Greetings from La Casa de Whooz.
Yes, Valued Reader, Team Whooz is safe and somewhat sound back in southern California (though Executive Assistant Alice will be heading north soon).
Following a final grueling push we staggered through the door and promptly collapsed. Only after experiencing the regenerative effects of several days passed in a quasi-vegetative state have we revived sufficiently to churn out a few words. First among those few is the observation that taken altogether, and in my view at least, the trip was - how you say - OVERLY eventful. Still and all we're more or less in one piece after all the experiences, which were positive on balance.
This is the first - and please let it be the last - time I've had to credit medical professionals among those who helped make a successful Team Whooz adventure happen. So because I'm a big baby when it comes to pain, a special shout out goes to the doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Divison of Orthopaedic Trauma, who wrote prescriptions for enough painkillers to let me complete the trip without howling in agony 24/7.
No thanks at all, though, to the cabby who drove us to the ER after the accident that broke the arm, for choosing a cobblestone street as part of the route. Holy boundless bouncing pain, Batman!
As to this ongoing rant, far from ending reportage we'll move from the mindless blather of the daily diary dispatch mode to the mindless blather of the ill-considered endless recap mode. What an exciting prospect!
Going To Gathering VI began with a ride aboard Pacific Surfliner 784, OXN-LAX, to connect with Southwest Chief train 4. With a Surfliner arrival of 4:55 p.m. and a Chief departure of 6:15 we were mulling until nearly the last minute whether we wanted to risk such a tight connection to begin the trip, knowing that we'd be up the creek sans paddle right off the bat on the H-room front if there was a Surfliner failure. After going round and round with the alternatives we rolled the dice and successfully rode 784.
Traveling fairly lightly by Team Whooz standards, we herded our bags from the Surfliner onto the platform to which we expected train 4 to be backed from the shops for boarding and departure. We didn't bother to enter the station at all, since that woulda been a major schlep down the ramps, through the tunnel, and into the station, only to have to reverse the whole exhausting procedure for boarding in just a few minutes' time. Better to stay above in the afternoon sun, occupied with testing the cameras by shooting the plentiful Metrolink and Metro Gold Line rush hour activity, augmented by a little Amtrak action as well. Alice has a new Fujifilm X10 she was taking out for the first time, so her shutter finger was particularly itchy.
During the boarding riggamarole I was pretty sure I recalled our sleeping car attendant from some previous trip, and the memory - though vague - wasn't positive. While he initially proved me wrong to the extent that I came to believe I was mistaken about my vague memory, in the long run - memory or not - over the course of the run to Chicago the guy didn't really cut the mustard. I had been right in the first place.
On the whole the LAX-CHI segment of Going To Gathering VI was highly enjoyable. It had been quite some time - since going to Gathering V, in fact - without Team Whooz having been aboard a long distance train for a long distance (we did a couple SWC hops back and forth over Raton Pass in May during "South By Southwest Chief"), so there was an enjoyable period of reacquaintance with extended riding of the rails. By the same token there was reacquaintance with the sensation of regaining one's "land legs" after that extended period on the train. I'd really forgotten about that part!
Chicago arrival was late largely due to a fire in some small town near Plano, Illinois. We were informed via (barely audible in the H-room) P.A. system that we had to hold in order to maintain a clear grade crossing for firefighting equipment, or for them to fight the fire or something like that. When we finally got cleared and rolled through we saw that the fire had heavily damaged a building right beside the tracks; firefighting equipment and people all over.
Greetings from Chicago, where the first order of business will be relocation from this hideous noisy rathole near Midway airport to more suitable lodging downtown. Until the move is accomplished it's well nigh impossible to even think straight.
That was posted near the beginning of this rant, on 9-30, and is as good a stopping point now as it was then.
Photos:
Going To Gathering VI, Day I - New tracks and platform at L.A. Union Station, the bustle of a busy rail terminal, and riding the rails again at last as Team Whooz got underway for what would prove to be an overly eventful journey.
Going To Gathering VI, Day II - Some shots through New Mexico on 9-28-10. Not many, though, cuz mostly Team Whooz was lounging and sightseeing in the Sightseer Lounge, from where the photography is notoriously poor.
From the top: 1) Not only passengers are boarding - baggage waits on vintage carts to be loaded into the vintage railcar that separates the meat from the chaff; 2) Underway at last, and shooting out the back of the Chief's last coach, we're passing the Metrolink platform at Commerce, some BNSF activity and locomotives, and empty intermodal buckets at one end of Hobart Yard; 3) Wreckage from a seemingly fairly recent derailment. Musta been a big one, cuz this kinda junk (literally!) was strewn trackside for a goodly distance, even at reduced speed; 4) Winding among the happening hills and killer canyons, headed for Lamy.
(Serendipity) , really Ugly Wheels! 
