NYC to LA BY TRAIN A 3000-mile no-fly travel film inc. Amtrak California Zephyr in coach in winter

[Yavin4]

[rzemanfl]

1. Congrats on 32,000 posts. n/t

[Yavin4]

2. Ah...Thanks!

I didn't even notice.

[msongs]

3. as a california lad I enjoyed that esp the last parts nt

[JohnnyLib2]

4. Enjoyed that. Thanks.

We're considering the Denver westward section and this has encouraged it.

[jmowreader]

19. That's definitely the best part

The train leaves Denver at 7 am. If you ride from Chicago, there is a lot of flat land until it gets dark, then the east side of the Rockies is traversed at night.

When you get past Sacramento, move to the south side of the observation car. Shortly before you reach Emeryville, you pass the Navy’s ship graveyard.

Helpful hint if you take photos through the car windows: put your camera on a tripod, attach a rubber lens hood, and press the hood up against the window. This will block the light from inside the car.

[drmeow]

5. I'd love to take the train across the country

but even after I retire, my spouse wouldn't be into it so I'd have to do it on my own.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Oh, heck. Do it alone if need be.

In the video in this thread, they go coach. Personally, I'm not willing to do that. There are a lot of other videos out there that show someone travelling in a roomette, which is what I've taken, or even the full bedroom, which might be a lot better for two of you. Maybe that would help persuade your spouse.

[csziggy]

8. My husband and I took Amtrak from Central Florida to Alexandria, VA

The trip up we had a roomette which really didn't work because my husband's long legs didn't fit into the narrow space between the seats. When we arrived, I booked a room for the return trip - ended up with a handicap room since the agent had seen me with a walker. Only $24 increase in price over the roomette.

The room was much better - we could sit side by side on the couch and the room had a real bathrooms, even a shower! On the train we took, roomettes had fold down toilets right in the sitting area.

I hope to take a much longer train trip, but may break it up into short segments. My husband is too long for the bunks and he does not sleep well in a moving vehicle. If we do that, we may just go coach since the chairs are more comfortable than the seats in the rooms and much cheaper.

Problem is from Tallahassee, we have to drive at least 2-4 hours to catch a train and there is not longer a train straight from the East to West Coast in the southern part of the country. New Orleans would be the best take off point. I really want to go to Seattle and Vancouver Island and visit points in between those destinations and Tallahassee, maybe one leg through the Canadian Rockies.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. Interesting. And thank you.

Driving 2-4 hours would be more than I might be willing to do. I'm fortunate in that my nearest Amtrak station is only about a 20 minute drive, and I have more than one friend who is happy to take me there.

I am fortunate in that I am on the short side, all of 5'2" tall, so I don't have the long leg problem your husband has. I'm hoping the handicap room was good for you. I'm somewhat familiar with them as I always book my roomette on the lower level, which is where that room, as well as the family room on the other end of the car, is located. I was put in the lower level the first time I took Amtrak, several years ago, and decided I really liked it. Far more privacy is the best part. Only the people in that lower level will ever be walking by. And of course, it's not hard for me to go upstairs to the dining room or the lounge car. I can only sympathize with needing a walker, as I (fortunately) have never had to use one. I can't imagine climbing the steep and narrow stairs on the train with one. Unless you can manage otherwise.

A trip divided into shorter segments could certainly work in coach. Last year I had a trip planned from NM to Chicago, overnight in a hotel there, then on to Seattle. Three overnights on the train, four days altogether. It would have been wonderful! Alas, Covid put an end to that trip. Perhaps next year, or in 2023 I will take that trip. It was to attend a science fiction thing in Seattle, but included about five days being a tourist in Seattle (including meeting a long-lost cousin there) and then to the hotel for the science fiction thing. I am so much looking forward to resuming trips like this.

Oh. You mentioned the Canadian Rockies. Another train trip I'd like to take is from Montreal to Vancouver. I'd fly to Montreal, spend a few days there sight-seeing, then the train. I think it's four days across Canada. Sigh. My idea of heaven. I have an old high school friend who lives in Vancouver, so I could combine Old Home Week with traditional sight seeing. Then I'd fly home.

Yeah, I have lots of trips I want to take.

[csziggy]

13. The train we took didn't have upper levels

So there wasn't that problem.

At that point, I didn't really need a walker. I'd healed nicely from having my knees replaced and could get around just fine. But my sister had found this cute tripod walker and I thought it would be handy for carrying around stuff while we went to Washington DC to sight see. It was perfect for that!

Now that my back has gone, a walker is more necessary.

I don't know much about the trains from NM, but I do know that my husband's uncle was very involved in keeping the train service in NM at one point.

If I want to take a long train trip I will probably have to break down and fly to the starting point. I love flying, but I hate the way they are over crowded these days. I haven't flown since 1990 and it was a nightmare then. Now the seats are smaller and more cramped and I understand TSA can be a pain.

I've wanted to go to Vancouver Island forever. In the 1890s my great great grandfather had a saw mill on the island. It burned down in the 1930s but I'd still love to see the area where it was. After the sawmill went bust, my great grandfather spent time in Seattle to look for a job. He didn't find one and ended up returning to Escanaba, Michigan where he ended up with a successful business. But we have letters written from Vancouver and Seattle so it's always been part of the family story.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. I understand.

When it comes to flying, my dirty secret is that I always book a first class seat. I figured out some years ago that if I book far enough ahead of time that I can get a seat at a price I'm willing to pay. It's not going to be as cheap as the cheapest possible coach seat, but will still be a reasonable price. The airlines have taught people to go for the cheapest possible fare. Even though sometimes, what with add-on costs, it more expensive than that supposedly cheapest seat. When you look at things like extra cost for luggage, or choosing your seat ahead of time, or blowing your nose as needed, sometimes that's truly not the best fare.

Anyway, once I realized that booking a first class seat ahead of time was a reasonable cost, I have not looked back. No extra charges for baggage. Free drinks. Sometimes even a meal. I'll admit, the last time I flew was on March 18, 2020, from San Diego to Santa Fe, returning from a truly wonderful cruise to Hawaii. I know things are different now, and will remain different and changed from what I experienced before. Sigh.

Here's what I've been saying for nearly a year: Pretend it's the spring of 1939 and you and I are planning a trip to Europe next year. We've been saving for some time now, and we are quite excited. We will visit London, Venice, Rome, maybe Madrid other cities. Who knows? It will be an amazing and wonderful trip, won't it? Then September rolls around, and WWII breaks out. Oh, darn. Clearly we won't be going to Europe next year, will we? But maybe the war won't last very long and we'll be able to do it in 1941. Alas, the war drags on, and doesn't finally end in Europe until May, 1945. Sigh. Our long-postponed trip won't happen until at least 1946, maybe a year or two, at best, later. And when it does finally happen, the Europe of 1946 or 1947 or whenever, will be vastly different from the Europe of 1939, had we gone there before the war. And so it is going to be with Covid and the vast changes that will happen because of it. I hesitate to make any specific predictions, because I'm sure they would be wrong, other than a generic "Everything will be different" which isn't very helpful.

Speaking only for myself, I would love to take more cruises. Last year in March I took a fantastic cruise to Hawaii on Holland America. We felt incredibly safe on board, watching the news about this new virus. I had signed up for a cruise this year, which isn't happening. Maybe next year, or the year after. I honestly love cruising.

More realistically, I also attend various science fiction cons, and none of those have happened in this past year. Sigh. Last April I was booked on Amtrak from New Mexico to Seattle, via Chicago. It would have been fantastic. But even before the cruise ended, the s-f thing in Seattle was cancelled, and so I cancelled everything else: planes, trains, and hotels. Darn. I sincerely hope I can rebook that trip in 2022 or 2023. We will see.

Your family history, the little you've posted, is fascinating. Thank you for that.

[csziggy]

16. I guess I didn't check far enough ahead for our trip to the UK

About a year before we planned to go I looked at first class plane tickets to any airport in the UK. The tickets then were about $5000 each! Then I checked out cruises and ended up booking a transatlantic cruise over on the Queen Elizabeth - $4800 each. A cruise back on a Royal Caribbean ship was much less. No brainer - and the cruises let my husband and I go to New York, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and two stops in Iceland (that convinced my husband since he got to see puffins). On the way back we got to stop at four Caribbean islands.

I'd love to do another cruise, but would like more interesting lectures since we're not into stage shows, drinking, or gambling. On the QE they had a guy from NOAH and a guy from NASA doing lectures in their big theater. Royal Caribbean had some ex-spy in a small room where there was no room. I've love to get to Seattle via the Panama Canal, but when I checked no one was doing that this year. The QE voyage we got on in Fort Landerdale had come from Seattle that way - the ship had come from Australia, stopped at Seattle, went to Alaska, back to Seattle, then through the Canal to Florida. Lots of Aussies still on board to go to the UK.

Once COVID-19 is under control, I'll look again, but meanwhile we added a new living room to the house and we're now sorting through everything we own and trying to get rid of stuff.

You do science fiction conventions? My husband used to go to DragonCon in Atlanta every year. I made him a Gandalf costume way back that he wore several times. He hasn't been for a while - it just got too big for him to have fun.

Family history is why we had to do the addition, both sides of my family and both sides of my husband's family were into genealogy. We've inherited all of it. I'm trying to get all of it sorted and to scan all the pictures so it's more accessible. I hope I live long enough!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. I haven't flown internationally in forever.

Well, 2001 to be precise. If I do that again, I'll book business class.

I'm a very straightforward science fiction person. I don't do fantasy at all. I have never read Lord of the Rings, just can't get into it. In recent years I've attended Mile Hi Con in Denver, Bubonicon in Albuquerque, as well as several other smaller ones in various places. Oh, in 2019 I went to SoonerCon in Norman, OK and really, really liked it. They cancelled last year and this year because of Covid, but hopefully will happen again in 2022.

There's also ReaderCon in Boston that I hope to go to some day, as it focuses totally and solely on the printed word.

The media based cons tend to be very large. I prefer the smaller ones where you get to spend quality time with people. I have become friends with any number of writers that way. Those small ones tend to be in more out-of-the way places and are often, to me, more interesting in terms of their programming. The Jack Williamson Lectureship in Portales, NM is one such. If 35 people show up that's a lot.. The only costs are for a hotel room and a fee for the Saturday luncheon. On Thursday night, before that conference begins, there's a dinner at a local restaurant fully paid for by Jack Williamson's generosity.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back to attending these things.

[csziggy]

18. My husband loves sword and sorcery stuff

Probably because he's played D&D since it was introduced - he still has a game once a week with the same guys he's been playing with for over forty years. He's really into the Lord of the Rings and has read every book Tolkein wrote plus the other writings that Tolkein's son collected from the manuscripts left in Tolkein's estate.

I prefer science fiction, especially the classics. I've been reading (on my tablet) the Mega Packs of the Golden Age of Science Fiction (I'm up to the 30th collection) and just re-read the original Foundation series and am on the first of the later Foundation books, which I'd never read.

But I never got into the cons since I am not fond of crowds or cities. The Jack Williamson Lectureship sounds as though it's a size I could handle, LOL.

When we travel, we tend to go to wildlife refuges and museums. In the UK the only city we spent time in was London, and we went to The British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Museum of Natural History. The only visit to the Palace was to the Royal Mews, the Queen's stable so I could see her carriages and a few of her horses. We did go to Hampton Court Palace, mostly for the Royal School of Needlework, but could not see the school, so we visited their shop. If I go back, I will take one of their classes so I can get in!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. The cons that involve fantasy tend to be huge.

The more straightforward science fiction ones are a lot smaller. Typically 300-800 people at most of them. There's one in Tucson that has some actual limit on the number of tickets they sell, although I think the only time that came into play was a few years ago when George RR Martin was guest of honor.

There really is a huge chasm between s-f and fantasy and another one between those and gaming. The hard s-f world is somewhat smaller than the fantasy world, and gaming is huge. Although gaming occurs at most of the cons I've been to.

Two other small ones I like a lot are the Gunn Center Conference (formerly the Campbell Conference) in Lawrence, KS. It's been renamed for James E. Gunn who died in December at the age of 97. I took a writing workshop with him some 25 years ago, and am so honored to have known him. That's one with a juried best novel and best short story award, and there's always some specific theme each year and generally a round-table discussion of that theme. The other small one is COSine, in Colorado Springs in January. It's a very scaled down version of the larger cons. I'm guessing that no more than about 100 people show up each year, in no small part because of when it is held.

There are probably other small ones out there that I'm not familiar with.

[csziggy]

21. I'll have to tell my husband about the hard science fiction cons

He does like hard SF but is much more into the fantasy stuff. Maybe when we can travel again, he'd want to stop in at some of the smaller cons.

Of course, he has not gone to the local one here - and he gave the first one in town - so he may not be interested. I'll have to ask him!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

22. If he or the both of you go to any of them,

try to let me know. In non pandemic times there are cons pretty much every single week of the year. I'm just sorry it took me so long to finally start attending any of them.

[csziggy]

23. Certainly - but we're in the Southeast so quite a way away

We've visited New Mexico a couple of times, but all his relatives there are gone. His uncle worked at Los Alamos when it was still secret, but since his father also had clearance the family was able to go there. So he has a lot of good memories about that state.

[cwydro]

15. I did it alone from NC to Seattle. And back.

I got a sleeper and it was fantastic!

[whistler162]

24. Go for it.

I did it twice, Syr-Chi-LA-SEA-Vancouver CA-Toronto-Syr and Syr-Chi-Sacramento-DF-Portland-Chi-Syr great trips.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. I am a huge fan of Amtrak.

A few years ago I took it from New Mexico to Portland, OR. And about a year and a half ago from NM to Kansas City. Last April I was to have taken it to Seattle via Chicago, but alas, thanks to Covid that didn't happen. I hope to make that trip again in 2022 or, more likely, 2023.

On those trips I booked a sleeper car, as I'm too old (over 70 now to sleep sitting up in coach. No apologies. What I also like is that the sleeper car includes meals. Hooray! The food on Amtrak, at least in the not very distant past, was pretty good. I also liked being able to move between the privacy of my little roomette to the lounge. Sometimes spend time with people, sometimes spend time alone. For me it was perfect.

[CMYK]

9. Thank you

Thank you for sharing. I loved every minute.

[teach1st]

11. Thanks for sharing!

This gem was so nice, I watched it twice. I have been to all their stops, but it was a long time ago and I was mostly hitchhiking. Memories are so cool!

[Thekaspervote]

12. Got a roomette Xmas b4 last..went Chicago to flagstaff az. 31 hrs

Have traveled coach a lot, but the longer trips..it’s great to have a bed, the meals and be away from the bustle of coach