It's about the Journey, Not the Destination

21 - 23 July, 2009
Hollywood, FL to Washington, DC

Someone somewhere once said, "It's not about the destination, it's about how you get there". For me, "getting there" involves a three-train, two-bus, one-car trip from South Florida to Central Wyoming. This year's trip took six travel days, crossed parts of 16 US states, and covered in excess of 4000 miles. So torturous a trip, you marvel! Have I found the evidence of the TravelHaunter's inherent mental instability which I have been seeking? But of course, as usual, there is madness, but method also to it all.

I've discovered from experience - both mine and others' - that a sea-level dweller like me is usually better off taking time with a journey to 7000+ feet above sea level. So my pragmatic reason for the lengthy trip is that by allowing my body to become acclimatized to the changes in height gradually, I can avoid the nefarious effects of altitude sickness, which has been known to ruin many a mountain visitor's best vacation days.

But that's really just the excuse. The REAL reasons for the long trip are first so I get to ride trains, Trains, TRAINS!!! and second, so I can take as many pictures of interesting sights and sites as I possibly can. So the first week of my vacation was spent doing just that: riding trains (well, I admit to the buses also, but only because I couldn't get Amtrak to take me any closer to my destination), taking pictures, and, well, just "soaking up the local colour".

I started my journey on Tuesday 21 July at Amtrak's Hollywood, FL station.




My first train, the Silver Meteor #98, was scheduled to depart shortly after 9 a.m., and I was on time and ready to go. I'd checked a couple of my fave websites and found that this train had been either on time or early in both its departure from Hollywood and its arrival in Washington, DC early the next morning. I had wonderful plans of riding the DC Metrorail and glimpsing the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and walking on the Mall.

So of course the train was three hours late due to equipment failure.

We did leave that morning, but only barely - at 11:55 a.m. - and we never really picked up any time. Our arrival at Union Station in Washington the next morning was closer to 10 a.m. than the scheduled 7 a.m., putting paid to my fancy plans for the capital and the Capitol. Instead I wondered the wonderful mall they had there, eating some excellent suchi and buying the latest Nalini Singh.

That didn't mean the train ride itself was bad. On the contrary! I've ridden train 98 almost every time I've departed Florida by train, and this most recent trip was genuinely excellent. Once the train got going, the crew made our trip as comfortable and pleasant as possible. We got some complementary snack packets, and the cars themselves were clean, well appointed (power outlets at every seat!) and ran well along obviously well maintained tracks. I couldn't complain about my number one pet peeve, the restrooms, because they were very clean and actually smelled good all the way through the trip. This despite the fact that my car was almost always full of passengers.

That was another good thing. When I rode the train for the first time in 2004, I had no difficulty in keeping the seat beside me empty. This trip, there were very few empty seats, and they were usually not empty for long. It's more comfortable to have that extra seat to put stuff on, sure. But I'd rather see the full train; it gives me hope that the next time I want to take a train ride there will actually be a train there for me to ride.

Because I've ridden train 98 many times before (most recently this past February) I didn't take so many pictures as I had in the past. However, I did get a few decent shots of some of the more interesting and picturesque things I saw, and I will add those to the slideshow as I get them uploaded.