Summertime in the SLC, part 1

• It's 6am on a Saturday morning in Berkeley, what the hell are 20 people doing on the bus? Have they been partying that late? Nope, inspection shows they're starting their day. As someone who finds it hard to get out of the house before 2pm, this is disconcerting. What's impossible to understand is how they go about this with no apparent grudge against civilisation.
• My single recurring nightmare is that of missing a plane; looks like missing a train might join it. I get off the bus with 25 mintues to spare, 400 yards from the station, but I can't see a place to cross the tracks, so I need to walk north or south. I choose south, which is of course wrong. After lugging my bags a mile and half, I get on the train with two minutes to spare. Still nearly two minutes more than my closest shave when catching a plane.
• Chicken-fried steak in the Amtrak dining car: at least it's not airline food.
• So reports tell me to expect to be a couple of hours late getting into to SLC, but I turn up a couple of hours early, at 3am. It's like ra-ai-in on yr wedding day, etc. My friend Kwang from Canberra, also staying at the Best Western Garden Inn, is surprisingly not that aggrieved at receiving a call at this time.

To be continued!