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Stan gets his picture taken on the platform at Oakland station by the train's engineer.

The adventure begins
By Stan Morse
November 5, 1997

The Coast Starlight is taking me from Seattle to L.A., the first leg of a journey around the world.

I got some peculiar looks when I told people I was taking six months to circle the globe, alone. That "Why would someone in a wheelchair want to tackle an ordeal like that?" look.

But it's not an ordeal. It's an adventure. Of course there's work in it, especially with my paraplegia. But doesn't any true adventure require commitment, energy? The greatest mistake is selling yourself short by discounting your capabilities. I intend to grow old without having to say, "I wish I'd done that when I was younger." And being in a wheelchair? That makes it no less of an adventure. Maybe more of an adventure. It just requires a bit more planning and patience.

Seattle was overcast and cold at 10 a.m. when the train pulled out of Union Street Station. By Portland, the clouds were broken. At sunset, halfway through Oregon, the sun painted a scattering of westerly clouds brilliant pumpkin-orange, and the day had become a gem.

I discover that a funny thing happens on the train at night. With the curtains drawn, and the train in that smooth glide, it's hard to tell which direction the train is going. You know, of course, what direction the train has to be going, because you know where the locomotive is. But encased in the massive, insulating bulk of the train, it's hard to detect the small changes in speed, the rush of air, the rise and fall of outside noises. It's a nice metaphor for life. We all need daily clues to prove that we're moving in the right direction. A word of encouragement. A smile. A helping hand now and then.

Shortly, the porter will come to make up my bed. I wonder about falling out while I sleep. I'm used to a queen-sized bed, and this is a single. I assure myself that being lurched onto the floor is unlikely. Would they build beds like this if people kept falling out of them?

I want to be gently rocked to sleep by the "rhythm of the rails" (as the song goes). But for the last few miles, it hasn't been a "rhythm" at all, just squealing and groaning and kalunking, as we gain altitude and the rails curve to the contours of rivers, lakes and mountains.

I peek through the blue-knit curtains. Outside, it is dark as a coal box in a windowless basement. I pull the curtains tight, shutting out the night, and imagine how nice tomorrow's sun will look cresting the white peaks of the Sierras.

I end up sleeping soundly. Lying down, the train's movements are soothing and gentle, almost maternal.

When I awake there are no white-peaked mountains; only a line of low hills forming the eastern boundary of the Sacramento Valley. We have passed Mt. Shasta in the night, and the Sierra Nevada are too far east to be visible.

I squint at the pink sunrise, a fuzzy blur without my contact lenses, then snuggle back under the covers, reluctant to face the ordeal of a shampoo and "spitzbath" using the room's tiny sink. The prospect of having to rinse my hair one cupful of water at a time, while trying to keep suds from running down my back, makes it easy to snag a few more minutes of sack-time.

I want a shower. There is a common bath with a shower in the hall just outside my room. But the logistics are ugly. The door is too small to pass my wheelchair. There is no shower chair or bench. And there is no obvious way to traverse the few feet between the door and the shower, even if it there were a seat in the stall.

I was given what amounted to a lecture earlier in the day by the head porter -- after I'd asked about how I was supposed to shower -- on the danger of moveable chairs on trains, and why Amtrak didn't -- couldn't! -- supply them. The option he offered -- an overturned milk crate -- was far more dangerous than any chair ever could be. People sometimes have the strangest ideas about what might work for people in wheelchairs. A milk crate in that tiny shower brought visions of twisting or breaking a leg or bruising or cutting the skin on my rear. I decided to use the sink, and be safe. After all, my plan for this trip is to make do with available resources. Still, I'm not particularly happy. I love showering. But I try to let go of it.

I am beginning to feel changes in my attitude, my thinking process. Tentative, to be sure, but still . . . changes. The usual worries and concerns about travel have begun to fade. I'm beginning to feel "safe away," my term for being comfortable outside of the environment of familiar people and places and things we collect to make life seem secure. I can miss a shower here and there and still survive. I tell myself that a missed shower is probably one of the lesser burdens I'll bear on this trip.

I finally get up and face the challenge of the sink. It takes patience, and hooking my chin over the edge of the tiny stainless bowl, but eventually my hair is clean and my body washed, despite the train trying to roll my chair around the cabin while soap suds run down my face.

Mid-day, we stop in Oakland for 15 minutes. It's sunny and warm. Autumn is still young this far south. The leaves are still green, a few flowers are still in bloom.

The platform is only a few inches down, close enough that I can do a wheelie and drop onto it. It's a fun trick, and easier than it looks. I'm a show-off, at heart. This maneuver seems to give my porter, Larry, a twinge of angina. But when I land on the asphalt, still balanced on my tires, he smiles, and loses his "I'm going to lose my job" grimace.

I wheel down the platform, see a photo opportunity, and zoom back to the coach for my digital camera. Another wheelie, another grimace from Larry, and I'm quickly back in front of the train.

I recruit the engineer (stretching his legs) to take a picture of me, and show him where to stand, what I want. I figure if the engineer has my camera, it's unlikely the train will suddenly leave me behind.

I lean against the locomotive, and after a couple of tries the engineer takes a picture that looks good on the camera's tiny video screen. Happy, I return to my coach, just as Larry hollers, "All Aboard!"

We turn inland and enter the Salinas Valley. Steinbeck Country. I recognize the landscape from Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Red Pony. The Gabilan Mountains rise low and rolling to the east, sun-baked brown with a scattering of dark trees. Small farms, often with weathered outbuildings, divide up the valley floor. Row crops, fruit trees, gardens. The stuff that dust-bowl immigrants' dreams were made of.

Steinbeck wrote during the Great Depression. Yesterday, the Dow Jones stock average fell more than 7 percent. That was the front page news on the San Francisco Chronicle, slipped under my door, when I got up this morning. I think about where I am and the happenstance of Steinbeck and the Depression and the Dow's fall. I wonder what the stock markets are doing and wish I'd brought a transistor radio. But maybe I'm better off without that news. I'm supposed to be on this trip, in part, to lose track of things like that.

For what seems like the millionth time I realize that I've got much work to do to unclutter my mind.

We arrive late in Los Angeles. Amtrak had to bus most of the passengers from Santa Barbara so they could catch an eastbound train. The few remaining passengers mill about the station, searching for baggage, meeting loved ones.

I'm alone. We were supposed to arrive at 9, and it's almost midnight.

I find the parking lot and an airport van. I've decided to "hang out" at LAX until my 8:30 a.m. flight to Honolulu, rather than rent a hotel room. L.A. is deserted, its streets dark and foreboding. Checking into a hotel for only a few hours seems complicated and unnecessarily expensive. Because of this decision, I'm about to learn the first hard lesson of my trip.