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Click on each photo below for a larger image,
or
CLICK HERE
for a slideshow of all the below photos.
We are flying to our vacation house in Orange County, California. We plan to spend a few more weeks there before heading back to our home in Vancouver, Washington.
Orlando International Airport (MCO) seems to be a very nice airport. Above is the view from where we were sitting in a restaurant to have breakfast before we boarded our flight. The price for both our omlette and coffee were quite reasonable unlike most other airports.
Knowing that my flight would arrive into Orange County at 3:20 PM, I realized I might have a difficult time getting to the monthly gathering of the Rail Travel Meetup group at the Santa Fe Express Cafe on the platform of the Fullerton Amtrak Station. Our flight arrived into the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana (SNA), California, on time, but by the time we got our luggage and took an Uber to our house, we didn't arrive there until about 4:20 PM. After bringing in our luggage and driving through heavy rush hour traffic, I didn't get to the the rail travel gathering until about 5:20 PM.
If you have a sharp eye, you may have noticed the above photo of California highways and traffic was taken from inside a Tesla Model X. I purchased my first Tesla in 2013 and this particular Tesla Model X in 2016. It was one of the first 300 Tesla Model X manufactured. I am a huge fan of Tesla vehicles and even created a website, TeslaTouring.com, where I have posted many of my long cross-country Tesla road trips as well as posting reports and photos from others of Tesla events and travels.
I used to be a huge rail travel enthusiast, especiall traveling the nation by Amtrak. I have traveled over 300,000 miles on Amtrak and written many travelogues with photos about all of my travels. CLICK HERE to see those travelogues and photos. It was this love of rail travel that got me to create the TrainWeb.com website in 1996 where I provided a platform for many other train enthusiasts to share their interests with their own websites for free. So, if you were wondering why at the top of every CruiseRookies.com web page it says "A Silver Rails Web Site", my original love of rail travel is where the "Silver Rails" comes from. Also, the "RR" icon in the web page tab and in the header of the page are the "RR" from the middle of "silveRRails" and also stands for "RailRoad."
In two of the above photos you can see the Amtrak Southwest Chief. This train just originated in Los Angeles less than an hour ago and will terminate in Chicago on Thursday after stops at many cities and small towns across the nation, including La Plata, Missouri, the home of SilverRails. It is also a town where my wife and I own a vineyard and winery, the SilverRailsWinery.com. CLICK HERE for more information. This same train shown above will travel right between our vineyard and our winery and be heard from inside our winery tasting room on Thursday morning!
The Amtrak Southwest Chief train operates every day in both directions. Also in one of the above photos you can see the Fullerton Amtrak Station. The four windows on the second floor of that building are actually the windows of what was my TrainWeb.com office for 9 years, from 1996 to 2005. We had a great view of all the trains through the station for all those years. CLICK HERE to view photos of our office from that time.
At about 9 PM we headed to one of our usual hangouts when we are in Southern California, The Fling Cocktail Lounge. They have live music every night from 9 PM to 1:30 AM except Monday. On Tuesday they have the Trailer Park Amigos, sort of a country rock band. They also have a number of people come up from the audience and either sing, play an instument along with them, or sometimes replace one of the guitar players in the band for a song or two. The rest of the week they have classic rock cover bands. For more information see their fan website at: TheFlingCocktailLounge.com. This is actually a website that I put together for them. They have their own website and Facebook page, but neither has been updated for years and provides very little contact information about them. This is one of the few late night live music spots near my Anaheim Hills house and I just wanted to help them grow their business so they can continue to do what they do.
Currently the only cruise we have planned is a 32 Day South America Cruise, March 4, 2024 to April 5, 2024, on the Sapphire Princess. Daily reports and photos from that cruise will be posted at: CruiseRookies.com/2024c04a.html. Please follow us on that cruise! Also please visit the main page of CruiseRookies.com to see all the photos and reports from our prior cruises. Thanks again for visiting!
Click on each photo above for a larger image,
or
CLICK HERE
for a slideshow of all the above photos.
If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
