Why Amtrak is For Me

In from the cold without even a stir.

Tua loves to pile into her snug car seat and ride around town and country. If she's moving, she's content. Right now she's sleeping on my lap as I write tonight. I'm not moving but she seems to have gained some solace from the fact that I've spent the last half hour researching Easter travel plans. Right now we're deciding how to get from Vermont to Illinois without driving or flying. We're pretty big train people, at least I am. Bug doesn't mind as long as she's not in coach. Two years ago, we took a trip out west by rail and experienced the comforts of coach class between Chicago and Portland, Oregon. We met some pretty interesting people along the way, including a cartographer from Portland who knew our route so well that we didn't pass one town between Glacier National Park and the city of Portland without a sampling of local legend. On the other end of the spectrum, we sat across the aisle from a elderly woman with whom we chatted throughout the day as she stitched a handsome quilt (for her grandson in Cincinatti, she reminded us often). This tender image was tossed to the wind late at night when I rose to use the facilities and found our friend across the way rocking her head to what sounded like Aerosmith while she purused a certain magazine of questionable nature. I managed to recover myself back to sleep and figured I had imagined the whole thing when I woke the next morning. The grandmother was there sipping away at a warm coffee, reading the Tribune. Over breakfast, Bug looked up from her toast and asked if we might spend some extra dollars on our own quarters for the return journey. "You'll never believe what I saw last night" she said. We spent the rest of our train experience in the sanity of a private roomette.
If we take the train West from here, I'll guarantee the absence of any eccentric folk. Anyone leaving Vermont for the heartland of America surely has all of their marbles. Train travel from far flung reaches of America to the its centers is still one of the few connections we have to our past. I would not be surprised in the least if it were to make a comeback of some sort. For Tua anyway this trip will be like a drive in the country that never ends. Endless clickity-clack of the track across miles and miles of open and flat. In the event that we end up making the journey another way, I will update you with the why.