De-trained

So uh, I'm done. Overall, this trip was pretty awesome. I highly recommend it, or at least some version of it. Like, flying out somewhere and training back might be cool. And I really want to go over the Empire Builder line from Chicago to Seattle; it goes along the Canadian coast and through some apparently kick-ass landscapes.

My random advice, if one was so inclined to take a long train trip, is as follows:

Get one of these:










Perhaps some of these:










Don't bother with these, unless you're going with someone and you want a better opportunity to get back on the Train Gang (although honestly, where is the challenge in that; gotta be coach).

When it comes to train cafe car food, don't eat too many of these:









Or ANY of these:










Do something stupid.

Ready yourself for these.

That is all. Thanks a lot for reading, whoever did. I leave you, as one should always be left, on Fire Puppy Lane. Peace out, yo.

Terrified baby

This is a terrified baby. And frankly, I don't blame her for a second. Look at the closeup of my facial hair! You know that sketch at the end of Jackass 2 where they trick the dude into wearing a fake beard made out of all of their pubes? That's what I look like right now.

TrackMarks!

And here they are, the Dave's Train Trip Awards, better known as the TrackMarks! (Heh. Should have named the blog that.)

Dumbest Kid Quote (doubles as cutest, I suppose, but hey, I'm nothing if not callous and mean): as we pulled into Sacramento: "Is this the trainoport?"

Worst Instance of Verbal Child Abuse: Woman who eventually got off train in Salt Lake City: "What are you doing? Oh my god, you're such a brat. You have no reason to cry. You're retarded."

Best Interaction With a non-Train Employee: guy at a Subway in Del Rio as I was paying for a sandwich: "Would you watch something like that? A football league where robots just kill each other? So you wouldn't have to worry about injuries and everything?" I answered, "Of course." He seemed satisfied.

Funniest Random Quote Heard on the Train: A woman walking down the train asking only people of a certain race if they wanted to play no-bid whist and getting turned down repeatedly: "What is with all these damn black people who don't play whist?"

Least Predictable Guy I Heard/Spoke With on the Trains: old guy on Coast Starlight who couldn't stop telling awful jokes to the other old people around him, and framed them all around two fictional "Cajun" characters named Boudreau and Thibodeaux. Seriously.

Worst Piece of Advice Received: "Try the breakfast sandwich."

Low Point: Wandering around Commerce, Calif., at 6:30 in the morning after an all-nighter of poker playing (poker losing, actually) and being forced to smell the smells of both my unshowered self and the smog-ridden east-of-LA shithole.

High Point: (Tie) Oscar's Museum of Awesomeness, and Erotic Massage in San Francisco.

Prettiest Train Ride: California Zephyr, the part from Denver all the way through to San Francisco. Hot shit.

Ugliest Train Ride: I'll go with the Capitol Limited, from DC to Chicago. There are probably some nice bits going through the Appalachians, but it was dark for those so all I got to see was fucking Gary, Indiana.

(and on a similar note) Things I Wish it Had Been Daytime Out When We Passed By: sunset over the pacific, Appalachia, the Salton Sea in California, bridge over the Pecos River in Texas (highest in the US, I think)

I'll wrap up this soon-to-be-award-winning piece of classic literature tomorrow night maybe, but all I've got left is a short trip back from Williamsburg to Philly.

I'm generally not this patient...

Someone asked me the other day for a general description of what riding these long-haul trains is like. And since one person (could possibly have been my mom) asked, that means EVERYONE IN THE WORLD wants to know.

First of all, it's less boring than it seems like it should be. I think this is probably because I had no particular destination and the point of the trip was largely the train ride itself, but still--I haven't really been bored on the trains at all. You end up framing a long trip (my longest rides have been just short of 30 hours) based on certain things you'll do over the course of the day. Like, okay, in a few hours I'll go grab some dinner in the cafe car, then I'll sit there for a while and drink a beer and see if anyone interesting is around to talk to, and then I'll come back to my seat, read for a while or watch a movie and then I'll try and sleep. That sequence then goes by pretty quickly.

And maybe this is also because this hasn't been a destination-oriented trip, but I have spent retarded amounts of time staring out the window and taking pictures. I woke up around 7 in the morning when we stopped in Denver, and didn't really do anything else but stare until I stopped in Glenwood Springs seven hours later. I don't know what happened.

The downsides tend to be the people in your car who can't modulate the volume of their voice, or just think that everyone should hear what they have to say. These are inevitably the people who have nothing to say whatsoever. There was a woman sitting behind me yesterday who had astonishingly loud phone conversations, the last of which before she got off somewhere in Georgia consisted of multiple repetitions of "Jane, I just love riding the train, it's so PEACEful!" There wasn't a hint of irony in her screams.

Anyway, the delivery may be awful, but she's kind of right. It's a nice way to travel when you're not pressed for time. Or showers. My sister is about to pick me up in Alexandria and I'm on the tail end of a three-day shower-free run. My six-month-old niece will not be the smelly one in the car.

Strange pink buildings

Can someone please tell me what the hell this building is? Honestly, it's among the most confusing structures I've ever seen.


You know what that building needs? It needs to be...

4:30 am is no time for crappy music

Volume up for full effect...







(I have no idea why "t" shows up in the credits instead of "to." I tried to fix this like six times. Whatever.)

Hooray for the south

I was in Mississippi for 5 minutes before seeing two white cops searching the pulled-over car of two young black men. Impressive stereotype living-up-to, south.

Creativity

I am currently sitting at a bar in the French Quarter, drinking a hurricane, eating gumbo and listening to a guy play jazz flute.* I am the most cliché man in the UNIVERSE!


*actually, guitar.

Trains tend to run past crappiness

For all the natural beauty one gets to see from these trains I've been riding, it's also quite noticeable how the tracks tend to run past an inordinate amount of factories, oil refineries and dilapidated craptacular houses. The tracks are generally very old, so I guess it just means that nicer stuff doesn't get built near something so loud and intrusive as a train. Makes sense I suppose, but it still sucks.

Leftover prettiness

Some random pictures from the last couple of trains I've been on. 'Cause hey, why not.