New York->Chicago, Day One
I really don’t want to get off the train. I’m twenty-seven hours into the first leg of the North American Rail Pass I bought yesterday morning. For the next month, I can get on and off the trains as much as I like. My trip begins with a week long trek towards the Columbia River Gorge in Washington, where I promised I would be for my buddy Glenn’s bachelor party next Saturday. Pretty much all routes to the Northwest from New York go thru Chicago. So I had two options to start my trip: the Lake Shore Limited, which cuts pretty directly from New York up thru Buffalo and rides along the Great Lakes or the Cardinal, which leaves Penn Station and dips south all the way to Virginia before it begins cutting west and winding its way thru West Virginia and Indiana. Both trains get into Chicago around the same time on the morning of the next day, but the Cardinal leaves New York a good nine hours earlier since it takes such a circuitous route. Easy decision, right? So I arrived at Penn just before six in the morning and booked the last available seat on the Cardinal, assuring that I will not die without having seen the Cincinnati skyline as well as the West Virginia prison Martha Stewart served her time at.
I learned all about Alderson, West Virginia, the town where Martha was incarcerated for investment fraud a few years ago from some significant face time I got in with a few local retired fellas yesterday evening. That happened as a result of an unexpected stopover in Alderson when our train was held up there for almost two hours waiting for coal trains to pass thru. I wandered over to the group of older guys who were pulled over in a couple of cars alongside the rails after spotting that one had the license plate “World’s Greatest Grandpa.” Now there’s a roadside attraction you never see in guide books. The group of five of them all seemed like pretty decent grandpas, wasting no time in giving me the town’s history. Paul Blain and Cricket took me all the way from Martha back to when Alderson was a hotspot for rich Southerners to come up to in the summer and chill out inside sulfite baths and coal miner’s daughters. The Civil War changed all that and the booming hotel industry died down, leaving a humble spot where old men drive into town on the afternoons when they know the Amtrak is coming thru. Yesterday was an unexpected treat for the crew with the coal train delay. The guys were curious as to why I was taking a month to ride around and and they bid me off by telling me that they’d be looking for me on TV. That alone earned them the license plate title if you ask me.
The coal trains have led to us now being three hours behind schedule. I’m uncertain where I’ll head once I arrive in Chicago. The day before I left New York, I started stressing out that I hadn’t done a very good job at getting in touch with old friends and booking hostels in the spots I’m hoping to hit in the next couple weeks. I’m terrible at making plans. But now that I’m actually on the train I remembered that my only real plan was to buy this month long pass and ride around wherever I wanted to. That’s taken care of. If I don’t feel like getting off anywhere, I don’t have to. I spent the same amount on this pass than I would have on a month’s rent if I had committed to any of the Brooklyn apartments I had been looking at before all this began. Amtrak is my landlord this month.
No matter where I’ve lived, I have a tendency to spend little time around my place. As soon I arrive home, I’m usually quick to turn around and go out to meet up with friends. Couch surfing often takes up as many of my nights as sleeping in my own bed does. It’s nice to have the opposite instincts for once.
PS-Until I figure out how I wanna put pictures up here, you should come visit my flickr page to see shots I’m taking along the way.
