AMTRAK DAY ONE
I bought the 30 day nine segment Amtrak Rail Pass almost on a whim. It would give me a low cost way to see America while sitting in a comfortable seat and looking out of a large window. I would sit still and America would flow past me.
Today is the trip and it was a little rough and uncomfortable. Tom and Hannah offered to drive me down the hour‘s ride to Greenville, SC, which is the closes Amtrak station to Asheville. The train was due in Greenville at 2:23 a.m.. They rejected my idea of driving my Kia down 10 p.m. and then to sleep in the car until the train came. I would park the Kia in the station parking lot until I returned in a month. Then on my return, even if the train was late, all I would have to do is to step out of the train and either sleep before driving home or drive straight home. When we got here the well lit parking lot was only half full. My plan would have worked. But it was nice to be driven as well. When they found out that the train was an hour and a half late they saw that it was best for them to leave. And sitting outside on a bench I had a good time talking to the elderly people on the platform who had been brought and dropped off by their grown sons, as I had been.
One of them, Susan, a grandmother and hospital Catholic ministries volunteer is sitting beside me now. This wasn‘t air travelers in their modish travel outfits and sleek bags, this was ordinary America, traveling as cheaply as they could and not dressed up at all, people who were willing to ride ten hours on the train, or had no choice, rather than fly, although the seats and the aisle are much more comfortable than a plane.
The train finally arrived at 3:40 a.m., I was assigned a seat and got out my blanket and eye mask and neck hugging pillow and stretched out but even with the train gently rocking I couldn‘t sleep, or slept a little, but the train seemed to stop often and people were talking loudly. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I have seven or eight nights on the train coming up and if I can‘t sleep it will be a bleary trip.
But at 7 the sun was out and North Carolina was moving past me out the window. The rest room worked fine. I ate half of the pork burrito that I had brought along, leaving the second half for lunch. I found out that the electric outlets work so I am charging my devices. The adjustable tray in front of me is perfect for typing on. There is plenty of space for luggage. In fact, once I‘ve gotten used to it, this is all that I could have expected or even wanted. And I really am seeing America float past with a different view than the often strip mall commercial American that lines many highways and with more to see than from an Interstate highway. And inside a cross section of America is making the ride with me.
And just now on the way back from the dining car a very sweet man from Bangalore, India, on his way back from Houston where he attended a Rotary Club convention and on his final ride of the same 10 segment 30 day ticket that I am starting on said that he lost his cellphone and wallet and needed money to get to JFK to fly back home to India, whose story was so sincere that I gave him, $20.
So this is my report on the first day after six hours on the train as I begin to yawn and am ready to fall back asleep.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 