{"id":168,"date":"2009-07-15T08:54:42","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T14:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/?p=168"},"modified":"2010-03-06T13:24:32","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T19:24:32","slug":"across-the-usa-by-train-and-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/across-the-usa-by-train-and-car\/","title":{"rendered":"Across the USA by train and car"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=d&amp;source=s_d&amp;saddr=claremont+nh&amp;daddr=new+york,+ny+to:chicago,+il+to:40.480381,-91.582031+to:US-400%2FUS-50%2FE+Wyatt+Earp+Blvd+to:W+Main+St%2FUS-350+to:Albuquerque,+NM+to:Los+Angeles,+CA+to:Laguna+Niguel,+CA+to:Globe,+AZ+to:US-180%2FUS-62+to:Odessa,+TX+to:Memphis,+TN+to:Morgantown,+WV+to:baltimore,+md+to:Claremont,+NH&amp;geocode=%3B%3B%3B%3BFV4PQAIdJAoK-g%3BFQQdNwIdaEzF-Q%3B%3B%3B%3B%3BFfIF6AEdcCfE-Q%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B&amp;hl=en&amp;mra=dpe&amp;mrcr=2&amp;mrsp=3&amp;sz=6&amp;via=3,4,5,10&amp;sll=39.774769,-94.394531&amp;sspn=9.334406,22.763672&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=35.764343,-98.481445&amp;spn=9.334406,22.763672&amp;output=embed\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=d&amp;source=embed&amp;saddr=claremont+nh&amp;daddr=new+york,+ny+to:chicago,+il+to:40.480381,-91.582031+to:US-400%2FUS-50%2FE+Wyatt+Earp+Blvd+to:W+Main+St%2FUS-350+to:Albuquerque,+NM+to:Los+Angeles,+CA+to:Laguna+Niguel,+CA+to:Globe,+AZ+to:US-180%2FUS-62+to:Odessa,+TX+to:Memphis,+TN+to:Morgantown,+WV+to:baltimore,+md+to:Claremont,+NH&amp;geocode=%3B%3B%3B%3BFV4PQAIdJAoK-g%3BFQQdNwIdaEzF-Q%3B%3B%3B%3B%3BFfIF6AEdcCfE-Q%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B&amp;hl=en&amp;mra=dpe&amp;mrcr=2&amp;mrsp=3&amp;sz=6&amp;via=3,4,5,10&amp;sll=39.774769,-94.394531&amp;sspn=9.334406,22.763672&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=35.764343,-98.481445&amp;spn=9.334406,22.763672\" style=\"color:#0000FF;text-align:left\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>I was just reading about a <a href'\"http:\/\/patchworknation.csmonitor.com\/csmstaff\/2009\/0611\/road-trip-tales-of-the-west-are-writ-largeon-town-walls\/\">road trip in the Christian Science Monitor<\/a>, and it reminded me of the many road trips I&#8217;ve taken across the USA starting when I was about three, traveling every summer with my parents from the east coast to the west coast, and back. Above is a map of a trip I took in December 1989. Not strictly a road trip unless you count <em>chemin de fer<\/em> as road. Claremont, New Hampshire to Los Angeles, California by train (Amtrak) and then back to Baltimore, Maryland by car (an unglamourous Chevy Nova&#8212;the small, cheap kind from the 80s), then another train to Claremont, New Hampshire, just in time to save my car from being towed (due to a plow needing to clear fresh snowfall) from the lot where it had been parked for eight days.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the eight-day trip I was was armed at all times with two Nikons (one for black and white, one for color) and about 40 rolls of film (maybe 30 rolls of Tri-X and 10 rolls of Ektachrome). I felt outrageously wealthy allowing myself the extravagance of unrestrained shooting. But if you think about it, that&#8217;s, at most, 1,440 images. You could easily do that in a day or two now with a single digital SLR.<\/p>\n<p>The train portion was with my friend Jeff. The car portion was with my sister-in-law Alison. Jeff and I didn&#8217;t have a nice sleeper compartment or anything. We just roughed-it on the standard recliners&#8212;snoring neighbors, crying babies and all. Alison and I pretty much drove early morning to late night and stayed in the cheapest, scariest motels possible. Since it was December, we took the most southerly route practical and had not a flake of snow or any precipitation the whole way.<\/p>\n<p>Some random experiences:<\/p>\n<p>Sitting in the entertainment car&#8212;the last car&#8212;of the Montrealer leaving Claremont, New Hampshire at 11 p.m. bound for Washington, D.C. (we were getting off in New York, though) listening to Kenny Holmes&#8217;s keyboard and vocals and wild stories. Sadly, the roll of film I shot of Kenny went into the trash with my breakfast leftovers hours later somewhere in Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>Trying to sleep with a very loud, clunking wheel under our seats between Philadelphia and Chicago. Waking up at about 3 a.m. to bright amber lights and a freight train blasting by and my face against the window. <\/p>\n<p>Lordsburg, New Mexico: Train engineers having breakfast in the booth next to us. We finished eating and drove off in our car; they finished eating and drove off in a mile-long, three-Santa Fe-locomotive, 100-ton hopper-car freight train!<\/p>\n<p>Odessa, Texas: Doing laundry at 6 a.m. in some no-name laundromat on the edge of town. Driving around taking early-morning photos while my clothes washed and dried and wondering if I&#8217;d find my way back to pick them up.<\/p>\n<p>Driving past highway 1111 between El Paso and Pecos on US-180. Watching the moon rise huge over the dry land and wishing I had pliers so I could take the sign, and realizing it was just as well that I didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Big Spring, Texas: The owner of Cafe Frontera taking our photo to put in the local newspaper as happy patrons. He gave me a mirror with Metalica logo etched into it. I&#8217;m not a fan of Metalica, but I graciously accepted it.<\/p>\n<p>Memphis, Tennessee: Paying for a motel room by passing cash through a slot under bulletproof glass. It was the only place we could find (the Royal Oaks Motel) at 2:00 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>Does it get any better than that? Aren&#8217;t you due for a road trip?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View Larger Map I was just reading about a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222,"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welcometoalville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}