A train trip across California

On Wednesday, I traveled 442 miles across the state of California, from Oakland to Van Nuys (just north of Los Angeles). Lasting 10.5 hours, the trip is the longest single train voyage I have taken in my life. Paralleling the California Coast Line, the trip provided stunning scenery as well as moments of deep reflection.

Route of train from the Bay Area to Los Angeles

First, the trip provided some amazing vantage points. Near Monterey, the track ran right alongside the Elkhorn Slough salt marsh.

Elkhorn Slough 

Further south, the train hugged the banks of the Salinas River, and later, the Pacific Coastline.

Along the Salinas River, near Bradley California

Beach near Gaviota, about 32 miles west of Santa Barbara

In San Luis Obispo county, the verdant hillside appeared particularly alluring.

The numerous beaches the train passed that lacked a trace of human activity, the hilly pastures teeming with cattle reminded me just how rugged California is beyond the primary urban cores.

Empty Beaches

Finally, the trip exposed me to the state's underbelly. The derricks of the San Ardo Oil Field (the 8th-largest in the state) had a haunting, monstrous aesthetic, a testament to our society's continued dependency on fossil fuel extraction (even in a "progressive" state).

The California Men's Colony, north of San Luis Obispo, paired authoritarian, rectangular geometry with a suprising openness to the outside world. I could see persons (prisoners?) wandering through the courtyard from the train.

San Ardo Oil Field in operation

California Men's Colony

I stepped onto the platform in Van Nuys with sensations of perplexment and awe.

16th-century Spanish conquistadores conceived of California as a physical island. I believe this metaphor to be quite fitting, when taken in the plural: not a singular island but an archipelago.