Shackman Speaks and Sometimes Yells: The Beginning of the End

Today is the day. The big 70th Birthday Soiree is happening - people are checking in,many already here. Jim and I were picked up at the Quality Inn by Joyce Van Kempen and her hubby in a snazzy maroon mini van where once again the magic of Mike , our fabulous cabby in Cleveland got my overly large framed happily ensconced and ready to go. And the welcome kiss from Joyce helped LOL. Old memories came flooding back - tales of Barry Gilbert,our counselor and his kids - who were last seen diving from the sofa in their living room on to the large bear-like guy on the floor. Yes - even Brad Gilbert - future pro tennis player got in his licks. Barry was laughing at the scene along with my future wife Lynn, Mrs. G (Elaine) not so much.

Welcome to the Holiday Inn - a bigger place than the Hyatt Rgency in Cleveland. We turned the first corner and entered a hug fest. Bonnie Hurlbut, Lyn Schuller, Vicki Martinez all got into the act and I saw my old friend Roger Hurlbut for the first time in 50 plus years. He and I reminisced about catching the bus to Longwood (6th grade) in front of his house and our combined 60 yard tackle eligible/lateral to the fullback play in a football game. Of course when I tell that story and Roger is not nearby, I gained 59 of those 60 yards and Roger bulled his way to one more. Ahem.

Of course Lyn and I immediately started teasing each other which we have done since the night we met as other people's dates at the Junior Prom. Funnily enough she still has that prom pic but the one of us at the Christmas dance is nowhere to be found. Probably has so many dart holes in it it has gone away. Some things never change. Nor will the warm feeling deep down for Lyn. BFF is a fitting label - in this case it is the truth.

And then there is my new friend Vicki Martinez. An equally aggressive hugger. We have gotten to know each other very well over the recent year or so. Turns out we had classes together s far back as 8th grade. We used to hang out at Kennedy Park at the same time - her kicking the boy's butts in race cars and me climbing on the blue jet pretending I was Jet Jackson or playing baseball. Facebook has been very very good to me.

What a long strange trip it has been.

We most assuredly did not ride the Cannonball Express. Nope - Jim and I spent about 70 hours on a series of Amtrak trains to journey from North Carolina to Sacramento. We met many friendly, wonderful folks on the trip. We spent a great 5 day stint in Cleveland capped off by the Zombies Not only did Jim occupy his time pushing me around, he took a vast array of photos which he posted as WiFi became available.Do not believe it when Amtrak says they have WiFi on all of their trains. Our experience was trains with double-decker cars for sight seeing had no Wi-Fi. That was most of our on-train time.

We left Cleveland at 3:30AM Tuesday morning. We were late - something that happens regularly we now understand. What the heck - our original 5 hour layover in Chicago was only 1.5 hours. Then we started the 50 h0ur jaunt to the left coast on The California Zephyr. No WiFi but some spectacular scenery as Jim has documented for all to enjoy. As soon as I saw the familiar scenery I had to hear Mr Deutchendorf play the song I have loved from the first time I heard it -

Once we cleared the Rockies we hit Utah and the first stop was

There were several small stops along the was but we also hit Provo - home of BYU, where Lynn (my late wife) went to school and then of course Salt Lake City.

Between Cleveland and Salt Lake City we saw more Amish than I had seen in my entire life. We asked of there was a conference or something and were very politely told no. They were quite friendly and open to questions about their lifestyle. But tight-lipped about why they were on the move LOL.

We hit Salt Lake City around midnight.Oh boy - more traveling in the darkness to follow but hey - as far as we were concerned we were entering the home stretch. And the first thing that popped into my head when we crossed into California was this

The two places I have always considered home are Colorado (ages 1-9_ and California for 30+ years. This trip meant I was coming home.

As we were sitting at the Reno station watching passengers depart and new ones join the journey, Jim asked how long it normally takes to get from Reno to Sacramento. I guessed a couple of hours and Jim laughed. Amtrak makes it a 6 hour jaunt. Guess they are very proud of the scenery - LOL. Yep - it did indeed take 6 hours. But we rolled into Amtrak Sacramento and were met by Dave Hitchcock, who promptly ensconced us in the Quality Inn and then took us out to dinner.

There will be one additional blog tomorrow. It will be the