Just a quick note to let you all know that the response to the Man Boobz pledge drive has been amazing. I am once again humbled by the outpouring of support.
Thanks, everyone, for the donations! I appreciate each and every one of them, big or small. (Sorry I’m a little behind in sending out the personal thank yous; I’ve been sidelined a bit by migraine this week.)
Given how well it’s gone, I’m going to wind the pledge drive up a little early this time, and stop with the naggy reminders, because I know how annoying those can be.
Thanks again, everyone!
Oh, just one more naggy reminder, and that’s it!
RE: Kittehs
Meeting cool people is always awesome. I’ve done a lot of wandering in my time, so I’ve been able to meet… at least ten now. I look forward to meeting more as time goes on!
I’m hoping to be back in the US next year. My bff (who I met on the internet) and I want to go to Chicago. She’s in LA and hasn’t been, and I’ve spent a couple of days there and really liked what I saw. We’re hoping to do it by train and go through the Colorado mountains, and meet up with my other bffs who live in Illinois and have a GIRLY GIRLY GIRLY holiday. Well, a hanging-around-art-galleries-and-shops girly holiday, anyway. 😉
It’d be really cool to meet any ManBoobzers in LA or Chicago, though I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to allot for the holiday overall.
The train is pricey. From LA you’lll take the Coast Starlight to Portland (it’s loverly) and then change. It’s not the Empire Builder, that leaves Seattle, so I think it’s the Thunder Chief. I’d recommend getting a sleeper, because it includes all your food, and is much more comfy. If there are delays you will certainly eat more food than the difference in price equals.
I think the train wasn’t hugely different in price from the plane. I looked at it last visit (went from LA to Milwaukee – it’s as close as Chicago to where I was going) and the main difference was the time.
Yeah, I think we’d be saving for a sleeper. We’re both past the age of wanting to curl up on train seats to sleep, and that’s good to know about the food being included. The accommodation shouldn’t be too bad, we’ll be sharing the hotel with the friends we’re meeting.
Coast Starlight sleeper passengers also get a mini bottle of champagne and get to go to a wine and cheese tasting 🙂 Not terribly good wine or cheese, but free!
It’s railway food, of course it wouldn’t be that good! 😀
Trivia: railway food has been crap pretty much as long as there have been railways. I saw a tea-making set, sort of like a kettle in a hamper contraption, from about the 1850s (possibly earlier) in the Railway Museum at York. It was made for people who’d had railway tea and never wanted to drink the stuff again.
I’d be up for a LA meetup, if it works out Kittehs’! And I’ve always wanted to take the train cross-country!
Cool!
The food on the trains is good. The cheese is so-so, the wine is local, and varies. If you have Jose as your parlour car attendant (The Coast Starlight has a vintage parlour car), he is wonderful. The only thing you pay for, if you have a sleeper is your alcohol.
It’s well worth the money to get a sleeper for anything more than 24 hours.
Re: train food, I only know the metro north and Pennsylvanian lines, but he other has much in the way of vegetarian food. And if you’re vegan, enjoy your bagel if they haven’t sold out yet?
I always either pack lunch, or plan the trip with a longer transfer around lunch time (the Philadelphia station has a variety of food).
I’d hope it was better on the longer lines, but you may want to at least pack a sandwich just in case.
Also, I’m back from Boston and thus actually here. Totally killed my feet at the fine art museum, totally worth it. Kitteh, nothing of Louis XIII, but they had a portrait of Louis XIV. And some Pollack, a couple van Gogh’s and Monet, and Mondrian’s Composition in Blue, Rd and Yellow (the red and yellow were much lighter than I expected). Plus a whole bunch by John Singer Sargent and some Cézzane’s.
…and an outer sarchopus that my mother touched when she asked if it was like the thing we put the coffin in — “hands off the exhibit! And yes” >.<
Also, this and a curtain of beads in the modern art section that I had way too much fun with. Plus a very sexy harpsichord. Quite the variety in the Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa wing, but I could barely walk by that point and kind of rushed it (and then fell out of bed straight onto the worst part of my foot trying to answer the door for the room service guy with my fucking wine, yesterday was fun)
Oh, and among the Roman busts was “Livia(?)” with her nose busted off. To which I could only say “if that’s her, she totally deserved that”
I misspelled Pollock, I am a terrible person and will be sitting in the corner of shame if anyone needs me >.<
I wasn’t going to say anything but…. Cézanne.
Argenti, that sounds like a marvellous trip! LOL about your mum touching the sarcophagous, my mother was exactly the same in our museum-visiting days.
I hope you told her “Hey, I know his stepmother!” when you saw the pic of Louis XIV. 😉
Argh, museum fatigue, yup, know that well. Even if you haven’t got back/leg trouble already, it’s exhausting.
I’ll probably take sandwiches or something on the train, just because I like to eat between meals. Good to know everything’s covered by a sleeper fare. I don’t drink. And for a 48 hour trip, there’s no way I’m sitting up the whole time. I’d be in serious pain by the end of it.
Spelling, how the fuck does it work?!
Really hilarious part about her touching it was she’d grabbed me when I started to wander over one of those “do not cross” marks on the floor. And then she pokes a 2,000+ year old stone artifact. Go mom!
And no, I didn’t even point out Louis XIV, she was gawking at furniture or something (there were many jokes about how those chairs would never be suitable for Martin’s delicate bum)
Most of the freedom trail and then the EA concert on Wednesday, lunch with LBT and then the aquarium on Thursday, the museum yesterday. I’m fucking exhausted! (And the aquarium’s huge cylinder tank is being remodeled and thus closed, I haz a sad over that)
Sounds like a fun trip!
ROFL wish I could have heard that!
There’s a shop near work that sells, ahem, pretentious designer furniture that would kill Mr Bony Arse Martin. It’d kill well-padded me to sit on; it’s all metal grids and hard wood and fibreglass, and I can’t see it being used anywhere except the reception area of some wanky corporate building. Every time I pass it, I smirk thinking of how outraged the Cushionless Cad would be if he saw it.
And it’s designed by a man. The traitor!!!
I took the Empire Builder when I moved from NY to Seattle. Great three days.
I like train travel, and I’ve never had the chance to do a long (ie more than a few hours) trip on a really comfortable train. It’s a great chance to see more of a country.