Thoughts on Travel, Part I
Posted by: Archimedes on Oct 04, 2008 - 08:13 PM
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As I am now on my second trip to Utah and seem to be prolific when I do these kinds of things, I thought I might put down a series of writings as they come to me along the road and entitle it, "Thoughts on Travel". It really is about a lot more than just travel, but that was the name that came to mind when I began writing in my journal and on my computer, so that's what it's called...
Enjoy. :)
And so it is that somewhere along the way, I’ve been bitten by the romantic notion that extended trips across the country by means such as car, bus or such travel seems to be appealing. And with the Spillman conference coming up again and my going back to Utah, what better time for my wife and I to take a “vacation” together.
My previous visit to Salt Lake had been impressive enough to me that I thought that this would be something that we’d both like. However, I can say with certainty that the method of getting from one place to the next leaves a lot to be desired.
I’ve never been a fan of flying. I’ve always thought that the domestic airlines actually go out of their way to treat their customers poorly, like it’s part of some federal law. “You can’t use your cell phone, EVER!! You can’t use your laptop!! Please stay in your seat!! No smoking ANYWHERE…EVER AGAIN!!! Oh, and enjoy your flight and have a nice day.”
Beyond that, having been in car accidents, some relatively serious, I don’t buy this crap about “you’re safer in the air than you are on the ground”. Last I checked, the number of survivors of car accidents greatly exceeds that of those who suffer their plane falling out of the sky. And for all of their talk about how safe the skies are, given that their operating on a series of systems that date back to the early 70s, the whole air traffic control system fills me with some measure of dread. Let’s not even take into consideration the number of “near misses” they seem to have had in the last few months. However you wanna look at it, the idea of plummeting to my death after engine failure in a plane isn’t something that’s top on my list of death defying feats that I’m really interested in trying. Let’s see…when was the last time you heard about an engine failure in a car killing everyone inside?!
But aside from the dangers of flying, which for all of the pap about “you’re safer, yada, yada…”, that’s only because you’re getting in a car at least one hundred times more often then you’re getting on a plane. Odds are BOUND to be in the favor of flying if you’re flying that infrequently. But even with that aside, the level of service you now receive from the airlines has become so pitiful that it doesn’t even warrant thinking about. People feel *so* special when they fly. To look down on the world from thirty thousand feet, they think to themselves that they’ve accomplished something great, that their experiencing something that is reserved for the elite. And it’s been within our reach with the changes made such that the airline industries have brought the prices down to the point where your average American could afford the luxury of traveling by plane. But we lost something when we did. I’m not saying it was solely that which led us to lose a part of ourselves, but it seems it was a contributor to us having left behind a piece of our soul. Once we learned the art of flight, we began to leave the world as we knew it behind; the up close and personal view of the world in which we could see it, experience it, live it and know it personally. As we now looked down over the world rather than at it up close and personal, it was no longer so special to us. It no longer was known to us but for the specks on the ground as we floated above them.
There was a time when traveling the country was a personal experience. There was a time when you looked out across the plains or mountains and marveled in awe at what this world was all about, from the smallest towns to the biggest cities. Yet we travelled in style. We travelled with grace…as we listened to the bells of the train and the whistle of the engine; as the world rolled past us while we glided on silver rails listening to the rhythmic clack of the wheels beneath us. More sophisticated that travel by bus, more personal than a plane and more accommodating than by car, the train opened up a means of travel to the world in which they could experience the world from a close up and personal view and in a fashion that was both in keeping with remembering who we were and yet could travel in style and grace.
My first passion for travel would almost always be by car. I took the opportunity, what I thought would be a romantic opportunity to travel from Fairbanks, Alaska to Bucksport, Maine by car…and found out two things. First, March and April are STILL winter months in Alaska and in the Yukon Territory. Second that driving through the middle of the Canadian Rockies in a blizzard at 25 mph with your wife, your most prized possessions and two pets in the car…in a Camaro…is about as romantic as watching two old men French kiss! Any kind of romantic notion I had was pretty well diminished by the time we reached Fort Henry in the Yukon Territory. And if it wasn’t then, then the days of driving that followed made sure whatever embers there were were out, or so I thought.
When this opportunity came up in the early autumn to again make our way out west, especially in light of how little I like to fly and can only consider travel by bus about the ground bound equivalent, I considered the possibilities of driving and the romantic notion returned to me. The thought of perhaps travelling one of the most prestigious highways, an icon of American Culture, Route 66 in my 40th Anniversary 2004 Redfire Metallic Mustang seemed just appropriate. To experience the open road, a road from times gone by when cruising was in in a car reminiscent of those glory days just somehow seemed “right”. Unfortunately, as we looked to see what the possibilities were to do such a thing, the rising cost of fuel was such that it had a detrimental affect on our plans. At about 5200 miles round trip at a whopping 24 mpg IF I kept it under 65 (hey, I drive a Mustang GT – do you REALLY think I’m going to keep it under 65??), the total amount of gas burned was going to be something in the neighborhood of 250 gallons or so. At four and possibly five dollars a gallon, it doesn’t take long to figure out that could get expensive really, REALLY quick. And that’s just gas.
So it would appear, it had a similar affect on the airline industry as they started to raise their rates and charge from everything from checked baggage to peanuts. As if their service wasn’t poor enough already, they were going to compound the misery by adding extraneous charges on top of it all. Their bill was beginning to look like a statement for hospital treatment!!
However, the thought of traveling (yech) by bus…several days on a sardine can with wheels…across the country was even less appealing no matter HOW cheap it was. This left me with yet one remaining choice – Amtrak.
We looked into the costs of Amtrak and found that coach travel wasn’t just reasonable, it was cheap. And in comparison to its counterpart, Grayhound/Trailways, the accommodations looked a LOT more, ummm, accommodating?? And for a little extra cash above the coach class costs, we were even able to secure a real room with at least a couple of cots in it for the longer part of our return trip. Try *that* with an airline!! Hell, they won’t even put you up in a room when they leave you stranded in an AIRPORT.
So in reviewing all of the options, given the cost of travelling by car, my inherent disgust with the airline industry and, having ridden the bus cross-country before and can say with some authority that the first word that comes to mind where travelling by bus is concerned is NOT “romantic”, it appeared that the only civilized means of travel that was affordable was by train.
Ah, Amtrak. There’s a true piece of Americana. A more civilized mode of travel that harkens back to better, more sophisticated days in this country. To see our country glide by in one of our nations most iconic figures, the silver and blue cars that cut through the our nations heartland, revealing her soul for all to see. A way to personally come to know our country in a way that one can’t understand while looking down from above.
I’ve learned a lot in my travel by train. I can’t say that it’s been the perfect experience that I’ve thought. But I can’t say it hasn’t been pleasant thusfar, either. When I first boarded the train in Boston, especially after riding the bus from Portland to Boston, I was grateful for the change. And with lyrics from Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans” running through my head, I greeted my new adventure with anticipation.
I have to make some observations, however. However enrapturing the thought might be when you first board a train, at least when riding coach, I can tell you that in the wee hours of the morning as you’re rolling through Cleveland and Toledo, your body is going to tell you otherwise. The idea of “mothers with their babes asleep, rocking to the gentle beat, and the rhythm of the rails is all they feel”…ummm…no. Yeah, there’s a rhythm all right. And it’s something akin to that which you feel in the front row at a Metallica concert, and ask me – I know, I’ve experienced both. If the babes were asleep, someone drugged them. It certainly isn’t that the oversized seats are uncomfortable. But something tells me they could use some better shock absorbers. Hit a bump with one of these things and you could just about eat the ceiling.
And it’s not exactly the fastest mode of travel. You spend almost as much time in speed restricted areas as you do going as fast as you can. With already a day’s worth of travel on the train under my belt and at least another 48 hours to go, I can tell you there are quicker ways to get from one side of this country to the other.
But even with that said, I don’t think there’s a better way to see our country in the way it should be seen. While rolling through the cities at dark, their scars are hidden from the naked eye by the veil of the city’s illuminations. And what during the daylight hours shows her flaws, by night shows her beauty as even those most decrepit towns and cities gleam under the lights of streetlamps and the light that streams out of the windows of houses as you roll by. During the day, as you roll through the rural communities, unlike buses that run through the parts of town that are populated and maintained, the train will take you through the very heart of America, those areas rarely seen from the most well maintained to the most dilapidated and you come to realize how different and how diverse this country is even within the space of a few blocks.
As we rolled through Chicago, she revealed her past. The closed down warehouses and factories. The row upon row of small houses that lined the streets in the shadow of the towering glass and steel skyscrapers behind them. And one realizes the dichotomy of our society, the poor in the shadow of the rich. The slow swirling pools of life in the shadow of the rapid movement of the hustle and bustle of our fast paced and growing economic centers. One can see clearly the “haves” and the “have nots”. And one can see it in a way that is unknown to those that fly over it, removed, detatched, unmoved by the dynamics of it. Only through the eyes of those that can see it at ground level can understand our country and only through the eyes of those that can see it from this level can one begin to understand what our country’s soul is really all about and how fragmented, diverse we are and in some cases how beautifully that diversity can manifest itself. It’s both sad and beautiful at the same time. Sad in that this country is so scarred. And sad because this country seems so bent on just expanding, leaving behind them the scars of their “progress”. We start out in a social center and as the cancer within the heart of such centers begins to spread, the social center spirals outward. And we allow it as we don’t pay enough attention to that which happens from within. And how can we when we do everything we can to move away from it, to ignore it, to separate ourselves from it?
Then as you roll away from the east coast heading for our heartlands, you see a new story unfold before your eyes. Lush, green, fertile grasslands populated by fields upon fields of corn, soy beans and wheat. Here are our heartlands. Here is the beginning of our country, the bread from which we feed. Town after town, small, unobtrusive, seemingly fitting in the backdrop of mile after mile of flat land dotted with small rural towns pinpricked with church steeples and where on ever corner there’s a small locally owned grocery store, hardware store or pharmacy. Towns where everyone knows everyone else, where old people visit the same pharmacy and know the pharmacist there on a first name basis and they know them. Towns where farmers will spend long days outside of town to come in on Friday night with their family to enjoy an evening in the lights of their own small community center to nod at friends, eat at their local greasy spoon and then go slightly out of town to shop at their local feed store just after they stop at the local John Deer dealership to look at the new models of combines that have come in wishing they had the money to get one…maybe next year, they think to themselves.
And yet as wholesome as these small pockets of humanity might be, we seem bent on their destruction, on moving away from our roots, of moving to something that is supposed to resemble the “American Dream”, but now more resembles the “American Nightmare”. Row upon row of a demented developer’s ideas of dreams, each one looking the same as the one before. Cookie cutter houses that have about as much soul as a lifeless corpse – the lifeless corpse that corporate America has built for us and that we continue to feed with our hearts and souls. We’ve built this for ourselves or allowed it to be built for us – our own American Dream and our own coffin. We wrap ourselves in the “security” of “custom built homes”…but how custom can they be when yours is identical to your neighbors and theirs to their neighbors for miles upon miles as they grow like a tumor on the skin of our nation, some perverse melanoma that infects our lands and our hearts.
But even in looking out across the plains, looking at the future that is being built for us, there are small glimmers of truth, of hope, of genuine life. Sarah Palin may know little about “Joe Six Pack”. But anyone in any of the old Ford, Dodge or Chevy Trucks, towing a hay wagon behind them as they make their way back to the farm – they know it. And they nod at each other politely as they pass through town and nod at the passengers on the train that look on with wonder sparked by the realization that this is America. This is who we are. And perhaps for the first time, many of these people understand it and see it. And for a moment, they can be overwhelmed with the sadness of it and still find it in their hearts to love it and be familiar with it. Somewhere in the backs of our minds we understand this is who we were at one point, before vinyl siding, before split level ranches and gated communities, before Walmart and Home Depot. This is who we were. And if you look, for a moment, like a flash, you can see it; you can feel it. And you remember that this is who we are supposed to be.
How long has it been? How long since we remembered who we were. I grow tired of hearing how we here down on “Main Street” are affected by those on Capital Hill. Main Street died in the seventies; R.I.P. Main Street. We’re all that’s left. But roll through the towns in the Midwest and watch, and for a moment, you’ll see it, a glint, a brief passing flash – there it goes – that was Main Street. Where you went to the barbershop on the local corner ever other Sunday while the old man sat out front reading the local newspaper and bitching about the mayor or police chief or the weather. Then you’d go down to the corner market and pick up your locally grown groceries and make your way to the local theater to take in a movie before heading back to the home that your grandfather built with his own two hands and lived in all his life with his wife who he married when they were both seventeen. How long has it been since we separated ourselves from this? And how long will it be before we get back to it?
Amtrak may not be the single most comfortable way to travel. It may not be the fastest. It may not even be the cheapest. But I can say in all that I’ve seen, in all that I’m seeing, there is no more sophisticated way to travel or better way to come to know and love your country. And while encapsulated in these giant steel cars, for a moment, we’re all human. We talk to each other. We smile at each other. And as we pass through “towns that have no names and freight yards full of old grey men”, a little of them rub of on us inside. It’s infectious. And it’s beautiful. It’s sad. And it’s the tale of who we are. We are greater than the sum of our parts. And through the medium of travel and viewing our world firsthand, one can remember that and maybe even grow a little at heart. I don’t think I’ll ever travel across country by any other means again because I’ve learned more about our country and more about myself in these few days than I have in years. And I remember who I am – who we are.
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