Why Trains?

One of my favorite bits of railroad trivia is that Rhapsody in Blue, known as the United Airlines theme with Matt Damon’s voice coming in to tell you about the friendly skies, was inspired by a trip that George Gershwin took by train to Boston. It’s a song I often listen to while on the train, ignoring another book packed into my bag with high hopes of being bookish. The clacks, bangs, and hums of the rails have never produced a symphony, concerto, or even a song for me yet, but they keep me coming back to ride year after year.

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Getting there

This year’s train trip started with a flight. There was not much magical or inspiring about the flight, except for the fact it allowed me to watch an old favorite movie. The flight from Dulles to Los Angeles might be the longest I’ve ever taken. I’ve never been abroad, and rarely go to the West Coast. Every time I do, I curse the error of my own ways.

Flights are filled with lots of time and ways to waste that time. Here are 300 movies. Here’s a tablet for rent. Or headphones to buy. I relentlessly check the map to see where we are, how much of the flight is left, and try to keep basic math skills alive by calculating the percentage of the flight we’ve completed. I talked very briefly at the end of the flight with the woman sitting by the window, who was going to see her daughter and newborn granddaughter. She was certainly happy to arrive and softened her expression as we taxied around the runway.

People talk a lot more once you touch down on planes. I know it’s the calculated risk of starting a conversation with someone when they’re next to you for five hours, but once you land, it’s only 15 more minutes of potential hostage taking to an unwanted conversation. The stress apparent on everyone’s face through security warnings and tiny seats melts in those moments. Things are OK for a little bit, until we all want to get off the plane at the same time.

Golden Times

I landed at LAX and immediately violated a cardinal rule of Los Angeles. I walked. I walked out of the airport. I walked past cars jammed in to an airport driveway at noon on a Thursday, and service workers walking in to the airport. A TSA officer zipped by me going into LAX on a Lime scooter. He certainly seemed to be having more fun than those stuck in their cars.

I walked up to my hotel, less than a mile away checked in early from a status I earn by having a credit card, and tried my hardest to stay awake to adjust to the new time zone. I mused on going to a Ralph’s without a loyalty card, given I had just seen The Big Lebowski the week prior. A fellow pedestrian with a Stonewall Kickball DC shirt reminded me that the world is pretty small. It honestly was a lazy opening to a very busy vacation.

This lazy day around LAX ended up being about the only downtime in California. Dan arrived the next morning and we headed out, through downtown Los Angeles (avoided the 405) and happened upon the first historic site without planning it. The series of tunnels that lead out of downtown LA are the beginning of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the first parkway of the massive California Expressway and Freeway System and the first freeway in the Western United States. Our experience on it was rather brief, the series of tunnels that serve as the gateway to the parkway, but like everything in LA, they were in movies, and were designed with style beyond what was necessary, which got us both looking up while in traffic.

The journey to the Central Valley had me looking around in amazement at almost everything. My norm in the Mid-Atlantic and New England is non-stop green. There is always green. Green mountains, hills, lawns, foothills, green license plates. Driving over the hills to get out of Los Angeles was a study in different shades of brown and high rates of speed, punctuated with a stop at In-N-Out burger.

I try to reconcile different parts of my knowledge a lot while traveling. Visiting somewhere new challenges what I knew before hand, coming in, with the childlike wonder of seeing something new. I know about California wildfires, and how dry the area is. Seeing that in person? I couldn’t stop looking around. The undulation of the hills. The canyons that seem to go forever. A huge intersection of two different carriageways of one interstate and an intersection with a freeway, all under the cascades of the Los Angeles aqueduct. To see the drinking water of the city, tumbling in the air, down a mountain as a backdrop of leaving the metro area reminded me how much of an engineering achievement the whole city is. A desert fed by water over 200 miles away. The whole system can be as simple as water coming from a faucet (get over it, Marc, it’s just water), but these projects fascinate me.

With me taking pictures from the front seat, and Dan driving, we entered the Central Valley’s heat of 100 degrees, and made our way to Kings Canyon National Park. We arrived about mid-afternoon and stopped off at the visitor’s center near General Grant. In true NPS style, a most wonderful ranger Tina guided us for what would be the next two days. What hikes to take around that area, where to drive to, what to see when we go down into Sequoia the next day, and chatted with us as if we were old friends returning to a common love. We certainly weren’t the only people there, but it did not feel crowded, and we set off to see General Grant.

For being the second largest living thing on Earth, Grant didn’t stand out that much because he was in a forest of a lot of his friends. Though the tree was impressive, the grove of all the tress together was more of a statement. I was struck by a stump, left over from a tree cut down to send to the 1876 centennial exhibition in Philadelphia. Those on the east coast, viewing a cross section of a sequoia, could not believe it, and called the Californian who brought it a liar, and proclaimed it a hoax. There was no way a tree could be that big.

I didn’t know of that story before going into Sequoia, but immediately identified with it. How could anyone believe this without seeing it? I had purchased a guidebook for a couple bucks before coming in, but never got around to reading it before entering the park, and I’m kind of glad it worked out that way. To discover based on what the rangers say, and stopping to read the panels added more to the experience for me, though I can’t explain exactly why.

Though General Grant and General Sherman are just so amazingly big, the most humbling moment was hiking into the Crescent Meadow, a beautiful patch of grass standing among giants. We approached from the Congress Trail and walked around the entire meadow to get to the shuttle stop back to our visitor center, and ended at the explanatory sign of the meadow. The simple wooden sign, in the iconic National Park all caps font, proclaimed

CRESCENT MEADOW: GEM OF THE SIERRAS – JOHN MUIR

I had been walking in the footsteps of John Muir, and didn’t know until we reached the end of our hike. It wouldn’t have been hard to reason, we were hiking in the Sierras of the Sierra Club, but the indescribable beauty became more understandable. These were the lands that helped convince the world parks are worth protecting, and that nature is its own cathedral that can heal. I had been to Yosemite as a middle schooler, but wasn’t in any mental state to get it. I probably annoyed my parents and brother more than anything. Taking in the sights Muir enjoyed, and hiking around his gem was something special.

California travels continued on after the Sierras toward the desert, through Tehachapi and a stop to see Cesar Chavez’s homestead with a very close bobcat (Cesar Clawvez?) experience. We wrapped back into Los Angeles taking the 405, and made it back in time for the departure at 10 PM into the California night.

On the Train

Given what I had seen already, it was crazy to think that the trip was just about to start, but I leaned into making this a trip bigger than the past. It was also a trip that I took one day after receiving a new pair of glasses, and honestly, I love them. It really brought me a lot of new confidence, and I took a lot more pictures with me in them after having them on. Part of that confidence also came with being around people I truly felt great around. There’s a refreshing honesty that comes with being around friends that get you. Even with the group only getting together 1-2 times a year, there’s a depth to the friendships, because you have hours to talk on the train about so many things. I’ve laughed, cried, and enjoyed some of the finest moments of my life with friends aboard a trip, and this was no different.

Boarding the train that evening and watching Los Angeles drift away into the night was the start of another time to create and deepen those friendships, though the train also adds some friendships. On the way to El Paso, a couple boarded in Arizona on their way to New Orleans to take a cruise up the Mississippi River. We ended up having breakfast with this couple, and talking about taking the train, and the differences in travel. They were local to Arizona, so they could point out some of the mountain ranges and how to pronounce town names. We were locals to the train, so we pointed out when they could go out and smoke.

I’m generally for chatting up strangers on the train. In the same way as the landing conversations on an airplane, people open up. The difference is, you can get up and leave if the conversation doesn’t go well. If the conversation does go well? You stay in touch months or years later (which has happened!)

This journey was shorter though. Only from 10 PM to about 3 PM the next day in El Paso.

The American Desert

We arrived right about on time in El Paso and immediately headed out toward Carlsbad to go see the bats that leave every evening to go feast on bugs to the delight of every person there. The ranger program began at 7 PM, and we arrived at 7:05 PM, just in time to hear the Ranger say the bats use the cave as a hotel, and then notice the bats had begun. They were early! Sunset wasn’t until 7:30 or so, but they are very strict about using any electronics during the bat flight, so the Ranger had to cut off his microphone.

For the next hour, we sat at an amphitheater looking at the cavern opening watching thousands upon thousands of bats. They corkscrew out of the cave, spinning up and around toward the sky. I tried to trace some of the bats, and it seems so easy, but they scatter into the night sky so quickly. Thousands of bats, streaming from one spot that suddenly all disappear into the desert night. Our group then disappeared into Carlsbad, in desperate search of a place to eat that was open past 9 PM. It turned out to be a tall order, but we ended up at a Japanese place, where I slathered my chicken hibachi in A-1, as we listened to country music.

The next two days were going between the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas, and exploring Carlsbad Caverns. The mountains were formed out of a coral reef, from millions of years ago that formed into limestone. The same mountain range continues and is above the caverns in New Mexico, making it one large diagonal line of parkland through the desert.

It’s a different scenic beauty than I’m used to, and different than the golden views of California. We happen upon springs that have turkeys, roadrunners and deer near by. We hike into a canyon fed by a river and stays a green oasis in the middle of the desert. There’s even a fall that takes place in the Texas mountains near the border. For the first time, I drive a car in my birthstate, and go 80 miles an hour through the Texas desert on our way back into El Paso.

We see an entirely different form of desert to go see White Sands, and dig our feet into gypsum sand. It’s cool to walk on, and even gets damp as you dig in a few inches. I rented a saucer to slide the down the dunes, but it definitely doesn’t go as planned. The benefit is really good expressive pictures of each other as we slowly slide down the dune.

A whirlwind around New Mexico and El Paso leaves us seeing the memorial to the friendship of the United States and America and Mexico, and getting a Blake’s Lottaburger (as opposed to a Whataburger.) We end up arriving back at the station with about 30 minutes to spare before the train arrives, totally using all of the time between the train portions.

On the Train Again to New Orleans

Boarding the Sunset Limited brings on a comfy mood. The entire group is now on board, and we squeeze far too many people into a Family Bedroom built for four on the train to chat and catch up. The El Paso suburbs pass by as we talk, and head further south into Texas towards Alpine.

Dinner that evening is an absolute joy, with some candid photos looking like an ad for Amtrak. Laughter and jokes come easy among us, and though I can’t remember the topics anymore of conversation, I can remember how I felt. So authentically appreciated and understood, and just happy to be around friends. I feel like I can’t describe more without repeating myself, but I hope everyone has friendships like these to be able to understand and be understood.

The next day brings us into Houston, where, as we’re all photographing a passing transit vehicle, two recently boarded passengers ask if we’re NerdTrain. It’s a beautiful moment to be recognized and pick up two more people to join our group. The discussion continues onto what Houston has done for transit and what will do.

As we come into Louisiana, a mother and son start playing cards near by us in the Lounge Car. The mom got up and looked over at us, “hey train nerds, where’s the bathroom on this car.” Of course we all knew, and then started chatting more with her. She was from New Jersey, her son lives in Arlington, VA. Little did they know how much transit expertise they were sitting next to. We talked about Penn Station, NJ Transit, the new Hudson Tunnel, and WMATA all in the time to arriving into New Orleans. I think we proved to be such good ambassadors for transit that she asked for a picture with all of us right before we arrived.

Arriving into New Orleans came with the annual tradition of Matt reading Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

The railroad track is miles away, 
    And the day is loud with voices speaking, 
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day 
    But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by, 
    Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, 
But I see its cinders red on the sky, 
    And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make, 
    And better friends I'll not be knowing; 
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, 
    No matter where it's going.

From there, we went our separate ways, another NerdTrain completed. Everyone’s different schedules dictated what happened in the city and there was a little less coordinated activities than we had a in the past. But we had a lovely brunch and then exploring around Bourbon Street on a Saturday night, finished off with Beignets.

I stayed until Monday morning and caught a train back to Washington, DC on my own. After being around people for a week and a half, a train ride alone was a different note to end my journey. I had a wonderful table for breakfast leaving Louisiana and Mississippi, with a woman born in New Orleans leading the discussion about the city, a fellow southerner offering his thoughts and myself and a Californian who had been on the train with us from Texas into New Orleans. It was like being around old friends again too, laughing and talking about different regional customs, and the native NOLA resident happy and impressed that I found the Parkway Bakery to go get a po’boy sandwich.

Sadly that proved to be the only good group for chatting I got coming home, and the rest of the time was in my roommette, listening to music or reading. The playlist home came from NPR, with a list of American Anthems, music that has helped define us as a country. I couldn’t help but sneak in Rhapsody in Blue in there as well, but the list provides ups and downs. Some songs of protest, some songs that defined culture and music, songs of joy, and songs of loss. It had been a while since I had listened to sadder songs before, and found myself tearing up, watching the world go by. It’s was not my expected end to such an adventure, but allowing myself time to decompress and fully engage with music that’s typically a background to journeys on the metro was cathartic.

I was ready to come home by the time of our arrival in DC, and eagerly took photos of the passing monuments going over the Long Bridge (as my attendant reminded me, “You LIVE here!”) In the last moments before going into a tunnel that would bring me into Union Station, I saw a mom racing up a ramp with her young son to catch a look at the train. I furiously waved at them, catching the mom’s eyes first and then her son, and waved more with some pointing. The clacks, bangs, and horn of the train catching the attention of another person before we disappeared into the tunnel.

I feel fortunate that the spark of the child hasn’t left me yet either. I’m still excited to see trains go by, and to step aboard a train on a journey of almost any length. I hope sincerely this is something that never leaves me as long as I live.