of food, art, music.
I've been to other states and countries and I can honestly say I wouldn't live anywhere else...
But, again, that's just me
7225197
Monterey Park/East LA here. Was born in Torrance raised in Lakwood lived in Hawthorne for quite a while and now I am in the San Gabriel Valley. Perhaps personal experiences but I dislike living were I have lived.
I live in California an I can honestly say I hate it. Sky high rent huge taxes and idiotic politicians. Makes me pine for my native New England where at least people understand why you are a miserable bastard.
My best guess is that California is a wonderful place for those who are wealthy enough to live there. Money makes everything look better.
Gusty's Cali fangirling is really cute. Also, the fact she insists on wearing clothes all the time makes me suspect she has "gone native."
7226674
I don't think centigrams and decigrams are in common use, just decagrams in central europe. As I said, deci and centi get applied to liters (e.g. g/dL for % w/v, or cL for drink measurements), and centimeters are ubiquitous, but those prefixes don't tend to get applied to other units.
As for as other common SI units, here are some that even Americans use on occasion (and one that Americans usually don't use but is used all the time by everyone else):
degree Celsius (too globally popular to ignore)
second
ampere
volt
watt
lumen
I'd like to include the liter in this list, but it's actually a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI (like the minute or tonne).