Hittin the home stretch…in fact, this will be my last entry until I get to my hotel tonight in Chicago. From The Dalles to The Dells in 40 hours, and lots of wonderful stuff in between.
The reason I decided to take this trip was my worry that I would no longer have a chance to ride any of the great name trains once George Bush and the BushBots have their way with Amtrak. In essence, as it has been for years, Amtrak is hanging by a thread, and the 52% have decided to try to pull the plug once and for all. To let that happen would be a national scandal and shame. The kind of economic reductionism that allows the knuckle-draggers to present this as a good idea is a cancer much bigger than this situation alone, but I think the Amtrak case is a canary in a coal mine. We are going to continue footing the bill for the production and protection of the oil supply on one hand, and then pretend that threadbare Amtrak is a money pit on the other. It is a part of that shell game that makes the whole middle-class fraud possible.
I originally thought the hammer came down in July, but I actually have until September. This means I can still ride The Crescent, The City Of New Orleans, The Southwest Chief, The Silver Star, and maybe (begrudgingly) one of the Texas Eagle trains. Originally, I was gonna go big on an overseas vacation this summer, but now I think I will be hanging around and riding the rails as long as my vacation days and money hold out. I can’t tell you what a good time this has been. If I can go NYC to Orlando, then Orlando to LA, I will have criss-crossed the nation by rail in the north, south, and center. I will need to throw in the Seattle to San Diego train so that I can say I did the up-down routes in the east, center and west too.
Truth is – as always – I brought a big stack of stuff to do and books to read and I basically got to none of it. I listened to music and was glued to the window until the last ray of sunlight went down. I then let the train rock me to sleep until I woke up the next dawn and started it over again. Sure, I wish I had read War & Peace, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe some other time ha ha ha. The country as it went by has proven endlessly fascinating to me, and I can’t think of a time when it hasn’t.
Today did give over an extra bonus in the form of a quick stop in the Wisconsin Dells. If you grew up in Chicago, you can’t do much better as a child than a visit to a place with at least a dozen water slides and easily 200 holes of mini-golf. Then you have the go-karts, roller-coasters, boat rides, and other general touristy weirdness on top of it. I don’t care if I live in Kenya: if I have kids they will spend at least one weekend per summer in The Dells.
The extra super bonus was the fact that – as the rider in the last car – my car rested atop the creepy, scary high bridge in the city as they unloaded the front of the train. That bridge has long stuck in my memory because it is so high in the air compared to the other bridges over the Wisconsin River. Seeing it again, it really ain’t so high, but it was almost like exorcising a demon to sit atop it and look down on the Pirates Cove 108-hole golf course and to see that all was good.
I think the only thing that could top this ride would be a stop in Madison, WI proper. It makes a stop about 45 minutes away, which is ok I guess, but I think the real thing is needed. I would love to duck into State Street Brats during a layover; maybe pop open a Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss to boot. Then I could give an obligatory guy-too-old-to-be-looking-at-coeds-but-doing-it-anyway gander at the local talent, give a tip of the hat, then hit the road again. Love ‘em and leave ‘em. It’s just my style.
Anyway, Milwaukee in half an hour, then Chicago not long after. We are running about 45 minutes late which means I should be hittin’ my hotel right around dinner time. Perfect for the consumption of a stuffed pizza and and Old Style (we did stop in LaCrosse, WI this morning, but I didn’t see us take any of this double-brewed lager from God’s Country aboard) before I take my first real shower in a few days.
I guess you could say I am a little ripe at this point. I did take a Marine’s bath this morning so it isn’t like I am punishing the neighbors or anything; but I am a fairly delicate machine and require a good soak, nail trim, and loofah. And if a 275lb man can’t get a good loofah in Chicago, where can he?
Posted by rudayday at May 16, 2005 09:00 PM