Here I am, on the train to Newport News, Virginia, with my family, going to visit my sister-in-law and her family. We could've (should've?) flown, but decided to save some money and give our kids a train experience by taking Amtrak.
Unfortunately, I happen to despise Amtrak. I used to take the train from Boston to Philadelphia all the time back in college (20 years ago), and the damned train was almost always late. Then there was the time a woman committed suicide by jumping on the tracks; that was somewhere in Connecticut, and by the time I got into South Station it was almost 2 a.m.
My Amtrak track record (ha, pun intended!) got so bad that I finally switched to the Peter Pan/Greyhound bus.
But I figured it's been 20 years, give 'em another chance, right? Yeah, not so much.
A two-hour delay later (on top of the eight-plus hour trip ahead of us) did nothing to change my opinion of Amtrak as something so broken it might never get fixed.
But when we finally got on the train, it wasn't crowded. the seats were roomy and comfortable, the bathrooms didn't stink too badly, and the cafe car had plenty of wine. Greyhound doesn't sell wine.
And then somewhere just south of D.C., I looked out the window--the afternoon sun was sparkling so prettily off of some Northern Virginia river that a lovely feeling of peace and contentment came over me. I had my family with me, we were on an adventure, the scenery outside my window was beautiful.
What more did I want?
Did it really matter that we were two hours delayed? Of course not.
No comments:
Post a Comment