Until January 20th, I am riding Amtrak trains all the way around the United States. This is the second leg of my trip, where I’m traveling from New Orleans to Los Angeles on the historic Sunset Limited.
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A Train with a 114-Year-Old Name
Today, I’m riding the oldest named train in the country, the Sunset Limited. It starts in New Orleans and ends it’s trek in Los Angeles. The train used to start in Orlando, but the eastern rails were washed out during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Amtrak doesn’t have the money to rebuild the tracks so they’re safe for passenger travel….
…Let me disclose something here: if you’re speaking loudly enough for me to hear, I’m probably listening in to your conversation. I’m that kind of person.
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G-L-O-R-I-A
An older woman passes me, headed for the dining car and I call out that lunch won’t be served for another thirty minutes. “Want a chocolate?” I ask, with what I hope is a winning smile. She considers me for a moment and then says, “Sure. A chocolate.”
As it turns out, I’ll spend the next two hours with this woman. She isn’t quite five feet tall, with light hair and a heavy accent. She says she’s getting off soon, in Lafayette and I ask what she’s planning to do there. Frankly, that’s the only question I needed to ask. I could have kept silent for the next couple hours and the conversation wouldn’t have suffered, or lagged, a bit.
…At that point, the train has stopped at the station. She grabs her purse and gives me a hug, tells me she will come visit me in DC. “I have a lot more stories to tell you,” she says, “I have a great life. What do I have to be miserable about?”
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Why Celeste Headlee Loves to Travel by Train
” On the train, I don’t hate people. I feel more human and less monster. The train allows me to slow down and be aware of what’s happening. The train is about mindfulness.” Celeste Headlee
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Call Me Anonymous
I share a breakfast table with a man who doesn’t want me to use his name or take his picture. Let’s call him Scott.
Scott is a passionate hiker. He lives in central Pennsylvania but travels thousands of miles to find unfamiliar trails. I’m a planner, but Scott likes to get lost. He’ll wander down a path with no idea where it goes. “I like to do it like they did 300 years ago,” he says, “I can be like Daniel Boone.” His wife tells him she hopes he dies “with his hiking boots on.”
He’s been married for 60 years, by the way, an impressive feat that I congratulate him on. “It hasn’t been easy. We’ve both had plenty of good reasons to walk away,” he tells me. “But, you know, marriage is like climbing a mountain, and I’ve hiked up 14,000-foot peaks. You could give up at any point and you’d have good reason to: your feet hurt or there’s blood in your socks or your backpack is bruising your shoulders. But when you get to the top and see the view, you realize that’s the reason you kept going. You get rewards you didn’t even know were there.”
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When we get to El Paso, there is a Border Patrol SUV waiting near the station and an older Latina woman beside the train selling homemade, fresh burritos. I assume this is the burrito lady that other couple was talking about, so I buy a burrito. It’s delicious. I’m talking to my son on the phone and telling him about the burrito. He says, “You don’t know who that woman is. What if someone is trying to assassinate you and put something in there.” I tell him, “I’m afraid I’d be really easy to assassinate. It just takes a warm burrito.”
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