We really enjoyed our vacation travels by Amtrak. Saw much amazing scenery from Minot, ND across to Seattle, WA and then down the coast to Santa Barbara, CA, plus the aftermath of a forest fire near the Oregon/California border, a surreal vision with firefighters sleeping beside their trucks as dense smoke wafted among what resembled hundreds of small campfires. The fire zone was made all the more eerie by our only being permitted to creep along at a few miles per hour with the train whistle blowing every 30 seconds. Every meal in the dining car was an opportunity for conversation with two complete strangers including a couple who had just lived through the same ten years of school sports as us, a couple who work as production assistants on Mad Men, and a dad who had surprised his young, train obsessed son with this slower mode of transport over their usual air travel. (The boy looked kind of bored and probably destined to soon ditch his toy trains for toy planes.) These forced social hours eventually became a bit exhausting for my wife and I (we took a break when we had a chance on the Coast Starlight and dined, just the two of us, in the lounge car), but I immediately thought that a passionate conversationalist like Brian Palecek would go nuts for rail travel. My favorite part of travel by rail though was the extraordinary amount of time is gave us to simply relax and read. How often can one mark the stages of ones journey by the complete books one read, especially a slow reader like me? From Minot to Seattle I read The Nashville Chronicles (about the making of Altmans film). From Seattle to Santa Barbara I read Death of a Salesman, twice. From Santa Barbara to Seattle I read Your Inner Fish (a great book about evolution). From Seattle to Minot I was finally becoming a master in the art of sleeping aboard trains and only read the first half of Why Evolution Is True (an even better book about evolution). If youre willing to make the travel as much a part of the vacation as the destinations, give Amtrak a try sometime. I know we plan to repeat the experience many times in the future. Its so much more relaxing than all the airport hassles nowadays or having to stop all the time to fill your tank with gas. As one of our stewards announced to her sleeper car passengers as we prepared to exit the train, Always remember. Friends dont let friends fly.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 05:14:10 +0000
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