I kid that Joyce and I are travel sluts. We'll go anywhere. Have passport; will travel.
We love going "to" places. But destinations are just half the lure because, often, we don't even know where we'll end up. It's the travel of travel that we tend to enjoy just as much.
On our bucket list are two trips once time permits: the first, a repeat of the freighter trip I took from Brooklyn to Cape Town in 1971; the second, the trans-Siberian railway trip from Moscow to Vladivostok (where we have a friend).
This past week, in our trip to the San Francisco Bay area, we avoided what has now become the dreaded airport experience for the Amtrak station in Lawrence. Not too long after midnight, the #3 rolled into Lawrence. Joyce and I lugged our luggage (with no removal of shoes, belts, etc.) a few steps onto the Southwest Chief's sleeper car, where our accommodations -- a compact but comfortable roomette -- were ready and waiting with clean linens on the well-made bunks.
The rockin' and rollin' of the coach and the frequent song of the train whistle (one of Joyce's favorite sounds) literally served as cradle and lullaby.
The next day was filled with leisure, changing landscape, a terrific thunder-and-lightning show that lasted for hours outside Flagstaff, Arizona, and palatable, even enjoyable, dining experiences.
Late that second night, the cradle and lullaby greeted us again.
Fifteen minutes early into L.A. that morning, we then waited two hours for the highly anticipated (and recommended) Coast Starlight to take us to Oakland. The Coast Starlight, after an hour or so of L.A. suburbs, offers what has to be one of the most alluring train experiences anywhere. The Coast Starlight cuddles the beaches and bluffs of the California coast for hours, literally coming mere yards from the waterline at times. We sat for hours in the observation car just simply looking, each turn of the track providing a view unique to the previous and the next.
Disembarking at Oakland, just a few minutes from our son's apartment in Alameda, a lament crept in: the flight home. Alas, the airport awaits.
For the trip home, the travel of travel will have lost its lure for the moment.
Going by train, without a real idea of where you might end up, with time to watch what's around you instead of just letting it fly by as you hop from place to place?
ReplyDeleteThat's a romantic notion of travel that most of us have lost sight of by now, I think.