I’ve been home now for one week, but I have one story about my trip left to tell. I woke to dreams about studying rail lines this morning, which further confirms my intention to write about the train ride back to Eugene from DC.
So many times people asked me if I would ride back, and I always responded with relief and glee that I would take the train. Most of the responses to my declaration were mixed, some astonished that I wasn’t flying and others brightening with the thought, “That’s such a great way to see the country.”
Of course, seeing the country by train in no way compares to seeing it by bike, but train provides some needed accessibility to the countryside that you can’t get in a plane. Let’s face it, most people aren’t going to ride their bike much distance to see the country. I didn’t encounter anyone who was out to see just a little bit of the country on a tour – as if it’s an all or nothing kind deal.
Nonetheless, the train provides a great opportunity to chat with people about why they choose taking the train over other forms of transportation. Many of them don’t like flying, don’t like dealing with all the hassles of airports – undressing, security, limitations on liquids, long lines, no leg room, regulation on movement….etc. The train becomes more a part of the journey and less a tube you get crammed into to come out exhausted and jet lagged on the other side.
I bought my train ticket back well before I even departed Eugene. I learned a thing or two through that process. When I first looked at the ticket – probably in March for a September ride – it seemed economical enough to get a sleeper car for the segment of the ride that would take two nights. The whole trip itself would take three nights, and I wasn’t sure how I would do that long in coach. Last summer, I took the train back from my first tour when I pedaled from Eugene to San Francisco. That train ride took 16 hours, most of which was overnight. I sat in coach with someone next to me the entire time. I had difficulty sleeping on that ride, so I wasn’t thrilled about having three sleepless nights on the train. In March, looking at the ticket, a sleeper car for one segment of the ride was $300 extra, bringing the entire ticket cost to $550. I didn’t buy the ticket right away.
In early June, I took the train from Eugene to Portland with Daniel, a young, transportation savvy honor’s student. We were headed to the Oregon Bicycle Summit and a weekend in Portland. He had all kinds of excellent tips for riding the train.
Montana
When I returned home from the Summit and an excellent time spent with Tricia in Portland (we took care of some gear related errands I needed to do and some art related errands she needed to do), I bought my ticket. First, I signed up for Student Advantage and Guest Rewards. Much to my chagrin, the cost of a sleeper car had doubled. Instead of a $500 ticket, I was looking at $800 with the sleeper coming in at $600.
“$300 a night seems a bit indulgent. I’ll have to make it work without.”
On another trip to Portland via train, I learned that the longer you wait to get the ticket, the more likely costs will go up. I’d been used to buying my ticket a day or two before I wanted to go up. As it turned out, that time I wanted to go to Portland a game was going on somewhere between Eugene and Seattle limiting the number of available seats and causing the costs to rise.
I called Amtrak to find out where I might be able to sleep on the train and to get details on how I would deal with my bike.
“There’s a lounge car on the train. You can get up and move around as you choose. The bike will require a $5 handling fee, and a box is $15.”
“Is the fee charged for every time the bike changes trains?”
“No. The $5 covers it the whole way.”
“Do I pay for that as part of my ticket?”
“You pay the $5 when you get to the station.”
That all seemed easy enough. I would figure out how to sleep on the train. I bought the ticket. Without the sleeper car and with the Student Advantage discount, it came to $187.
As I learned taking the train from St. Louis to Philly and then again from Philly to Charleston, you must purchase a ticket more than three days in advance for Student Advantage to apply. And, it would have been helpful if I remembered I made an Amtrak account with my Guest Rewards number…or even that I could have looked on that reservation for my return ticket to get the number. Oh well, I logged some miles on train that no one counted (right), but I got where I needed to go. It’s all good.
I boarded the train in Washington, DC, at about 3:45 for the 4:05 departure. The train to Chicago was pretty full, and I had someone next to me the entire time. I made some small talk with him early in the process and learned quickly he didn’t want to have much interaction with anyone. Fine. I had plenty of books to read and a box of snacks. I was good for a while.
Getting to Union Station was a little challenging. With all my bike gear stowed in a duffel bag, plus a backpack of to-go items, and my bike, I couldn’t navigate public transit very well. I had too much stuff. I made my first transition to the train by taking a cab from the hotel to Arlington where I stayed with some family of friends. Their dog Biscuit helped unencumber me of some gear by chewing up one of my water bottles immediately. Good dog Biscuit, good dog. The next day, Sam gave me a ride to the station, and I somehow managed to schlep all that gear to the ticketing counter (with the front wheel off of my bike). I checked in easily and then had to go around to the baggage area with my bike and wait for a box. 
I took the pedals off while I waited.
“You’re gonna need to put that front wheel back on. That way the forks don’t poke through the box. And then you need to twist the handlebars to the side.”
Everyone does it differently.
At the bike shop in St. Louis, they packed my bike small for shipping. In putting it back together, I learned some tips for being kind to my handlebars and cables. I removed the front brakes so the cables wouldn’t get kinked during transportation and taped the handlebars to my frame so they weren’t flopping around. I took the rack off back in the hotel room…that thing makes boxing impossible and it’s 100% awkward to carry. I had it embedded in the duffel with clothing taped around the poking ends to prevent punctures and skewering of who knew what. I put the wheel back on, and we rolled my bike backwards into the box. The person helping me taped it up and away it went.
With just an overstuffed backpack, I wandered back out into DC to meet Christopher for lunch. The backpack is a no-no item in museums and galleries, so after lunch I returned to the station to wait out the remaining hour.
I slept fitfully on the way to Chicago. I’d neglected to bring anything warm and found myself rather chilled in the air-conditioned car. At 4 a.m., I gave up on sleep and quietly climbed over my sleeping neighbor. I wandered about the train and discovered a quiet car on the lower level with two side by side vacant seats. For grins, I thought I would lay down there for a moment and see how it felt. Well, I fell asleep for another hour. Bonus. I got up and went to the lounge car to wait the opening of the club car and watch the sunrise. At 6 a.m. I went downstairs and got a tea, came back up and watched the glowing show. Somewhere out there between the horizon and the low cloud cover, the sunlight shot its rays into the layer of clear sky and reflected off the clouds above in a silky fuchsia display.
I finished reading A Homemade Life and wanted to spend some time in my kitchen exploring and sampling the recipes. I had to wait. And that’s the funny thing about taking the train, no amount of impatience makes it go any faster. I suppose nothing moves faster just because I’m impatient, not even me.
Arrival in Chicago was a little strange with the time change. For a while, we were traveling after we were supposed to arrive until we crossed the time zone and then were early. I have no idea if we were early or not, we might have even been late, but since I had a long layover, I didn’t care much what time it was.
I got off the train and headed out on the town. I thought I would walk around for a couple of hours, get some exercise. When I popped out of the train station I saw a sign that said “Downtown” and “Lakefront,” so I walked that way. I passed by the globe in the backdrop of the parade from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I walked under the El, the elevated train and gave a few thoughts to elevated transportation infrastructure. I saw a building ahead that caught my interest where the street ended. Then, to my right, I saw a stationer’s store with vintage posters in it. I had to go in. Of course, the first cards I looked at were letterpress from Portland. Home sweet home. I didn’t miss it, did I? I saw a lot of Edward Gorey works in the shop and began to wonder again if I was in a Gorey hot spot. I found a few cards to bring home and then went across the street to the Art Institute of Chicago.
I had only a couple of hours, but I couldn’t imagine time better spent than in looking at art. I got my ticket, checked my backpack, and made a b-line for the information desk. “Do you have any of Gorey’s works on display?” This time, they knew who I was talking about and made a quick computer query.
“We have 47 of his works, but unfortunately none is on display. They’re mostly decorated envelopes. I could show you some of what we have here on the computer.”
I peered in at the envelope, envious of the person who got to receive such a wonderful letter and simultaneously contemplating the degree to which I do and do not decorate envelopes when I send letters. Sometimes I made the envelopes out of odd bits of things, and that’s fun, but I don’t decorate them so often.
“Well, that’s pretty good, especially if it’s as close as I can get to seeing his work. What should I go see instead?”
“What do you like?”
“Well, I like Gorey’s work, ephemeral art, Art Deco.”
“There are some nice pieces in the decorative arts area,” he pointed to a map, “and then anything in the Modern wing.”
“Great. Thanks!”
He was right. I saw a George Nelson chair, Frank Lloyd Wright desk and chair, and a couple of Deco shelves and dressers that struck my fancy. I wandered into a special collection and saw some weird stuff and was about to take a picture of a picture of someone licking someone’s eyeball when the security guard stopped me. Even though I’d asked what was appropriate to take pictures of, I couldn’t decipher the seemingly invisible demarcations in the galleries.
I saw some more de Kooning and Pollock. They had an early Pollock on display, one in a series before he began the drip paintings. It’s tough to say what the difference is in my mind, but the whimsical scribbles of de Kooning on raw canvas attract me more than the revolutionary drip technique of Pollock. I like how de Kooning scribbled with paint and then pulled shapes out by painting over the mess. His work had layers and edges I could get into. Maybe that’s where I am these days because I work with tape…less so the drips. Tape doesn’t drip.
I turned a corner into a “white” display. About five large works of white hung on the walls fastened in various ways with some exposed metal. I liked the piece in the center best because it had a bend in it, which made a neat shadow, and the bottom of it was unpainted metal. I liked how the materials created depth. When I worked at the art museum in Dallas, I went to a briefing on an artist who worked in white. I liked the concepts, the play of the art, but I figured most people would find that inaccessible – not exactly a crowd pleaser. I stood in the gallery for a little bit contemplating the “art.” Two women came in engrossed in conversation and stood for a minute in front of the center piece that I liked. Then they walked out. I wondered if they were just in conversation or if they had something to say about the art. Couldn’t tell. Then a family peered around the corner. They did, they just peered. Then they turned around and left. That made me laugh. I looked at my watch and decided to check out the architecture and design area before heading back to the train station.
I stocked up on food to go for dinner that night. With the other snacks I had with me, I figured I’d be able to make it two nights on the train. We boarded promptly and soon began the motion that would bring me across two more time zones to Portland. As I was getting settled, I asked the conductor, “Is there anywhere I can get a blanket?”
“They have two kinds for sale in the club car. The thinner one is less expensive.”
“Thanks.”
At least I didn’t have to concern myself with being cold all night. What a relief. The Portland car had few passengers in it to start, and I had two seats to myself for the two nights. 
This meant I could sleep halfway decently. Given my early trepidation about not sleeping, it worked out well. I wouldn’t call it delicious sleep…I still wanted to really stretch out, but it was enough to keep me from being cranky.
I got up early each morning to watch the sun rise. One morning I met Larry from Eugene who had much the similar path to mine. Both of us had the same sequence and location of residences before moving to Eugene. What are the odds? Later that morning I met Mike who was coming from New York to stay with family in Seattle and look for work doing international relations things on the west coast. He wanted to see the country, and the two of us enjoyed being surprised by the abundant wetlands in North Dakota and Montana’s big sky (with low cloud ceiling).
As night fell, we wound through Glacier National park. We could see the scenery was probably spectacular, but the mountains held onto their fog shrouds, letting only their ankles show.
I decided to try a meal in the dining car for the experience of it. By the time reservations came to me, I had to wait until 9:15 for dinner. You know, my body thought that was midnight, but what the heck? It was my last chance to experience the dining car since the train would split in the middle of the night when we reached Spokane. One half of the train with the dining car would go to Seattle. The other half of the train with the lounge and club car would go to Portland. Seating in the car was European style, and I shared the table with a mother-daughter duo headed to Evergreen State College for orientation and a man who seemed upset that he had to share a table with others. It was a nice change of pace to dine, but I have a feeling the people who had sleeper cars got a better deal on the meal.
In the middle of the night I woke for a time while the train split in Spokane. When I opened my eyes in the morning and wandered into the lounge car, day was about to break over the Gorge. We were so close to home I could nearly taste it. Barring the taste of home, I got a tea and bagel downstairs and giggled that the bagel with cream cheese went into the microwave like everything else a person would order there. A couple from one of the sleeper cars joined me in the lounge car. They had a much fancier breakfast than mine. He was retired navy and she is a nurse. They were doing something with the historical society at Glacier and then heading out to Portland to continue the vacation with family. Home was in Ohio. He thought windfarms were a waste. I remember enjoying his perspective on things, but the details are lost to me now. I realize I wanted to get home so badly I could think of little else.
Mt Hood
The train-bus to Eugene was full to capacity. I sat next to a woman who does property management. She was headed to Eugene to meet her husband and attend the Further show. I had a feeling more than one person on the bus had the same destination.
We stopped in Albany, and I hopped out to receive a welcome back greeting from my parents. I didn’t think the stop would be very long and then it was longer than I thought. We had about three conversations interrupted on that very brief visit, but how wonderful to come home in one piece and prove it to them.
The bus carried on to Eugene where we all unloaded, me into a sunny afternoon and welcoming arms. My bike and bag of gear also arrived with me in one piece, undamaged. After all that moving about, what a sweet finish…on time and all together. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Here concludes the summer journey.
En Route Transport lives on. I’ve taken this week of return to enjoy not having to go anywhere. I still haven’t put away all my stuff. I decided to redecorate a bit at home, make some art, puzzle, and puzzle over how this work will evolve. Also, today, a press release from Oregon appears to have made it all the way to Washington, DC. Some of you may recall that while in New Jersey I took a break from pedaling to finish writing a grant proposal for the next phase of my work. Well, Lane County was awarded the grant to develop a Scenic Byway/Bikeway Management Plan for the Territorial Heritage Tour. I’m excited.
Stay tuned.
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