I must have slept some, because I distinctly remember being awakened around 3am by the lights of Salt Lake City. I also remember the bumps and jerks of our stop in Provo a little later. By 5am, though, there was no question but what I was awake. The people behind me (a mother, her infant son, and her mother-in-law) were already up and loud. First they were playing with the baby, then they were joking with each other (with loud laughter), and then they fed the baby.
While I might have been able to tune out the sounds, what really woke me up was smells. Once they were done feeding the baby, they changed it. First there was the smell of a dirty baby, then the much more powerful scent of a baby wipe. Not long after that another passenger put on spray antiperspirant, right in the passenger part of the coach. I'm not sure why all these things couldn't have been done in the bathrooms. They're plentiful, separately ventilated, and there are pull-down baby-changing tables in every one of them. Rudeness seemed to be the norm on this train, though, so I was wide awake at 5:00.
The scenery was different here in eastern Utah. It was still drier than I like, but there were trees mot of the time. We were following every bend in a little creek, and steam was rising from it early in the morning. Tired as I was, the sunrise over the mountains made a pleasant way to start the day.
We reached the town of Helper at 7am, five minutes ahead of schedule. Obviously we had made good time through the night. Here and at the next few stops we had to wait until the scheduled departure time, in case someone rushed to the station at the last minute.
* * * * *
Helper, by the way, is an old railroad town. The origin of its name is sort of interesting. Helper lies at the foot of Soldier Summit, one of the steepest grades on the original transcontinental railroad. In the days of steam, trains stopped here so additional "helper" engines could be added before the trek up the pass. We had come downhill toward Helper, and the same two diesel engines we started with in Emeryville were apparently sufficient to take us over all the grades on the route.
East of Helper the scenery became much uglier. We were in dry, low mountains with strange rock formations. Margaret, who grew up on the west slope in Colorado, recognized familiar scenery and promptly announced that we had finally made it to the Rockies. I've always considered pretty much everything from the Great Plains west to the Great Basin to be the Rockies. Indeed, I think geologically the Sierra Nevadas are really just an arm of the same mountain range. I suppose it's like trying to apply the term "Midwest", though. Except in the very center of it, it's hard to say just what the place includes.
Around 8am I went to the lounge. When I asked for coffee, the attendant snapped that there would be no coffee for twenty minutes; he had to make some. It seemed awfully convenient to me that he should have run out of coffee right at the height of breakfast in the dining car, but I suppose he could have legitimately been out. I'd think, though, that the attendant would have been smart enough to expect lots of coffee orders in the morning. If I had that job, I would have two pots on that I could change alternately so that if one dry, I could always go to the other in reserve. I grumbled and went back again in twenty minutes. There was no apology, and I didn't even think of adding to the "tips" cup that the attendant had prominently positioned on the counter.
Coffee is probably the biggest rip-off there is on Amtrak. The charge varies from train to train-either $1 or $1.50, and I have no idea what they think merits the difference. The cups are very small, and there are no refills. This morning I got four coffees, two for each of us. That still wasn't a huge amount of coffee, and at $3 each the cost was two to three times what an equivalent amount would be at a convenience store or fast food place.
Something intriguing about Amtrak coffee is that the strength changes en route. They seem to make it at roughly the strength that restaurants would serve in the area they're traveling through. The coffee started out quite strong in California, but it was noticeably weaker this morning. Tomorrow, when we were in Nebraska at daybreak, they'd make it weaker still. In the lounge they make their coffee in one of those big urns like the ladies groups get out for church functions. They throw in pre-packaged grounds, but I think the number of packages they use must vary depending on what they think people will prefer in a given place.
While I picked up coffee I couldn't' help but notice that some other people in the lounge car were having less eye-opening beverages for breakfast. Never in my life have I drunk an alcoholic beverage in the morning, but quite a few of the passengers on this train pretty much drank their way through the trip. Two people in the lounge were having mixed drinks, and five others were having beer for breakfast. Most noticeable was an elderly black woman who looked as if she had had already had several too many by 8am. She was sitting alone at a table on the lower level of the lounge, with two empty beer cans and a partially full one in front of her. She just sat there, staring blankly and taking an occasional sip; it was really kind of sad to look at her.
For our breakfast today we enjoyed the coffee cake Margaret had picked up in Calistoga, together with Amtrak coffee. As we ate we passed by an area that looked like the badlands in South Dakota. The big difference was that these Utah badlands were fenced in. All these fences were really starting to get to me. I always think of the West as the land that brought us the song "Don't Fence Me In"-and the attitude that goes with it. Almost everything seems to be fenced in the West today, though. I can't imagine why you'd want to fence in these badlands. It's so dry here, I can't imagine any plant or animal could find sustenance. Apparently they get a total of six inches of precipitation a year, almost all of it in the form of snow.
The trip continued to provide a number of minor annoyances. The little girl whose ears wouldn't clear yesterday was grumpy today from too little sleep. The door to the next car was still not closing. The people behind us seemed to have brought all their baby's toys; at one point he was pounding on a toy xylophone. The intercom had been turned down so soft that we had to strain to hear the announcements. No one had turned on the lights to make it "day" in our car, and the car attendant was nowhere to be found.
Around 9:30 we passed a ridge of snow-capped mountains and then started following the Colorado River, which we would continue to follow for almost the entire day. Quite rapidly the landscape became much greener, more like what I think of when someone mentions the Rocky Mountains.
The last sight we saw in Utah was the Ruby Canyon, a spectacular gorge that is accessible only by train or raft. Many times today we would be far away from the nearest road, with lovely views that were completely unspoiled by development. Margaret and I were constantly looking around outside, taking in every aspect of the view. What I couldn't understand was that most of the passengers rarely looked out the windows at all. In fact, many of them pulled their curtains all day. To me it seemed like they were missing the whole point of the ride. Trust me--the views really are spectacular on the Zephyr; if you ever happen to take it, be sure to look around.
We entered Colorado, and soon the views got less appealing as we traveled through the run-on industry of Grand Junction. Beyond the factories were fields, and the conductor announced that this agriculture was a sign that we had once again entered civilization. I thought we would be about 15 minutes ahead of time stopping at Grand Junction, but we waited and waited for a freight train-a freight train that turned out to be all of two cars long. Then we were delayed again by a much longer coal train. We ended up leaving the station at 10:50am, five minutes behind schedule.
East of Grand Junction we followed Interstate 70 through another canyon. The area continued to be remarkably industrial for nearly an hour. Grand Junction isn't that big (40,000), and everything else around here is nothing, so I couldn't help but ponder just where all the workers for these plants and warehouses come from.
We had lunch around noon. Both Margaret and I had delicious penne pasta with fire pepper sauce. We were seated with two members of a party of six who were from Napa, California, and were going to Denver. Later on both Margaret and I discussed the family's ethnicity. I think they were probably Chinese, though they might well have been Hispanic. They looked vaguely "ethnic", but not much more than that, and everyone spoke English natively. The patriarch of the family had apparently gotten his first job working on the Zephyr, when it was a joint venture of private railroads. He was employed by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and worked as a busboy on the train, which he felt was a wonderful job. He earned 15 cents a day (probably in the Depression era or World War II), plus meals and lodging.
We finished lunch at 12:37pm, just as the train arrived (on time) at Glenwood Springs. I was here once before, on a childhood vacation out west. I remembered Glenwood Springs as lovely town, and I'm pleased to say it still is. It's obviously a big resort area-full of hotels, restaurants, and the like-but somehow they still manage to keep things pretty.
Just east of Glenwood Springs we entered the spectacular Glenwood Canyon. When we took that vacation decades ago, I remember that I-70 had not been completed through here. Instead we had to follow a slow-moving line of traffic on old U.S. 6. They've finished the interstate, and it's definitely a spectacular piece of engineering. I saw a documentary on it, that showed highway engineers from Europe and Asia coming to Colorado to study it. The Colorado DOT instructed the designers to build an environmentally friendly highway. They gave financial incentives to do as little destruction to the canyon as possible. As a result, the new interstate is crammed into the smallest possible space. Basically they used the U.S. 6 roadbed for westbound traffic and cantilevered the eastbound roadway, hanging it from the canyon wall. The whole thing is on two levels, and my bet is that most of the time you can't see the traffic in the other direction. They've blasted lots and lots of tunnels (sometimes just for one half or the other of the interstate), but they've kept almost all of the canyon wall intact. I can't imagine how much this highway cost to build (I'm sure it would make the L.A. subway seem cheap), but it is something spectacular.
The canyon is a major recreation area. At the bottom they have a bike path running right along the water's edge. We also saw lots of rafters and canoers testing their skill on the river. One thing I hadn't known before was that people use oars to control rafts. I always thought you just floated down the river, going wherever the water took you, but apparently steering is a major skill to rafting. We also passed hikers and people fishing. Many of them waved at the train we passed, and I made a point of returning their greetings.
The woman with the stapled stomach made herself known again this afternoon. First she went through the coaches, hauling a big trash bag behind her. Later she was dragging a large suitcase behind her instead of the trash bag. After that she went by again, this time carrying an enormous handful of napkins (probably more than fifty of them) from the lounge car. I have no idea what the point of any of these things was, but they were certainly not out of character for her.
We went through several other canyons, most of which were secluded from the highway. Then we passed a series of ranches. Some of these had lovely homes, while others looked like glorified claim shanties left from pioneer days. All day long we followed close to the Colorado River, which made me wonder if the tracks ever flood. We seemed almost dangerously close to the water's edge at times, and I'd hate to think what the area looks like after the spring snow melt.
At about 2:30 we stopped and then proceeded at a snail's pace. The conductor eventually announced that there was a problem with the automatic signals in this stretch. Normally the tracks are controlled by a monitoring station in Omaha, but for some reason they were unable to see what trains were on the tracks in central Colorado. Without signals, we were only allowed to proceed at 20 mph, so we could stop in time if we came upon another train. The one train we met was the westbound California Zephyr. We stopped for nearly half an hour on a siding waiting for them to pass.
The further east we got, the more snow packed the mountains were. We crawled through swampy pastureland next to the mountains, and eventually around 4:45 made it to Granby, the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
About this time an announcement came over the loudspeaker. "Whoever took the cigarettes from the bar area," it said, "please return them immediately." They mentioned that no questions would be asked if the cigarettes were returned, and then they added, "We know who you are." I have no idea who might have stolen those cigarettes, but there was certainly no shortage of kids on this train who would be likely suspects.
Past Granby we passed through the lovely Aspen-filled Fraser Canyon. We ate dinner promptly at 5pm, joining a retired couple from Newton, Iowa. I had pork chops and rice, while Margaret had stuffed trout. As always, dinner was delicious.
While we ate we passed through the Moffat Tunnel, the highest point on the trip (9,239 feet). The tunnel is six miles long, and it was pitch black outside for over eleven minutes. The tunnel was an amazing engineering feat. It was completed in 1928, at a cost of nearly $16 million. The tunnel replaced a twenty-seven mile trip over a 12,500 foot pass. It cut the five and a half hours off the trip between Denver and Salt Lake City.
East of the tunnel we passed through a very wet area, a mixture of forests, swamps, and fields of wildflowers amid rocky cliffs. For about the next hour we passed through a series of numbered tunnels (at least 36 of them) as we rapidly descended the Rockies. Then, almost exactly at 6:30 we reached the edge of the Front Range. We traveled straight south along the edge of the mountains. To the left we had a panoramic vista of the flat, endless Great Plains and the sprawl of metropolitan Denver. It was almost like being in an airplane as we looked down over the city.
We stopped again as another coal train passed on the other track. Coal is the great resource of the mountain states, and the trains that haul it are immense. This train had 108 coal cars following four engines. Each of the coal cars had a large sticker that read "DO NOT HUMP". What that rather strange command had to mean was that the cars were to be filled level, rather than heaped on top. They were certainly odd signs, though--especially when we saw 108 of them in a row.
We had one more major slow-down before Denver. Right at the edge of the foothills there was a big hairpin curve where part of the support for the tracks had washed out. At present the curve was deemed safe only for speeds of 10 mph, so we crawled around it at a scary angle. Eventually we managed to straighten out, and then we whisked our way (with the signals working) across the Denver suburbs.
As we passed between Arvada and Westminster, the area (which was mostly cheap apartments) looked very familiar. That's because I had been here back in 1982. That year my best friend at college and his girlfriend moved out to Denver in hopes of starting a new life. Not long after they moved I borrowed my brother Paul's car and went out to visit them. They lived right next to the railroad tracks in one of these apartment complexes. It was a very strange trip, mostly because Bob and Karen had "been saved" in Colorado and made a rather dramatic shift from Catholicism to a strange Pentecostal church. My mother was dying of cancer at the time, and Bob wanted to hold a "healing service" for her. That's not my kind of religion, and it certainly wasn't anything my mother would appreciate, either. Bob felt I was being a "heathen" for not appreciating his understanding of his new faith, though, and the whole mess pretty much ended our friendship. I made up an excuse to leave Denver early, and Bob and I haven't spoken since then. I pondered as we went past here on the train just what ever became of Bob and Karen.
As we reached the city of Denver we finally saw homes with big lots and actual lawns, the first such things we'd seen since leaving Missouri on the trip out. The area looked nice, though obviously it has some problems. Near these homes was a lovely park and playground, all surrounded by a nasty razor wire fence.
Several of the people who had been in our car since California would not be with us after Denver. A few were getting off the train here, but others were simply switching cars. That seemed strange to me, especially since they had finally gotten the door working as we neared the eastern edge of the mountains. Maybe they just didn't like our company.
We crawled through the Denver rail yards and then backed into Union Station. The station is right downtown, next door to Coor's Field. I couldn't help but think of Brad Nelson as we passed the Rockies' ballpark. Just before the major league draft, Brad had traveled to Denver at the invitation of the Rockies. He was essentially trying out for the team, and that's probably who'd have drafted him if Milwaukee hadn't made their selection first. While he was in Denver, Brad hit eight home runs at Coor's Field. I've been inside that park, and it's one of the most cavernous stadiums anywhere. Say what you will about the ball carrying farther in the thin mile-high air, it takes a lot of power to send a ball out of any major league park.
The tracks run past the back side of Coor's Field. The team was obviously out of town today. We got an interesting sight, though, as we passed a guarded lot marked "PLAYER PARKING ONLY". The place was full of expensive sport-utility vehicles, the sort of thing you'd expect millionaire athletes to drive. We even saw a Hummer in the lot. I can't say I'd want to drive any of those cars, but it certainly was interesting to see.
We officially arrived in Denver at 8:15pm. There was a layover here, so I went inside the station. The place was extremely crowded, and it took some doing to make my way to the little convenience store they had in the far corner. I picked up some snacks and a newspaper and then returned to the train.
The train was even more packed leaving Denver than it had been beforehand, but with an almost totally different group of people. They added at least two additional coaches at the back of the train. Those were full, and so were the coaches that had been on since California. It was interesting that all the passengers boarding in Denver had their tickets taken and were given seat checks right in the station. They just boarded and placed those checks above their seat. I don't know why they don't do that elsewhere; it would make things move more efficiently.
We officially left Union Station at 9:04pm (an hour and 14 minutes late-which was actually doing pretty good, given all our delays in the mountains). We still had to shuffle freight cars, though, so we kept going forward and backwards past that Coor's Field parking lot for about fifteen minutes. Finally at 9:20 we started moving forward for good.
They still hadn't gotten any pillowcases at Denver, so we had to improvise for another night. I was thankful that I had bought that beach towel in Redondo Beach. It may not have looked like a pillow, but it made do in a pinch.
We passed the new Denver International Airport around 9:45pm and then started speeding across the plains. With the new coaches added to the rear, we were now in the middle of the train, rather than at the rear. That meant that people kept going past us on the way to the lounge. I got used to that fairly quickly, though, and before long I was asleep.
I slept much more soundly than the previous night, but again this morning I was wide awake at 5:30am. Once again the baby behind us was crying. The kid's mother and grandma didn't' try to quiet the baby. Indeed they were chatting and laughing loudly, as if no one else were around them. Also the car attendant was going through the cars awakening the passengers who were supposed to get off in Lincoln, the last of the night stops.
We arrived in Lincoln at 5:55am, an hour and ten minutes late. We passed the University of Nebraska, and I saw the Nebraska state capitol in the distance. It wasn't all that easy to see things, though, because it was quite foggy this morning, more so than it had been in San Francisco. When we got out of town, it looked as if steam were rising from the fields.
Finally, for the first time since we left Kansas, it was truly green outside the window. One of the best things about the Midwest is the "green carpet" that covers the landscape all summer long. I enjoyed this trip west, but I can't imagine living anywhere where a green landscape is the exception rather than the rule.
In addition to green fields, the neat little towns also told us we were in the Midwest. I've never understood why so many mountain towns look so dumpy. You'd think the same civic pride that exists here would also be a small town virtue in the West, but that doesn't seem to be so. At any rate, I enjoyed the pleasant little towns of Nebraska.
We crossed the wide Platte River around 6:30 and then spent about half an hour making our way across the Omaha suburbs. We stopped in Omaha at 7:05am, and I went in to the station to buy a newspaper. Before we left I tried to get coffee in the lounge car, but again the attendant was out of coffee at breakfast time.
At 7:57am we crossed the Missouri into Iowa. It had been horribly wet when we left the state, but now the bean fields looked almost dry. Their leaves were starting to yellow, and there was certainly no standing water anywhere.
Strange as it might seem, the trip across Iowa is one of the prettiest parts of the California Zephyr's route. It's not spectacular mountain scenery, but it's definitely not flat farmland, either. Southern Iowa has very hilly terrain, and the railroad was constructed with deep cuts and high embankments to create a level route across the state. The whole right-of-way is lined with trees, and there are lakes and rivers that provide variety in the scenery. It's really a lovely ride.
At 8:20 I made my way to the diner to join the waiting list for breakfast. We ended up being #5 on that list. On the way to the dining car I passed two nuns wearing habits-the full, long kind like we dressed kids up in for The Sound of Music. None of the sisters at Garrigan has worn such an outfit in all the years I've been there, and you have to go back to the '70s in old yearbooks to find them. I don't know what order these women were part of, but they certainly caught my eye.
The further we got into Iowa, the more we could see the effects of the spring flooding. There were big blemishes on some of the fields, where no crops would grow this season. Everything looked very late-more like May than late June. At least the crops were growing, though. That was some progress from when we left.
We began breakfast around 8:30. One of their breakfast items was called the "Mt. Pleasant parfait", and I had to try my hometown's namesake. Honestly, I'll take the parfaits at McDonalds over this one. For $3.50, Amtrak filled a tiny crystal goblet filled with yogurt and berries. For a dollar less, McDonalds gives twice as much food. I also had ham and hash browns, and the combination made a pricey but filling meal.
We finished breakfast at 9:30, just as the train was arriving in Creston. We got to Osceola at 10:08am, an hour and a half behind schedule. The Osceola station looks exactly like the old brick station in Mt. Pleasant, except that the one in Osceola is quite a bit more beat up. We saw two more symbols that we were getting on towards home in Osceola. First there was Casey's, the Ankeny-based convenience store. Then we saw a smiling star sign that said "Hardees", rather than "Carl's Jr.
We crossed the Des Moines River at 11:35 and shortly thereafter stopped in Ottumwa. They seem to have made a big effort to clean up downtown Ottumwa. It looks much nicer than it did when I was growing up. The area around the station is planted with flowers, and there's a screen of trees blocking the view of most of the ugly factories.
We Mt. Pleasant around 12:45pm. Again the car attendant remarked on what a nice little town it was. I must say, from the train the view really is quite pretty. We saw the college, the old station, and a bunch of nice old homes. It certainly compared favorably with Fairfield, where we saw a junkyard and a bunch of factories. About half a dozen of us got off the train, and a much larger group (probably 20 or so) boarded.
We attempted to have lunch at the McDonalds in Mt. Pleasant. Unfortunately the drive-through had a line at least ten cars long, so we just made our way up the Avenue of the Saints to Iowa City. We got stuck in some nasty construction in Coralville, but eventually made our way to Alaire's. We had coffee there and chatted for a bit about the trip. Margaret was staying overnight at Alaire's, but I had to get on home.
I followed old 218 northward to Cedar Rapids and stopped at the south end of the city to buy gas. The price was $1.189-the lowest price I'd seen in ages, and a full dollar less than what we'd seen at some places in California. I had some chili at a Wendy's in Cedar Rapids, and then made my way north and west. I finally arrived home around 7:30pm. I started unpacking and relaxed at the end of a long, but most enjoyable trip.
Now it's time for that series of questions I always put at the end of these travelogues.
Did you like Los Angeles? Did you like San Francisco? Which did you like best? I enjoyed both places, but I definitely preferred L.A. It's a very down-to-earth place, especially compared to the Bay Area, which came across as over-priced and pretentious. My reactions were actually the opposite of what I expected-and the opposite of what most travel books imply. To be fair, we had much more time to really get to know Los Angeles. In San Francisco, most of our time was scheduled with various tours, while in L.A. we primarily had time to explore on our own what the city had to offer. I pretty much always prefer to see things on my own, and I really enjoyed just walking around in the various neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
What did you like most? What else did you like? I've already said my favorite thing was the Warner Brothers tour. If I go back to L.A., I'll definitely take it again, and I'd strongly encourage others to take it. I also loved the morning we spent in Redondo Beach, and I had fun taking those long walks around Hollywood. In San Francisco, my favorite thing was the old mission. I also enjoyed Chinatown and the Barbary Coast trail in general.
What didn't you like? I was really disturbed by all the graffiti in San Francisco. It really spoils the scenery, and it made me feel frankly unsafe. I also didn't care for the public transit systems in the Bay Area. They're expensive and awkward to use, and it's annoying to have to keep transferring from one form of transit to another. In L.A. I disliked the fact that so much of the city is an industrial wasteland. That would have been easily avoided, had we not arrived by train, but it is definitely one of the ugliest places on earth.
What about the train rides? The Southwest Chief had the best crew of all the Amtrak trains we have been on. The scenery is nothing spectacular on that route, but it is pleasant. Riding out with the Scouts made that segment of the trip very memorable. The California Zephyr really is a spectacular train ride. If anyone has the time, I'd strongly encourage them to take the journey across the Colorado Rockies by train. It's a completely different experience than traveling by car, one I'll certainly never forget. The Coast Starlight was honestly a disappointment. I was expecting spectacular views of the ocean. There were some, but really not that much. Mostly we went through farm country, and the farm country in Nebraska and Kansas looked better. (Iowa was gorgeous by comparison.) If I were to repeat this trip, I'd take the inland route-or even fly between the cities. The Coast Starlight was got to be a long, boring trip.
What are Californians like? First of all, it's important to understand that we really saw two completely different Californias. The Bay Area came closest to my stereotypes of the state. We saw "weirdos" of all sorts there, and the bulk of the people seemed to be extremely wealthy "yuppies". The people here tend to be quite liberal, and there's a much higher percentage of "beautiful people" than I've seen almost anywhere else. Even staying in Oakland, where the bulk of the area's black people live, my recollection of the Bay Area is overwhelmingly white. Almost everyone seems to have an office job, and it's definitely one of the wealthiest cities I've ever seen. San Francisco is also an extremely touristed city; there's definitely a higher percentage of out-of-towners than in any other major city I've been to in America.
Los Angeles, by contrast, is a hard-working industrial city. The vast majority of the people are Hispanic, but there's a remarkably easy mixing among all the various races. (I saw more interracial couples in L.A. than anywhere else I've ever been.) Unlike San Francisco, which is full of couples and singles, L.A. is a city of families. Angelinos come across as much more conservative than San Franciscans, but I think equally tolerant. That comes very close to my own personal values, and it may be why I liked the place.
What will you remember most from this trip? That's almost impossible to answer, given that this was really quite a lengthy trip and we jammed each day about as full as we could. Almost everything blurs together. I thought about saying the Warner Brothers tour. I'll certainly enjoyed it, but I don't know that I'd say it was "most memorable". I also considered mentioning all the wonderful meals we ate; taken as a group they were certainly among the highlights of the trip. I'll also remember my stroll down Vermont Avenue on our last day in L.A., the funeral procession we saw in Chinatown, or the beautiful scenery the California Zephyr passed through. On a sadder note, another lasting memory will be walking past all the homeless people who were sleeping outside the Social Services building in Oakland. After giving it a lot of thought, though, what stands out most was one of those "only in California" experiences. I know I'll always remember arriving in San Francisco amid all the "queer" festivities. I may not have been "gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning, but there was no way I could ignore those who were. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience, and definitely something I couldn't have seen in any other place. That's probably the strangest thing I've ever selected as "most memorable", but there's no question but that I'll always remember that experience.
...And an update for those who may be interested ... I finished writing this travelogue July 15, 2001. At that point Brad Nelson was still negotiating with the Brewers, and it was looking more and more likely that he would be accepting the scholarship to Nebraska. That's okay. While I'd love to see him go professional now, but it's not like it should be his only chance. If he was good enough to catch the scouts' eyes in high school, he should still be good enough with more experience under his belt. I'm confident that in a few years I'll be writing one of these travelogues where I'll talk about going to a Major League game to see Brad play. ... And Brad's absence seemed to almost be an inspiration for the Golden Bears. They had an outstanding 29 - 9 season and ended up winning the North Central Conference championship. They did, however, lose in play-offs, which begs the question of just how far they might have gone if they had been playing with a Major League draftee.
[... AND NOW LET'S UPDATE THE UPDATE ... Brad spent most of his summer playing for the Kansas City Monarchs, a team made up of some of the top Midwestern players and named after Jackie Robinson's old Negro League team. In mid-July they went to Florida and won the national championship in AAU baseball. Brad was essentially the MVP in the tournament, hitting a home run to put the Monarchs ahead in the championship game. Shortly after he got back to Iowa--on Wednesday, July 26--he and the Brewers finally came to terms, and he signed a six-year professional contract. As I edit the web edition of this travelogue, he's in Phoenix, playing for the Brewer's rookie team in the Arizona League.
The contract terms were undisclosed (which is really as it should be--it's not like people in most other jobs have their salaries publicized to the world), but part of the deal was a full college scholarship to be awarded at the completion of his professional career. That provides a good safety net in case things don't work out, but Brad won't need it. Mark my words: Brad Nelson will be a big league player! Not only that, but he'll be the kind of athlete you hear about often--for the right reasons. He'll be an impact player, and he'll be a good role model all through his career. I could not be more confident of that.
I'm kind of sorry school will be starting soon, so I won't be able to see
Brad play in Arizona. I'll be watching him next summer, though, and--like I said
back at the beginning of this travelogue--I know that one day I'll be writing in
one of these travelogues about seeing my former student play in a Major League
park.
GOOD LUCK, BRAD!]
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