This is so much more beautiful and peaceful than the airport.

Train just pulled in. I can’t emphasize enough how low-stress the checkin process was.

Not the lap of luxury or anything but not bad.

Fresh air breaks in Wenatchee, Spokane, and Whitefish, MT.

And we’re off!

I’M SO HAPPY I’M A LITTLE TEARY

I’ve wanted to do this for so long

We passed a beach and they blew the train whistle and the beach people waved.

Having a snack :-)

We’re in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest

One of the most frustrating things about taking pics out a window is it always makes the mountains look small

YESSSSSSSSS

It’s so pretty

Whitefish is very picturesque.

Sleeping was hard—there were periods where it was gentle rocking, like a boat, but there was also a lot of bumpy going.

I was talking to a conductor and starting in Oct they’re cutting this route down to a few times a week, which means layoffs. :-(

We’ve left behind mountainous Montana for flat Montana—passing from a town called Sundance to one called <checks notes> Gunsight.

There’s, um, a lot going on here.

Having some back spasms—not as bad as I get on a plane, since I can stretch and walk around (hell, I even have room to do some yoga), but it’s still a lot of sitting.

So I took a nice 5-minute hot shower with surprisingly good water pressure, and am now cuddled up w a hot pack.

Reason 936 this is better than flying.

I mean, there are some downsides—the food is pretty bad, for example. Basically microwave meals and, like, I’ve had better microwave meals.

The bed in the bedroom (as opposed to a roomette) is at least full twin-width (maybe slightly wider) but the mattress is not great.

All in all, for sleeping or napping, it’s a lot like riding in a car with bad suspension—sometimes it’s soothing and other times it’s rough.

Right now the bouncing actually feels good on my back since it’s pretty regular. But I didn’t sleep much last night.

On the other hand, since I always feel overheated when I’m in pain, I’m really appreciating that the individual room temp controls actually work and I am able to make my room pleasantly chilly.

The observation car is also pretty dope.

Welp we just passed a naked dude sitting cross-legged in the middle of a field. Stay weird, Montana.

We’re in North Dakota now so the scenery is about to get boring.

I do love all these tiny town train stations though

Rainy morning in St. Paul.

Got about 5 more hours until we hit Milwaukee and I’m a little sad it’s almost over.

I think my favorite part of it was getting to stare out a window at a moving landscape and daydream, with no obligation to drive or make conversation.

I haven’t been able to do that since I was a child, and I think it’s good for the brain.

And like, look, if you like flying, that’s still the best way to travel cross-country as far as price and speed.

But man. This is such a *chill* way to travel.

The biggest issue for me was Amtrak makes it sound like all the trains have wifi, but this one doesn’t. That’s a little inconvenient this morning, when I was planning to work.

There’s something kind of elegiac about the experience—looking at these beautiful stations, you can catch the fading scent of a time when America still had some sense of *community.*

Like, there’s no reason that a train station in Seattle has to have marble walls and ornate plasterwork, or that one in a tiny farm town in Montana has to be a lovingly maintained replica of a German cottage.

Train stations are beautiful because once upon a time we believed in doing nice things for ourselves as a *society*. That public buildings should be luxurious.

But now it feels like walking through a museum to a different culture entirely.

It’s a very different mindset from the calculated misery, designed to pressure you to buy your way out of it, as much as you can afford, of modern airline travel.

Oh, one other thing that’s pretty cool about the bathroom setup in the train bedrooms (again, this is the bedroom, not the roomette) was something I initially didn’t like:

And that’s the shower/toilet setup. I was like “ewww the toilet is IN the shower?!” But I’d brought disinfectant wipes so I wiped down the whole thing. But as it turns out, having somewhere you can sit to wash your feet while showering on a moving train is handy.

And the interior dries out surprisingly quickly. I used the bathroom about an hour after showering and other than a little water lingering around the drain, it was pretty dry.

Ok I have traveled, mile by mile, through Washington, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota and would like to report that Wisconsin has no challengers among them for weird and eerie shit by the side of the road.

Like we just passed a mother and two child mannequins holding hands, dressed to the nines, standing as if about to cross the road.

And while it’s not from this trip, just gonna drop this pic I took from a moving car a few trips ago (you’ll have to zoom to find it). No, I have no more explanation now than I did then.

Passed a farm field with a full size guillotine and a neon orange dummy. Five stars, efficient semiotics, would ride by unknown rural comrades again.

Sad it’s over but looking forward to the return ride in a couple weeks!

Just rode along the stretch of track my mom & I walk the dog along when I visit.

MILWAUKEE