Posts Tagged ‘Amtrak’

I left for my book tour today. I’m not going to lie to you. I was pretty emotional. We were late getting to the train, thanks to traffic (side note: a great thing about Amtrak is you can show up five minutes before the train leaves and just jump on) and I cried and then got on the train. A minute later, David was scrambling on behind me. The conductor had told him to go up and help me to my room. When he left, my porter (my porter!) came by to give me a tour of my room and asked, “You miss that guy already?” and I said, “I’m going to be gone for a month, and I’m sad.” And he nodded and said, “Understandable.”

Which is, I think, a sum up of why this trip is blowing my mind. When I had that panic attack at 30,000 feet, someone pointed out that part of the trouble with flying isn’t actually the flying, it’s how you can feel sort of dehumanized by the process. Amtrak has been the opposite experience. The train is slower, sure. But there are also a ton of real life people ready to help me out if I have a question. There are volunteers from the California State Railroad Museum giving us a history tour as we go. The sleeper cars all have a huge fold out pamphlet describing all the interesting things you’ll see. And when I went looking for paper towels (I have my own bathroom! And shower!) I realized instead they’d provided me with actual towels. What?!?

I feel like a person here. I feel like, maybe, in the rush to get on with things, we’ve all been missing something big. Because, sure, I’m not getting anywhere incredibly quickly, but with views like this, why on earth would I want to?

And yes. I miss my husband, already, a lot. Clearly he needs to take Amtrak with me, which I’m already plotting about. But there is something to be said for a marriage where you’re really sad to leave, but also know you’ve got to go, because spreading your wings is your job.

P.S. I just saw the first snow of the trip!

P.P.S. Coming up in future days: why I feel like I’m on the Hogwarts Express! Sleeping in a sleeper car! Drinking coffee in my private room in the frigid morning with the heat keeping me all toasty! Seeing America! And more! Stay tuned.

Pictures from Instagram, where I’m charting the trip. Follow me on Twitter for more. I’ll do a proper photo round up at some point, never fear.

**This post was made possible by Amtrak, who is sponsoring my book tour. Thank you Amtrak!**

Today* was my second leg on Amtrak. I got on in the middle of the night in Salt Lake, fell fast asleep, woke up to scarf down some breakfast, fell fast asleep again, and woke up in old-west Grand Junction, Colorado. (I suspect I’m going to be angry at my bed tonight in Denver for not rocking me to sleep and occasionally tooting its horn into the night, but I digress.) I woke up in Grand Junction, where we had time to kill, and I was able to get out and wander across the street to see the town as the snow began to fall. This is civilized travel, people. Then, I got back to my compartment, read the complementary newspaper (the super cool thing is, most of the time you get the paper from whatever town the train stops at in the middle of the night), and drank the complementary coffee in the toasty warm.

And that wasn’t even the good part of the day.

The good part of the day was climbing through the winter wonderland of the Rockies, tracking the frozen Colorado winter as the snow fell harder. I watched the scenery go by, with the heat cranked all the way up in my compartment, and periodically napped. (What? Alt Summit wore me out. More on that on Monday afternoon.) It was literally the perfect Saturday, and now I’m watching the lights of Denver appear in a sweeping vista out my window. Take that, every other mode of transportation.

I suspect that this Amtrak habit might get slightly addictive…. More stories to come. (And yes, there will be full picture roundups, once I upload them.)

*When this post goes live, all of this will have taken place yesterday. I didn’t have signal in the mountains, thank goodness.

Pictures from Instagram, where I’m documenting the trip. Follow me on Twitter for more. I’ll do a proper photo round up at some point, never fear.

I’ve been on the train for the past two days (with a few hours stop off in Chicago to go to the gym, shower, have some wine… thanks Christy Tyler). And I think what I want to talk about most is sleeping on the train. First. That is my for real double bed in a moving train. It’s among the best things to happen to me. When Maddie joins me from DC to Atlanta, we’ll fold down the bunk bed, and I’m pretty sure she’s mandated to let me climb around in it because I’m her boss? I might be confused on that point, but I’m pretty darn excited about the bunk bed.

The thing is, sleeping on the Amtrak is the weirdest and coolest thing all at once. At first, I had a hard time falling asleep because the train was clearly hurrying very fast, and my type-A personality thought, “The train is moving very fast! I should get up and help! Hurry, hurry, hurry.” So somewhere outside of Denver, I got out of bed and pulled the curtain and realized A) I was not in charge, B) We were right on the ground, and C) I was in Big Sky country. I gazed at the sky awash in stars, and the western homesteads rushing by, and then curled up in my double bed and dozed off.

Because the funny thing is, we talk about Amtrak as slow travel. But it doesn’t feel particularly slow when you’re on it because life continues inside at a normal pace: you have meals, you have work days, you sleep. And then, somehow, you go to bed in Denver, and wake up in the snowy white fields of Iowa… as if by magic. Or you go to sleep in Chicago, and wake up on a river in New York.

And right now, the train wheels are saying hurry, hurry, hurry. Lunch is waiting in the dining car, and Boston is waiting right around the bend.

Pictures from Instagram, where I’m documenting the trip. Follow me on Twitter for more. I’ll do a proper photo round up at some point, never fear.

BOSTON! Holy Moly, Boston, you were incredible (and yes, pictures and more coming tomorrow). But now, I’m on Amtrak (God bless them) on the commuter train (yeah Acela!) to New York. And I’m having champagne. On the train. Because that’s what you do when you just finished your first ever national NPR interview (listen to it here). I mean, talk about having something to celebrate! In Boston I had two NPR interviews, my first TV interview, a completely packed book event where the books sold out before I started speaking, and a national interview on Talk of the Nation. Rather clearly, I need a nap. Which I get, courtesy of Amtrak’s relaxing hum and riding in first class (Amtrak, I love you), which means free ponies food and drink. I just ordered the short rib. What??

Seriously, I’m swimming in gratitude for all of you right now. And shortly, I’ll be swimming in dreams. I’m typing this up for you fast because you and I both know that I’m going to fall right asleep in five seconds, which, really, is the whole joy of the train. Years ago, I used to take the plane from New York to Boston or New York to DC. I hated it. It was stressful, I had to run to the airport, run through security, run on the plane, take off, land, get a cab back to the city, blah. And then one day I added up the time it took, and realized that all in, flying took four hours out of my day, and I could have taken the train. During which I could have been asleep. Because that is How I Do on the commuter train.

So off I go, toasting, eating, and then sleeping. See you soon, New York City! I’ve missed you.

Pictures from Instagram, where I’m documenting the trip. Follow me on Twitter for more. I’ll do a proper photo round up at some point, never fear.

Hi Everyone,

It’s editor Maddie here, writing from my very first leg of the Amtrak tour! See that photo up there of me looking wistfully out the window? Well, that’s pretty much how Amtrak travel makes you feel. And let me tell you, with the amount of traveling I’ve done this weekend, I feel like somewhat of an authority on modes of transportation.

You see, in the past three days I have traveled by car, plane, bus, subway, taxi and now Amtrak. The flight out of San Jose was bearable, mostly because I had gotten three hours of sleep leading up to my departure and could barely tell which way was up, but that ignorant bliss was quickly squashed when I was forced to surrender the wine opener I accidentally left in my bag at security (womp womp—Spoiler alert: You don’t have to do that on Amtrak, so I bought two new wine openers at the Penn Station gift shop). From there I finally discovered how to ride a New York City bus, transferred to the subway, and walked the majority of Lower Manhattan trying to find the bar where I’d set up a party for myself.

A cab I tricked into taking me to Brooklyn dropped me off just in time for the Brooklyn book party the next day (which was AMAZING, more on that later) and then an off-duty cab that I also tricked took me back to Manhattan that night.

So, as somewhat of an expert these days, I can say without reservation that having endured layovers, turbulence, and way-too-damn-expensive cabs, Amtrak is easily the most comfortable and accomodating mode of transportation I’ve ever been on. Back when Michael and I were dating long-distance between New York and Boston, I was a slave to the Chinatown bus. And while I begrudgingly accepted that my fate was to ride that cockroach-infested speed monster until the day I die, I remember that every year my uncle would give me an Amtrak gift certificate for Christmas. I would always save it for a special occasion trip, knowing that for one glorious day I would be guaranteed to travel like a human being.

Now I’m here again (and in first class, baby!) and I’m overcome with how amazing and different feels from what I’m used to. As I’m writing this, I am devouring a generous slice of carrot cake and watching as Meg tracks down a glass of champagne for us. I have enough space underneath the table where my laptop sits that I haven’t once had a panic attack about getting deep vein thrombosis (I’m a worrier).

Now that I no longer have to travel to see Michael, or commute three hours to get to work each day, I really thought I’d sworn off train travel entirely. But, as it turns out, I’ve just sworn off crappy train travel. And luckily for me, Amtrak happens to be just the opposite of that.

Now I have to go because there is a glistening bottle of Korbel on my table practically begging for me to drink it. But don’t fret, I’ll be back to update you again on the next part of my adventure: overnight train travel! Until then, cheers.

Love,

Maddie

**This post was made possible by Amtrak, who is sponsoring the book tour. Thank you Amtrak!**