[PRCo] Re: Another trip

[Fred Schneider]

This really does not belong here.  But since it's here, I took six weeks last
summer to look at the west ... drove through Pittsburgh, Detroit, Sault St.
Marie, around the north side of Lake Superior, Ft. William, WInnipeg, Calgary,
Vancouver, Portland, Lassen Nat'l Park, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Los
Angeles, San Diego, Perris, Las Vegans, Zion Canyon, Salt Lake City, Arches
National Park, Glenwood, Silver Plume (got some great pictures of the
reconstructed narrow gauge loop bridge), Fort Collins (Birney, Brake shoes, hair
cut), Denver, St. Louis, and home.  It wasn't stressful but I found that what I
could do in three weeks at age 30 takes six weeks at age 63.   And I did it all
in a Volkswagen ... the Passat is their largest car and quite comfortable on a
trip.

Knees haven't been a problem since the surgery two years ago.  Problem has been
the back pinching a nerve, and that should be OK now.   There is a potential car
problem ... the car has 108,000 on it now when means about 130,000 by the time I
leave.  That sounds like the time, if it hasn't happened already, to replace the
clutch before leaving home.   I think I've actually signed on a tenant for the
right seat.  (My wife has already rejected the trip.  I would expect she will
disappear to a Florida beach to turn herself brown.)

It is amazing just how many new LRT lines have been built and opened in the last
10 months:  Los Angeles to Pasadena, the Plano extension in Dallas, the north
line in Portland, Minneaplis and Houston already have cars on the property,
Sacramento and San Diego are constructing extensions, Charlotte is turning a
heritage line into a full blown car line, and New Orleans has done a whole lot
since I was last there in 1979.
And maybe it will be possible to work the some antebellum Mississippi Delta
plantation homes into the trip ... and the Alamo ... an Big Bend National Park
and even Glacier National Park.  And North Dakota, which is my 48th state to
conquer.

Fredbruhn at aol.com wrote: