Tuesday. The demonstration held in downtown Oakland last night, after the Ferguson announcement, headed up Broadway and then over along Grand, blocking Grand for a goodly period of time below my apartment and I wasn't sure my cab would show up. Interesting times, in the Chinese sense.

The cab did show up right on time and I arrived at the depot with an hour to spare. On the train at close to ten, to sleep not long after. Wondered how it would be, getting to sleep after all this bitching about getting a good night's sleep at home, but no problem.

Awoke at six, breakfast at six-thirty to lie down for a while before getting up and starting this. Feeling clear headed. Feeling good. Is this a message?

The train is full, crowded really, and I find I'm in the farthest car from the club and the dining cars, the usual place to get coffee area in my car bare and the conductor nowhere to be seen. I'm assuming this is the holidays and not the norm. I hope it's not the norm.

You can live with walking an extra fifty feet to get coffee.

Indeed.

Anyway, a good night's sleep, no need to get up to take a leak, feeling pretty good when I did awake and then went to breakfast. Said hello to the other travelers at the table (“hello travelers”), ate well and returned to the compartment where I experimented with another nap. No need, it turned out, for a nap.

No conductor to put the bed away so pulled the bedding up, put the bed back up into chairs again and settled in. No Wi-Fi in the car. Maybe this really is a car they've added at the last minute, probably an older one they only use in emergencies (and to add a few more travelers on holidays). Such is life.

Later.

A long journey, the train running late, but not that late, maybe forty-five minutes when it arrived in Portland a four. Not bad for a train, something you learn if you take enough of them.

Evening. Dinner at Bannings, a nearby restaurant, (a “senior citizens” serving of turkey, string beans, stuffing and mashed potatoes - quite good, actually) and then back to my sister's house and to bed. Early. Long day, for all that sitting.