1/2/04 Amtrak to Chicago via Philly, D.C. and West Virginia:

Today I set out on my first personal vacation ever. I am going on a 5 day trip to visit my dear college friend Sara in Chicago. She's there studying cosmetology at Aveda Institute and wants to open up her own salon/spa. I am not keen on airplane travel and have not been on an airplane since I saw the world trade center collapse, with my own eyes, because of a couple. So I decided to kill two birds (and a lot of time) with one stone... I get to avoid the white-knuckled airplane experience while getting to toodle on my favorite mode of transportation: Amtrak. Round trip cost me a little over $200, and it's about 22-29 hours each way. So save money, I did not get a room in a sleeper car, so I was to sit with the masses in lower class seats, and sleep in my own filth. But I didn't care. It would be fun. Here are some photos taken during that 29 hour trip to Chicago via Philly, D.C.,Virginia, and Illinois.

30th Street station in Philly.

Wilmington Virginia.

Then we got out into the countryside where the platforms were not elevated and the stations were merely a wooden hut and some asphalt, much like stations way out east on the Long Island Rail Road... stations that few to no people regularly commute to the city from.

This was a city. We passed through a dozen "downtowns" that looked embarrassingly small to this New Yorker. And yet, the three or four low-to-mid sized, fairly ugly '70's and '80's building were THE skyline for these municipalities. And in many cases, unlike in NYC, they were branded, which also took something away from the effect. Imagine if the Empire State building said "Bank One" at the top.

From New York to D.C., there were few people on the train. Of course, it was a Chicago-bound train and we were going in the wrong direction. At DC the train packed in, but I was left next to the only vacant seat in my car. Thank god.

A bridge over the Chesapeake.

The Virginia Railway Express!!! I know nothing of this railway. It's a local commuter rail like the LIRR but smaller. Nonetheless, they have beautiful, brand new double decker cars. Cool.

The Washington Monument! I'm such a tourist! Coool!

Near another station at the end of a main street somewhere. Cute street.

Going over a modern grade crossing elimination.

I went to the snack car and got some life-sustaining O.J. and a life-shortening sandwich in plastic. Never again.

Factory.

Culpeper Station Stop.

Another Main St.

Dusk began over the rolling hills of Western Virginia.

West Virginia was ever rockier as we hit the Appalachians.

A nice stream going over... a dam?

A big dump site of some kind.

A bus depot at another station stop. One bus.

At each stop we sat for 10-15 minutes as people slowly got their stuff together, said their good-byes, and put their luggage somewhere. Then they boarded and slowly found seats. It was like seeing people caught in a part of the space-time continuum that was moving more slowly than mine. If these people acted like this with a commuter train or subway anywhere in the tri-state area, they would be left behind, crushed, or killed. But there was an old-world charm to the fact that the train waited for the people instead of the other way around.

Nice lamp posts.

Charlottesville, Virginia.

A stadium? For a college?

A lovely road along the tracks with lovely houses, and hills in the background.

The end of sunset over the distant rolling hills.

I went to the meal car for the last call. I tried to order the ravioli but the waiter highly recommended the turkey for a growing boy like me and so I figured, why not? It came with crappie orange juice and a salad with dressing out of a packet. It was allright. Enough to sustain. The sleeper car was on the other side of the meal car, and the food staffers were on vigilant watch, not to let any of us peons pass through the meal car past the door that said "sleeper car passengers only beyond this point." So I didn't get to see what I was missing by saving the $300 for a room each way, in addition to the regular fare.

There were only 2 other tables occupied by the time I got to dinner. I had a quiet dinner alone, seeing very few things outside of the car in the darkness. I was already getting used to the rocking and accelerating and decelerating of the train, even though the windows just looked like shiny black panels. The loneliness was punctured by a sense of constant progress toward a destination.

Some middle-of-the-night stop in West Virginia. I listened to music on my MP3 player until the 55 songs began to repeat. I read a tiny bit, but mostly looked out the window, took some photos, tried to stay comfortable in the chair, and napped whenever I felt like it. Had I been in a rush I would have gone mad. But I fully mentally prepared myself for the perceptual sense of infinity, and so I did not concern myself with "are we there yet?" I simply enjoyed being on the ride, in the moment, with not a responsibility in the world beyond my own little comforts. It was a nice way to spend a day of vacation. And I was excited for the journey itself, and the upcoming days in Chicago.

A building that looked very much like the capitol of the country, but we were well into West Virginia or beyond. I never think of anyplace outside of New York City or big European cities as having any notable works of large architecture. But here, in the middle of nowhere, the only thing in the night sky, this wonderful bit of architecture.

Bridges, too. I think of them as being a New York City thing... invented for and only used by the city on islands near my home town. But all along the way there were view of some fairly monumental bridges for the local municipalities to be proud of, dedicate, use, and maintain.

Oh and I went to the bathroom twice. Here I am, wide awake, after napping on and off all day and evening, in the middle of the night, in the loo.

Eee. Not horrible. Didn't smell too bad. Clean-looking.

I wonder if Amtrak soap gets your hands clean slower than you expect it will, occasionally breaking down along the way. I wonder.

Indianapolis was the first city on a big scale since Philly and DC

We passed a large stadium.

In the station.

And then the sun began to come up, about an hour earlier than it will back in NYC.

And we left the applications behind, and came upon the plains, which I've never seen before. It's an amazing sight. I find it to be as frightening and beautiful as an ocean expanse.

I went to Breakfast in the morning and apparently had french toast and bacon. It was unmemorable. They brought me a coffee against my will, and I tried to like it, to no avail. I enjoyed the shape of the glass in which is was presented, though.

I had to wait a few minutes for a table as many other passengers were getting breakfast as well. Most everyone had slept in their chairs like me. They had about 4 carloads full of them.

We passed a lot of freight along the way, something I'm not used to seeing in freight-starved NYC. Double decked freight cars are pretty nifty.

We seemed to pass a lot of stadiums. In this nation of games, these buildings were quite prominent along our route, a telltale sign of the coming together of lots of people. Lots of little Romes.

I really like this photo. IF what? IF.... a word of possibility, being hoisted into place on a new building, which, in turn, represents possibility in its very construction.

And then finally, I saw it. The sears tower, taller than the World Trade Towers were, and giving that same sense of lack-of-proportionality, it was nice to see a building that size and have that feeling again. I used to be able to have that feeling whenever I wanted in NYC, just by looking downtown. I arrived in Chicago, not too tired, but certainly feeling the stickiness of my sedentary 29 hours on every inch of my body. I would request to shower immediately upon arriving at an appropriate facility... hopefully Sara's place. LOTS of train tracks came together to form one of the biggest nodes on the rail network of the United States. From here, rails fan out across the country, three separate routes going to NYC, one to New Orleans, one to Texas, Two to California, and some up to Milwaukee and Canada.

Today is continued on the next page, as today is already the 3rd of January, even though I lumped all the train photos into January 2nd, because it did feel like one amorphously long day.