Usually I'll work, write, or read on a long trip like this, but this time I just put on some music and watched the swamps, small towns, and Spanish moss-covered oaks pass me by. I took some pictures out the dirt-covered window of my sleeping car room. I gladly helped the lady across the hall connect to the wifi (she asked because “All young people know how to do it”).

After a nice dinner in the dining car, I sipped a beer that I'd packed, and eventually climbed into my top bunk, comforted by a bedside net that would catch me if the train ever tried to roll me off.

In the morning, the gentle swaying that had rocked me to sleep had somehow ceased, and the long stillness woke me. We were stopped south of Richmond, VA as the engineer hit their 12-hour driving limit, and we waited for a new one to come on board.

The lady across the hall asked our car attendant, Sonny, how late we'd be getting into Philadelphia — her husband would be waiting there. I poured some coffee from a pot at the end of the car, and watched the sun peek out over the hills from back in my room.

We eventually lurched forward, coasting into the Richmond station. I stepped off to stretch and get some air. Birds were chirping from rafters above the platform; it was warmer than I expected.

Embarking again, I went to the dining car for breakfast — an omelette, muffin, yogurt, and orange juice. The server echoed my feelings about sleeping better on a moving train. Outside the window, marsh slowly turned into concrete and commuter train stations; the suburbs I grew up in; the towns I used to drive to.

Past DC, the world sped by faster after they had swapped our diesel engine for electric. It was smoother now, on some of this country's only “higher-speed rail” tracks — we were going 108 mph.

It was nice to end a long trip this way, with a 1,000-mile interlude of calm. When I stepped off and into the crowds of midtown Manhattan, the calm stayed. Cars revved and honked, someone yelled, and a pigeon asked me for food. It was good to be home.

Shot on a Leica M10 Monochrom.

Discuss...

#trains #photos #photography #blackAndWhite

Read everything up until this point: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Day 4

I woke somewhere in North Dakota, the waning gibbous moon looking at me across patchy snow-covered plains. The sun was slowly turning the eastern sky behind us orange and yellow; I pulled some levers under the seats in my roomette to slide them up out of “bed mode” and back into seats, then looked out the window for a while. I'd tell you what was on my mind, if those thoughts happened to be in English — but they weren't, so all I can say is that it was a very pretty morning.

I was compelled to record my view out the window on Snapchat, save it, post it to my “story,” and then upload the same video to my Instagram “story” as well. Despite the horrendously slow and glitchy experience that is recording a video in Snapchat, for some reason I compulsively engage in this pastime while traveling. I even took a selfie (or four, before I got it right) for my innumerable (7) fans back home. Then I went for some coffee.

I wrote code for much of the morning from the observation car. Gray skies over the barren plains of North Dakota and later Montana served as a good backdrop for this. At one point, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a code editor on the laptop of the guy sitting at the table next to me. At one point he got up and, with a country accent and a straight face said, “If anyone tries to take my stuff, just shoot 'im.” When he came back he asked what I was working on, and we talked about whatever programmers talk about: programming languages, the Javascript ecosystem, our collective helplessness from ceding control of our lives to poorly-made software — the usual.

After some time I went to lunch in the dining car, and was seated with a girl who also happened to be going to AWP. We had a nice conversation — the kind where your food gets cold because you're both spending more time talking than eating.

At the Havre, Montana stop, US Border Patrol got on board and strolled through the observation car. There were three agents, and for some reason I suspected they weren't looking for illegal Canadian immigrants. After about 10 minutes, the train rolled forward a few more yards, and a conductor informed everyone that they were finally allowed to get off the train. It really warmed my heart to see these officers exert their authority in an otherwise peaceful mode of transportation (that never crossed an international border). Intimidating lawful citizens making their way from one place to another keeps this country free and secure, amirite?

Maybe it's better to travel to places you don't care about if you plan to get any work done. Even going across the plains of the northern US is endlessly interesting, because your mind can wander wherever it pleases. You don't have to focus on keeping your car on the road or any other pressing task — you can notice the fields and trees and birds and sky.

You can notice people in cars following alongside the train — passengers who seem just as interested in us as we are in them. You see more deer, just grazing in open fields. Yet another freight train passes by, slowing your train (they always have priority). You realize there are entire locales that don't have paved roads — having grown up in the suburbs, this is truly startling. You see old wooden buildings that have given up their youthful fight against gravity, but still stand, if hunched only a bit.

The barren landscape reminds you of Iceland or Hawaii — well, the trees are similarly lacking, but there's more grass. Did the animals eat all the vegetation before it grew tall, or was it always this way? I'd later ask an older couple this question, both of who grew up in South Dakota — but they said that's just the way it's always been.

Take the barbed-wire fences out of your view, and you see almost what the people before the modern age must've seen: land that extended out into oblivion. No wires running from house to house, no mechanical beasts speeding across the plains, no far-off sounds of drilling operations. Especially coming from the east coast, the west is a foreign land, though a beautiful one.

I timed my dinner reservation badly, getting to enjoy only a few minutes of Glacier National Park in the observation car before I was summoned to the dining car for the train's final meal of the day. But just before it, I enjoyed a conversation with that older couple from South Dakota.

The conversation was struck up by me sitting nearby, some exposed feet among us, and a joke about my own smelly, but enclosed, feet. We talked about the scenery, hiking, the great outdoors; about raising kids and travel; about the barren plains and my Wikipedia-based knowledge of what happened to all the trees in Iceland. Between various discussions, we all sat in silence, just looking out the windows, huge snow-capped mountains drawing nearer.

At dinner, I was sat at a table with another writer heading to AWP (coming from New York City — it seems she and I had similar ideas) and an older gentleman who used to work for Amtrak. Again, the conversation was lively, thanks to its three willing participants.

Open-mindedness is a funny thing, in that it both enriches your own life and can infect the people around you. In my younger days, I made it a point to dislike “small talk.” I wanted deep conversations, man. I didn't want to be one of those shallow people that only talks about TV and the weather, man.

What I was missing in high school was the experience of being out in society, in all kinds of situations in all kinds of places around the world. When you're sitting at a table with two strangers on a mode of transport that offers movement in only one dimension, small talk is both necessary and natural. Actually, compared to many other social situations, train small talk is quite enjoyable. Besides the endless scenery to comment on, you all agreed to the same sort of deal before getting on board, making commonality easy to find and “shallow” conversation effortless to carry.

If any kind of situation was similar enough, it'd be the conversations you might have with strangers while hiking. Here, it's just less about the weather (or how far until...), and more about why you're there in the first place.

After dinner, I returned to the observation car. It was dark enough that the reading lights inside the car outshone the snow outside, so I sat down, put on some music, and tried to make out the scenery between staring at my own reflection in the window.

Then, after I hadn't seen anything outside for a while, I went back to my room and straight to sleep.

Day 5

When I woke, I'd traveled another hour back in time, to Pacific time. But I'd apparently slept in a bit, too — it was kind of light outside. I got a coffee from the sleeper car, where it was free, instead of the cafe car. Then I went to the observation car and looked out at what I'd later learn was the Columbia River Gorge.

While sitting there, I thought the train engine sounded an awful lot louder — and the horn closer. I looked to the closest end of the car and saw that, hey, the engine is there now. As the crew had prepared us for the night before, the train had split off in Spokane, Washington, with one part heading to Seattle and the other to Portland. The Seattle folks took the dining car with them, but we were fortunate enough to keep the observation car.

Later, after I'd put on my headphones and some other people sat nearby, a lady went for the engine-facing door of the car, arms loaded with snacks from the cafe. She pressed the “open” button probably 20 times before someone told her that the engine was there now, and she finally looked up to read the sign.

“Oh, I went the wrong way!” She said.

It does get disorienting. But on a train, at least you know you can't get lost for too long before you realize you just need to go the opposite way.

This was one of the most beautiful parts of the trip. For the whole morning we followed the Columbia River westward, going through tunnels and around bends that would reveal new waterfalls, maybe Mt. Hood, a new dam or bridge, or morning fog hovering in the nooks of a cliffside. The sun started peeking above the mountain tops, casting long shadows along the steep cliffs. Traveling through there was like watching a movie put on by nature (and many of my fellow travelers were pirating her work, no doubt Snapchatting it to their voracious audience).

I could've sat there all day. Unfortunately, I knew I had less than three hours before finally arriving in Portland. I had to start mentally preparing for the week ahead, and to once again drive, instead of ride.

As I packed up my 60-pound backpack and gathered my things, I was already regretting having booked a flight home, instead of the train. We were getting close; I was trying to figure out how much I should layer up — I hadn't been outside on solid ground for a few days. I looked up the general directions to my hotel. I figured I wouldn't do too much research, and just wander like usual when I arrived.

Still, it was a great trip that felt like a destination in itself. I know I'll be making this journey again someday.

#travel #FLtoOR #trains

Previous: Day 1, Day 2

It's 3 am and we're going through... some city. Cleveland, I guess. Yep — Cleveland. My left hip is killing me. Somehow the arrangement of my limbs isn't only affecting the muscles around my hips, but also around my knee. Is my leg asleep, just not at the pins-and-needles stage yet? No idea, but it's stiff in ways I've never felt, so I have no idea how to fix it. Anyway, next stop: Chicago.

As I've written about before, when you're working on something you love, it can be all-consuming. You might put in 16-hour days and think nothing of it, that you'll never burn out, because you love the work. I have trouble with just one more thing syndrome, and find it hard to stop working after 8 hours or so, unless I really try. So being on a train helps disrupt that. Yesterday I felt like watching the scenery and listening to music all day, so I did. This morning, I woke up ready to work again.

I finished some marketing collateral for the conference while sipping some coffee in the observation car, feet kicked up, Indiana corn fields rushing by. We passed marshlands and families of deer; brick factories and expansive railyards.

I was a little more prepared this time when I got off the train. I had forewent a heavy winter jacket when packing, because I saw Portland wasn't going to be that cold.

Of course, I forgot I'd also be outside in DC and Chicago.

So instead of suffering the biting cold like in DC, I at least put on a long sleeve shirt under my hoodie. I loaded my pack on my back, and waddled in a funny way down the platform, since my sore hip muscles were now the lucky recipients of 50 extra pounds of cargo.

Chicago's Union Station is an blend of Art Deco style and... classical something something? Maybe it's just all Art Deco, I don't know. But it certainly made me slightly confused, then intrigued, as I walked into the station.

I soon found the “Metropolitan Lounge,” which as a customer with a sleeper car ticket, I had free access to. This lounge was much nicer (and larger) than the ClubAcela at Washington's Union Station. But like that lounge, I could leave my bag and go wander the city.

So I did. I dropped my things off, and in short, found my way to a Starbucks and an 8K race that happened to be going on, then walked over to the lake, then back to the station. It was the first time I'd spent any time in Chicago, but for some reason it just wasn't bringing me much joy. I got annoyed by all the glass skyscrapers and the corporate-sponsored fixtures in Millenium Park, like BP Bridge and the McDonald's Cycle Center. Who does that? I think I was just hungry.

So I stock up on some food before heading back to Union Station. I figured some hard-boiled eggs and cheese sticks would keep me close to my diet goals.

Despite a friendly man telling me my car — number 2730 — was at the very end of the train, I responded a confident “Yep!” when passing an earlier attendant on the platform that asked me, “Car 730?” I almost got settled in to my cabin and kicked off my stinky shoes before a woman came by and asked if we had both been put in the same room.

No, I just don't follow instructions sometimes.

The conductors on this train have all been extremely amiable. Over the loudspeaker, the attendant for our car kindly explained all we needed to know about staying on board, and seemed genuinely pleased to address the passengers who were about to go on their first-ever train ride. The conductor who came by for our tickets — a man you could aptly describe as “jolly” — made the same joke about people washing dishes in the dining car if they didn't have the ticket three times before he got to me.

Getting on the Empire Builder today felt like I was embarking for the west coast with a merry band of travelers — strangers who are quick to become friends, should you choose to have them.

The past few days of traveling and sleeping on trains meant that, well, I hadn't showered in a few days. And the attendant's early remark about the “recycled air” on the train made me that much more wary when I did find out how bad my shoes smelled.

So I got to enjoy another first: showering on a moving train.

It wasn't all that bad; only one jarring movement had me truly concerned I was going to slip and break my neck, but I didn't. I showered like I would at any hostel or campground, and carried on, now refreshed and feeling a little more human again.

Later, at dinner, I was joined by three strangers. They do this at each table in the dining car — put you with others, so the seating space is maximized. My booth-mates weren't exceedingly outgoing; while a table next to us carried on about Dungeons and Dragons and another table easily went through normal small talk for a train (where ya from, where ya going, etc.), we all kind of stared out the window toward the sunset.

At several points I considered striking up a conversation, but had the feeling I'd have to then carry the thing, so I decided to enjoy our quiet, instead. I thought about how originally, I wasn't sure if I'd “survive” several days on the train, but now I didn't want it to end. I guess this might be a regular thing for me now.

It's now almost 10pm central time, and we just pulled into the St. Paul / Minneapolis, Minnesota stop. While there's more to say, I'm excited to sleep entirely horizontally tonight, and wake to a full day traversing the West tomorrow.

Next: day 4 and 5

#travel #FLtoOR #trains

Previous: Day 1 Next: Day 3

Sleep last night was punctuated by a sore hip, a stiff knee, a quick lateral jerk by the entire train, seemingly going faster than usual, I guess to make up time (it was about 40 minutes late getting into Jacksonville). With my footrest down and my legrest up, I slept about as good as anyone can in that position — my only enemy was a giant, undimmed light hanging over the vestibule door, shining directly into my eyes at my slightly-reclined angle. So I covered my head with a hoodie and slept quite deeply, between the random jarring moments.

However, as we got into Virginia, the hoodie needed to serve two purposes: keeping me blind and keeping me warm. A quick adjustment (carefully avoiding waking my sleeping seatmate) and I was back asleep — until it got too cold. By this time it was 5:30 am, a good enough hour to wake up.

I'm scheduled to get into DC at 7:07 am. Despite being so late at Jacksonville, and a protracted stop in Savannah while the conductors were looking for a person who didn't get off, the current status says we'll only be 7 minutes late in DC. I guess they did make up that time.

I move to the cafe car again and wait for 6 o'clock, when I can buy a hot coffee. The right side of the train sees a sliver of light on the horizon, while the left is still in complete darkness. The rails have gotten smoother; I could probably write, if I wasn't already typing.

I overhear a conversation between a passenger and conductor about how someone got on the train in Richmond and started yelling, cursing, and preaching to everyone. The woman says she had kids; the guy preaching didn't have the right to infringe on everyone's right to sleep peacefully in the car. The conductor mentions trying to talk the man down, but failing. He says he had to bring the cops in. As we roll into the Fredericksburg stop, I see one police SUV quickly pull up to a stop sign, then two more behind it. Fifteen minutes later, as we started to pull away, I see an older man flailing his arms and talking to three officers — I guess he's the preacher.

A pit-stop in DC means a few things: I can arrange a business meeting with someone who lived in the area, and I can grab lunch with family who live in the suburbs. So I do both.

While riding the train is enjoyable, getting on and off one is painless, as well. In many cities, you'll find the train station right in the middle of anywhere you'd want to be, near other transportation options.

(Of course, Jacksonville is a bad example — the station is nowhere near the city center; it's accessible only by car or a 0.6 mi (1 km) walk from the nearest bus stop on a sidewalk-less, 6-lane road. The area was made for moving things—not humans—and it shows.)

But in DC, you're right downtown. A several-hour “layover” doesn't mean a half-hour ride into the center of town, like one at an airport might. You can hop off, do whatever in the city, then get back on just as easily. And while there are no lockers, luckily Amtrak is happy to hold on to my 50 lb. luggage while I wander around.

The Amtrak observation car is the type of thing only someone who loves train travel would invent. It's a two-story car, cafe on the bottom, viewing lounge on the top. Upstairs it has swiveling seats aimed outward, straight toward the windows, with curved windows at the top of the car so you can see anything taller than this already-tall car.

It's late evening when I board train 29 to Chicago, so the sun is beating down through these extra light-portals. Still, looking down the inside of the car, you get the effect of being underwater — waves of overarching tree branches rippling from the far end up towards you as you race through a valley, along a river.

The chairs swivel, but not all turn completely around, so choosing one side means neglecting a perfectly good view on the other side. And if you try to catch all the best views, you may end up switching your seat just as the side you switched to starts facing a bland mountainside, as I did. It's best to pick one side and fall in love with it, not worrying about what the opposite might hold.

I'm thinking about creativity today. This car wouldn't exist if its designer didn't love watching the world go by. It wouldn't exist if you just wanted to maximize the number of humans you can cram into a vessel. It wouldn't exist if you needed an attraction for the train at low cost. It turns out to be a unique selling point, sure, but nothing guarantees a seat in this car; nothing assures good views. It seems to be built with the best intentions in mind, for the chance that people like us, the ones sitting here, might enjoy it as its creator would. I think that's an important place to start from when you're inventing.

I've been on a #keto diet for the past five months, mostly in an attempt to lose my beer gut. It's worked wonders on me, but unfortunately is pretty difficult to adhere to while traveling — especially while stuck on a train. So tonight when my bag of pecans didn't sate me, I opted for an Amtrak cheeseburger — a microwaved affair that is surprisingly satisfying, considering its preparation. While I was already loading up on carbohydrates, I paired my burger with a Stone IPA that Amtrak very smartly serves on board. Lucky for me, my diet has eliminated any tolerance I had for alcohol, so the single expensive beer did the trick for me.

It's night now, and I can see the Orion constellation in one of the small windows at the top of the observation car. I listen to music — not a random playlist like normal, but a full album straight-through. With no pressing demands on me, for once I can focus on the music again, watch the world go by, let my thoughts drift, until tomorrow...

Next: Day 3

#travel #FLtoOR #trains #amtrak

I love taking the train. I can't really remember when I started regularly riding it — sometime in the past six years of living in northern Florida. But I often get on the Silver Meteor or Silver Star for a relaxing trip up the east coast to visit family in the DC area. Whenever I travel abroad, it's my preferred mode of transportation — whether the Shinkansen in Japan or the many rail lines in Europe. I wish it was possible to travel the United States with the same ease as in those countries, but today I'm content that we have a passenger rail system at all.

There's something about traveling by train that just feels right. To say anymore than that would be to miss the point; I can only describe the experiences around rail travel in hopes that you'll feel the magic of it. That's what I'm aiming for in this series of posts.

Right now I'm hurtling past the still waters and swamps of southern Georgia; Cypress trees dressed in Spanish moss fly past us. It disappears as quickly as it had appeared, but the memory lingers for a bit, like a spot burned into your vision after staring at a bright light for too long. Then it fades as the scenery returns to mostly pine and oak trees, and against this relatively dull backdrop, my thoughts wander a little more.

There's a rattle to the foot rest in my spacious coach seat. My phone says we're going 80 mph (129 km/h), and I can definitely feel it. The tracks in the South are rough, and owned by freight companies; and these cars are old. I mean, they certainly don't look modern, but they're also not really tied to any obvious time period. I only know this train car was likely built in the 70's because I got captivated by that Wikipedia page once.

Ignoring the fact that it's impossible to write legibly in these conditions — hence the typed blog post — the gentle swaying of the train is kind of soothing. You learn to move with the train while on board, much like on a boat. There are no seatbelts; no captain telling you when there's land turbulence (usually in the form of a series of track switches). If you walk around, you do it with hands out, preparing to catch yourself on seat-backs and luggage racks, trying to avoid human faces and heads.

And you can walk around! It's one aspect that makes this form of transportation enjoyable, instead of feeling like it's just 12+ hours stuck in a flying metal tube. The aisles are wide, the luggage space ample. Overall, the train feels human-sized, instead of several inches too small in every dimension, like on a plane.

I find the train is great for long, continuous sessions writing code or reading one of the many books I've accumulated but never read at home. So when the mood strikes, I'll head to the cafe car and grab a seat at one of the picnic-style tables.

In fact, as the world outside gets darker and harder to see, I'll do this now.

The first leg of my journey is on the Silver Meteor from Jacksonville to Washington, DC. I'll have a full day in DC before taking the Capitol Limited to Chicago, then a shorter day there before taking the Empire Builder all the way out to Portland.

I'm riding coach for the first two 12-hour legs of the journey, then a sleeper car for that final 45-hour leg. Coach on Amtrak is perfectly fine, but sleeping there can be rough. Seats go back pretty far, but not far enough to make you feel like you're really laying down. It's a tease, really — reclining far enough to know you're not on an airplane, but stopping short of giving you restful sleep. But with the private room, no matter how the next two nights go, I should at least be well-rested for when I get to Portland.

I've miraculously packed everything I need for this trip — clothes, tech, materials for our booth at the conference — into a single 75 liter backpack. It weighs 52 lbs (24 kg), or about a third of my body weight. My thighs were starting to burn under the added load while only standing in line to board the train.

I'm not sure how foolish this decision to pack everything into one bag will be yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out. As we creep into the Savannah, GA station, me still in the cafe car, I'm at least comforted knowing that no one will snatch the bag and get off the train with it. Now, I'll just need to avoid pulling a muscle when I disembark.

Next: Day 2

#travel #FLtoOR #trains