Travel the first!
Mar. 26th, 2026 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Shots from a train to California (which just about made it to California before I was kicked off and put on a bus, and there were no good photos to be had from the bus). And then a few photos of Los Angeles and Indian Wells as I passed through.
I left Seattle on a grey and rainy day, which didn't make for the most edifying of photos. Not that the section of the journey between Seattle and Portland paralleling I-5 is the most edifying part anyway.
Wetland ponds close to the Washington-Oregon border. I don't know what the red vegetation was, but it was plentiful in some of them.
Crossing a small river in the south of Washinton state.
And crossing the Columbia River, which is definitely not small.
The clock tower of Portland's Union Station. Go by train!
Patterns and colours of rust and peeling paint at Union Station.
Portland's Willamette River in the grey of early March.
Bridges on the way out of Portland.
The train reached the scenic part of the journey beyond Eugene Oregon just as it was going dark, so no photos of the Cascades on the southbound leg. That had to wait for the return trip. Instead, we got to the outskirts of Sacramento around dawn.
And Sacramento is sadly where I was evicted from my train. I didn't realise what I'd missed until the way back!
The original Los Angeles post office from 1930, now a listed building. Seen close to sunset after I checked into my hotel and went hunting for food. (I was SO hungry. There isn't any food on a bus. Or on the four and a half hour train between Stockton and Bakersfield, unless you count a bag of crisps, which I don't.)
The oldest known house in Los Angeles, on Olvera Street. Also, not by coincidence, a few buildings along from the restaurant that fed me.
Olvera Street is pedestrianised, and home to a Mexican market full of stalls that were closing down as it went dark.
That oldest house again, right after the sun had set.
The next morning, I picked up my rental car and drove to Indian Wells. I stopped along the way at Tahquitz Canyon outside Palm Springs, which will get its own photo post later.
I didn't see a whole lot of Indian Wells, since most of the time I was there I was at the tennis. It's a town that sits on a flat bit of desert ringed by desert hills and mountains, which has a dramatic look of its own. And some of it's just normal town and some of it's weird insular resorts and hotels.
This was not my hotel. My hotel was cheaper and more practical.
This was the kind of place that waters lawns in a desert. Seriously, why would you do that???
The city of Indian Wells does not water lawns. All the roadside verges and grounds of normal houses (and the grounds of my hotel) were sand and boulders and plants that survive without being watered daily.
The view from my hotel room window in the early morning.
Same view in the afternoon.
One of those American bridges over massive stormwater channels. This one was in north Los Angeles, the concrete prison of what is probably a section of the Los Angeles River. The equivalent one in Indian Wells was huge and completely dry, with some plants growing in the channel. It must be dramatic when a flash flood comes along though....
Not the most scenic set of photos of my trip, this one's mostly just for me, rather than to make anyone go now. Things will get more dramatic from here on in!
I left Seattle on a grey and rainy day, which didn't make for the most edifying of photos. Not that the section of the journey between Seattle and Portland paralleling I-5 is the most edifying part anyway.
Wetland ponds close to the Washington-Oregon border. I don't know what the red vegetation was, but it was plentiful in some of them.
Crossing a small river in the south of Washinton state.
And crossing the Columbia River, which is definitely not small.
The clock tower of Portland's Union Station. Go by train!
Patterns and colours of rust and peeling paint at Union Station.
Portland's Willamette River in the grey of early March.
Bridges on the way out of Portland.
The train reached the scenic part of the journey beyond Eugene Oregon just as it was going dark, so no photos of the Cascades on the southbound leg. That had to wait for the return trip. Instead, we got to the outskirts of Sacramento around dawn.
And Sacramento is sadly where I was evicted from my train. I didn't realise what I'd missed until the way back!
The original Los Angeles post office from 1930, now a listed building. Seen close to sunset after I checked into my hotel and went hunting for food. (I was SO hungry. There isn't any food on a bus. Or on the four and a half hour train between Stockton and Bakersfield, unless you count a bag of crisps, which I don't.)
The oldest known house in Los Angeles, on Olvera Street. Also, not by coincidence, a few buildings along from the restaurant that fed me.
Olvera Street is pedestrianised, and home to a Mexican market full of stalls that were closing down as it went dark.
That oldest house again, right after the sun had set.
The next morning, I picked up my rental car and drove to Indian Wells. I stopped along the way at Tahquitz Canyon outside Palm Springs, which will get its own photo post later.
I didn't see a whole lot of Indian Wells, since most of the time I was there I was at the tennis. It's a town that sits on a flat bit of desert ringed by desert hills and mountains, which has a dramatic look of its own. And some of it's just normal town and some of it's weird insular resorts and hotels.
This was not my hotel. My hotel was cheaper and more practical.
This was the kind of place that waters lawns in a desert. Seriously, why would you do that???
The city of Indian Wells does not water lawns. All the roadside verges and grounds of normal houses (and the grounds of my hotel) were sand and boulders and plants that survive without being watered daily.
The view from my hotel room window in the early morning.
Same view in the afternoon.
One of those American bridges over massive stormwater channels. This one was in north Los Angeles, the concrete prison of what is probably a section of the Los Angeles River. The equivalent one in Indian Wells was huge and completely dry, with some plants growing in the channel. It must be dramatic when a flash flood comes along though....
Not the most scenic set of photos of my trip, this one's mostly just for me, rather than to make anyone go now. Things will get more dramatic from here on in!
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Date: 2026-03-27 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-27 01:44 pm (UTC)