Monday 9 June - “Hang on – where's my Caxton card?”

Today we have one of those days; every traveller gets them now and again. We're up at 5.00 am, as the Amtrak bus is collecting us from “downtown San Francisco” at 6.30 am, to take us to the train station; our train is due to leave at 7.40 am. The train will take us to Bakersfield, California, from where an Amtrak bus will take us to Barstow; at Barstow, Reg has arranged to hire a car to take us the rest of the way, about 150 miles, to Las Vegas.

The taxi driver who picks us up from the hotel is lovely; he comes from Thailand, and has travelled all over the world. He's worried that where we've been told to catch the Amtrak bus, 835 Market Street, isn't the right place; he's never taken anyone there before. He says he'll stop the meter while we check. Reg has it written on the ticket, so we can only go with what we've been told.

It's only 6.00 am when the taxi drops us off.

“I just wanted to be sure we got there on time,” says Reg. It's chilly in the early morning San Francisco air. We've been waiting a few minutes before we spot the Amtrak bus stop a short distance away; a man of senior years like us (who's name is Tom, we discover) is waiting there, with his luggage; he too had difficulty finding the bus stop. At about 6.40 am an Amtrak bus arrives, but he says he's only dropping off passengers – he reassures us that our bus will be along shortly.

Time creeps on, until finally, at about 10 past 7, two Amtrak buses come; we are concerned that we won't get to the station on time. The buses have other passengers to pick up, but one driver says he'll take us straight to the station. I can see Reg is starting to feel stressed - will we make it? As he makes for the station, our bus driver radios his depot to try to find out what happened to our 6.30 am bus; but there is no reply. As we arrive at the station, at 7.40 am, our train has just pulled in. We run to the platform as fast as our luggage will allow, and as soon as we are on the train, it pulls away.

“That was close,” says Reg, settling himself into his seat, with his tablet, happy to find that, unusually, there's free wifi available on the train. From the cafe car next door we buy egg-and-bacon croissant, heated up like a panini, for breakfast – it's surprisingly tasty.

The train journey takes us through a dry but irrigated landscape, where fruit trees are growing in abundance. We get off the train at Bakersfield, where we're booked on the connecting coach to Barstow; this journey takes us through the desolate plains and hills of the Mojave desert. 

Had we known, we could have taken the coach all the way to Las Vegas – but when Reg was booking all this up several months ago, he didn't have this information; hence the hiring of the car in Barstow.

We are the only ones to disembark at Barstow; it is like opening the door of an oven as we leave the air-conditioned coach. A big contrast to San Francisco with its sea mists and cooling breezes! The Hertz car hire office, a mile away in searing heat, closes at 5.00 pm; it's now 4.40 pm. Reg knows it's on the main Barstow street. He leaves me sitting in the shade with all the luggage and strides off, bottle of water in hand, and credit card in pocket – will he get to the Hertz office in time?

A car returns to where I'm waiting – hey, Reg made it! But there's a lady driving it; Reg is in the passenger seat.

“Our credit card's been declined,” says Reg, somewhat sheepishly. “Nothing to worry about – probably just that we've gone over our credit limit. We can use yours for the car hire.” (We've been paying for all our accommodation by credit card – the train journeys were paid for before we left UK).

I have a credit card with a small credit limit which we keep for emergencies like this one. We try to avoid using our debit cards abroad, as the bank mark up on them is so high – which is why we have our Caxton Dollar Traveller cards – it's a much cheaper way of getting cash from ATM's. Fortunately the little credit card is accepted, and thanking the lovely young lady for going out of her way and for working overtime, we drive away.

We stop at the Union Bank ATM along the street in Barstow for me to draw out some more cash on my Caxton card, then we're finally on our way – initially on the famous “route 66” - to Las Vegas. After about 20 minutes we stop for a meal in “Peggy Sue's 50's diner” (which, incidentally, was originally built in the 1950's but has been modernised since then) just off the “freeway.” As we go to pay for our meal, among the Buddy Holly and Elvis memorabilia, I notice that my Caxton Card is missing. A feeling of dread creeps over me.

“Hang on, where's my Caxton Card?” But I already know the answer; I left it in the cash machine in Barstow. Reg, to his credit, says very little, except,

“Come on, we'd better go back to the ATM.”

Of course, the card isn't there; perhaps some kindly soul has picked it up to save it being misused. Luckily, due to my special “3” phone package (every cloud has a silver lining), I'm able to phone Caxton in UK and cancel my card immediately, without it costing me anything. Also, fortunately, Reg has his own Caxton Card so we can use that for the rest of the trip; our stolen Caxton Card in Kazakhstan 2 years ago taught me that you need 2 separate cards.

All the way to Las Vegas I am angry with myself; “I'm usually so careful with cards,” I say uselessly. Reg is kind; “These things happen,” he says.

“She-who-must-be-obeyed” , the sat-nav app on Reg's tablet, gets us to the Las Vegas strip, where a dazzling over-the-top display of exploding neon lights assaults the eyes. Our hotel, the “Stratosphere”, whose tower, at 1,150 feet high, makes it the tallest building in Las Vegas, is at the very end of the strip. We park the car and find our way, through a whole casino floor of slot machines and roulette games, to the reception desk.

Reg is happy because he got a really good deal on our accommodation here, and we plan to use it as a base to visit some nearby attractions – the Hoover Dam, Zion National Park, and possibly death valley.... and we'll probably have a little flutter too, just to say that we did!

Our room on the 15^th floor is huge, and comfortable; it even has an ironing board and iron – oh,no! No excuse now!

We plug in our trusty kettle, send a text to Elaine – which hopefully she will get before she goes to work in the morning - and sink exhausted into the king sized bed.

Tomorrow we will need to sort out our finances.