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| This picture, taken at Huntington Library in Pasadena before I left. Ready to face the monster? |
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| One of those windows on the second level is my roomette on Amtrak |
From the train window, seeing the barrenness of California’s
desert, followed by the more barren deserts of southern Arizona and New Mexico,
then as darkness fell, the desert of west Texas, all this vastness I’d be
pedaling over the next several weeks, made me gulp. They look brutal, those deserts. Even I asked why. 
My roomette on Amtrak, Car 230, Room 6, is small and private,
like a coffin. I can sleep, plug in my
computer, and act like a hobbit. It’s
just right for one person, but some folks are trying to sleep two. The upper bunk is about two feet wide with
two feet of headroom; a harness holds you from falling. In my little room, that upper bunk holds my
stuff. My roomette is so small I can’t
get a good picture, but you get the idea.
The idea is to think small while watching a vast desert. 
Included in the fare, when you rent a roomette, are all meals
served in the dining car. I went there
three times in my 24-hour passage, each time sitting with newly-met passengers
and watching the desert go by, getting acquainted.
I highly recommend a roomette, over a seat in coach. It costs about $100 more, but the privacy and
inclusion of meals are worth it. But
this only works if you are traveling single—nobody likes that tight upper
bunk. And the price varies drastically,
depending on the day you ride and when you buy your ticket. I could have paid $800 for a roomette if I’d
booked it on another day.
My bicycle has been delivered via UPS to a nearby office. Another thing about Amtrak is that they do
not allow bicycles on most trains.
So it was that I returned to the life that has borne me
through twenty thousand bicycle miles, a life still in my hands and my eyes
from those many solo pedals. My new, yet
old, life will bind me to itself and insist on its own way, heedless of the
will that is within me. I say this
because it has always taken on its own life, and defied my planning.
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| The dome car, where it’s like always going through a tunnel of sky and desert, and where coach passengers try to sleep at night. |
I love the little roomettes on Amtrak and have always wanted to stay in one. A dream of mine to travel one day. Did you know that Amtrak if giving away literary residencies? I'll be meeting you for breakfast shortly ;) Ride on poet!!
ReplyDeleteLois, I had a 24-hour literary residency on Amtrak, reading and writing in my tiny room. But it wasn't free. You’ll do it someday. See you at breakfast.
DeleteLovely thought... Lotis bloom ... roomettes all filled with poets, no vacancies. Rick and I could manage somehow... taking turns reading and playing? and filling the upper bunk w/flutes and books? Ah Sharon here you are again where you belong... wondering why ... highlighting the questions... and as we know illustrating life itself always... it "takes on it own life... defies "my planning..." And so we begin again, endings and beginnings... regenerating the wonder....
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe you and Rick would like the train and a roomette, albeit you don’t seem to need the therapy it would provide on living together in tight quarters. And Ritchie says the upper bunk is A-okay.
DeleteGlad to see you're off to a good start.
ReplyDeleteI've slept in the upper bunk a number if times. I liked it. Maybe because it reminds me of sleeping in the overhead bed or "Gaucho bed" of our family travel trailers when I was a kid.
Happy trails.
Ritchie
Ritchie, you are not claustrophobic, I see. A common topic in the dining car is the upper bunk, its harness, the fear of falling, the thin pad they call a mattress, and that it has no window. You are a true train-traveler.
DeleteHello hello. Enjoyed your latest missive, Sharon. Now i will go back to reread last year's Texas stories.
ReplyDeleteAnd someday i will sleep overnight on a train. I like the idea of watching the land slip past while being rocked all night. When i was young I crossed country in the coach car. it was uncomfortable, but worth it. Favorite part - coming out of darkness into a lit station, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Train rides are memorable. Not as exciting as bike rides, however. Glad you are out there, having adventures for those of us permanently stuck in coach.
No Liz, no permanence about coach or broken houses, where trails, open roads and roomettes on northbound trains, headed perhaps for Corvallis, await those with spirit. Or, for now, a vicarious ride across the West Texas desert, perhaps finding bluebonnets, and where for sure the land slips by as bicycle rocks us to attention. Hang in, Liz, it’s all there.
DeleteGreat picture of you at the Huntington. Must have been taken years ago.
ReplyDeleteYes, Dalton, it was taken following the Great Depression.
Delete