Train Travel

Our train was supposed to depart Kingman at about 2:03 a.m. We finally got on it and were rolling a little over two hours later, at 4:10 a.m. Once again, I found myself on a train at night, but this time I was seatmates with my brother, and not with another college-aged person, like the last time.

Our vacation is now officially underway, and only two hours late. While I find that I can't really sleep very comforably in these seats, I do find that I love the swaying of the train when it's at track speed, especially as it rounds bends. It's an oddly reassuring feeling, and you know you're making progress, even if a bus has more efficient routes, and an airplane goes faster. When a bus or airplane sways, you think the driver has had a bit much to drink or that the vehicle is experiencing some kind of mechanical failure. When a train sways, you feel like it's intentional, like it was designed that way.

One of the greatest things about train travel is the fact that you've got so much freedom while you're on the train. The trains' not particularly huge or anything, but they're large enough that when you need to move from your seat to the lounge, or from your seat to the lower level, you can usually get there without having to stand too far out of the way.

Anyway, so far the trip is going great. My brother's been playing his mobile games, and I've been hopping back and forth between the land of dreams, and the land of listening to Fabulous Tunes on the iPhone. We've already made a visit to the snack reseller, and we have lunch reservations in a bit.

More on the train trip later, probably once we've made it to Chicago, and made it onto the next train.