11/1/2022 0 Comments Train across america![]() ![]() ![]() In isolation, we continued to speak of a hopeful return to “normal,” even as we soon started to realise that there wouldn’t be much of anything “normal” about our lives anymore, at least not in the way we knew things to be before. Twenty-twenty one was marked by a kind of push-and-pull between isolation and freedom. It had been another strange pandemic year, but very different from the last. Part of the reason I’d decided to take a 72-hour train ride from New York to San Francisco was because I wanted to slow down. #Train across america full#She preferred not to fly for a number of reasons, and since she was retired she had the time to make the roundtrip journey (nearly a full week of travel) on the rails. “I have a brother,” she said, by way of explanation. Alvarez remarked that she had come on the connecting train from Boston and would disembark at Glenwood Springs. In the Rockies, the great Colorado River wound its way along much of our route, and river-rafters mooned the train as we passed them by. There were vast, empty deserts, formidable mesas, and fire-devastated forests. There wasn’t much to do but read, chat with the other passengers, and look out the window. ![]() There was no Wi-Fi on the train, and hardly any decent cell phone reception along its route, which runs through Illinois and Iowa, the plains of Nebraska, the Rocky Mountains, and the Utah and Nevada deserts before crossing the Sierra Nevada and descending towards the San Francisco Bay. On the California Zephyr, she was not missing much in this respect. #Train across america how to#“I will be honest with you, I don’t quite know how to use it, either.” Otherwise, I don’t want to be bothered by it.” She paused and lowered her voice. “I turn it on when I want my children to know where I am. I always carry a book.” She didn’t use her cell phone. I asked her, in turn, if she was enjoying the ride. “You wouldn’t expect to see roses this nice on the table of a train.” Alvarez continued, focused, now holding the vase up to her nose. I hadn’t noticed it I was so busy looking out the window at the land going by. She gestured to a tall vase of pink roses on our table. Alvarez asked me was if I’d had a chance to smell the flowers. She had a precise, matter-of-fact way of speaking that I found to be very comforting.Īfter she finished saying grace, the first thing Mrs. ![]() ( Learn why pilgrimages could be a post-pandemic travel trend.)īut none of these people were quite like Mrs. In the Sierras, I dined with a cable salesman for Spectrum communications. I ate lunch one afternoon in Colorado with a former touring drummer for the band Santana, and had French toast for breakfast in the Utah desert with a couple from South Dakota. The attendants paired travellers for meals at random-blind dates for breakfast, lunch, and dinner-and you just had to hope you’d get along. Only recently, Amtrak had brought back what it calls “ traditional dining” on some long-distance trains, serving passengers in the dining car on white linen tablecloths with silverware, china, and blue napkins emblazoned with the logo of the railroad. When you’re travelling alone on the California Zephyr, the two-and-a-half-day Amtrak train from Chicago to San Francisco, you take your blessings as they come. “Not at all, please go ahead,” I replied, bowing my head as Mrs. “I believe in God, but I wouldn’t want to impose Him upon anybody else.” “Would I offend you if I said grace?” Mrs. She wore a dark dress with large, round buttons. Alvarez was short and stout, with curly grey hair cut in a bob. Alvarez.” The train was rocking from side-to-side as it shot forward in the darkness, and she almost lost her balance when she sat down across from me at our booth. In Iowa, I had dinner with an elderly woman who introduced herself only as “Mrs. ![]()
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