Car → Plane → Subway → Train
Amtrak Adventure 11/31 (about October 10th, 2021)
Yesterday was just a lot of travel, by every different method (except ferry and helicopter), so I’m going to keep the update short.
Drove to the Miami airport. Our crazy Uber driver hit 30mph over the speed limit multiple times on the way. It was very scary when you’re half-asleep; that’s the first time I’ve ever given a bad rating on some online app.
Flew to Chicago. Trains have completely ruined air travel for me: why do we have to get there two hours early? Why do I only have 1.5 inches of legroom? What’s up with the infantilization of everybody at TSA checkpoints? Hmph.
Took the subway back to Union Station. On the way, we hopped off to stock up on fruit and sandwich materials and junk food from an Aldi—better than buying it at a 4x markup onboard!
Walked onto next train, the California Zephyr! This is the pretty one.
Amtrak’s fleet of train cars comes in two flavors: the “Viewliner” cars in the east (optimized for quick ingress/egress), and the “Superliner” cars in the west (optimized for long-distance travel, including scenery and enjoyable seats). It’s very nice to be back in a Superliner for this leg.
While sitting around in the lounge car, we talked to an old lady whose flight got canceled in the Southwest fiasco this weekend… she had to be in Denver tomorrow afternoon, so she just booked a train ticket at the last minute! It was kind of funny listening to her explain the situation to her relatives on the phone; I think Amtrak is firmly off the radar of most Americans as an actual travel option.