Train Journey over the Rockies with my Honey

I love train travel. Romantic, social, and a much lower carbon alternative to driving or flying. While I have enjoyed multiple trips across the country, my partner, Glen Retief, had never joined. That changed with our recent jaunt from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Emeryville, California outside of San Francisco.

No surprise he loved it. Here are some photos and a short video from the train.

Glen consulting the rail map

For the train lovers.

Sunrise in Utah

Early morning approaching Chicago

Mountain village in Rockies

Pennsylvania to Colorado by Train — So Sweet

On Monday I hop on Amtrak in Harrisburg, PA and head to Denver, CO for the Creating Change Conference. I love so many things about taking the train. For one I get so much work done. Monday and Tuesday I will write letters, work on the screenplay for the upcoming Transfigurations film (more about that in a future post), and REHEARSE my newest play, Does This Apocalypse Make Me Look Fat? A Comedy about broken bodies, large and small. I will perform this play on Saturday night at the conference.

Sure a full train uses less fossil fuel than the four plane flights I would have needed to get to Denver and back. But I travel on the ground for multiple reasons, not just because I don’t want to pollute so much. The pace of the train, the opportunity for solitude or society, the views–both majestic and mundane, make for a lovely trip. So much nicer

Poeina Suddarth

than rushing through airport security then squeezing in a sit for a few hours of dehydrating pressurized air. I know train travel is not perfect. There are long delays at times, especially now with so much crude oil transported by rail. Still train travel works for me (especially when I have a sleeper car for overnight legs.

The other plus is that I will have dinner in Pittsburgh with friend on Monday night, and brunch with another friend in Chicago on Tuesday morning. These are folks I typically would just fly over.

AND I bring my little audio recorder and capture some great sounds and conduct interviews. This fall I interviewed:

Singer/songwriter Poeina Suddarth and even sat in on a rolling live concert. You can listen here.
Chino Young, a wild fire fighter from the Quinault people on the West Coast. He told me how his village is getting relocated because of sea level rise and how so many of the animals of his youth also getting displaced because of climate change. You can listen here.

Have you ever gone on a long distance train ride? How was it? What did you do during the trip? Any travel pointers?

Meet Poeina Suddarth–singer and fellow Amtrak Passenger

Last month as I criss-crossed North America on several trains, I met many wonderful people. Also, as someone who enjoys audio and song, I recorded a lot of train noises as I travelled. You know how the ear can tell the difference between live music and recorded? One day on a train from Portland, Oregon to Sacramento, CA I heard live music from the other end of the Observation Car. There was an energetic woman with a guitar, strumming, singing from her gut, and giving a concert to two other passengers. Turns out I was sharing the train with none other than Poeina Suddarth, an awesome singer/songwriter from LA on tour. She is well known in the Portland music scene and have appear at Pride there and on KBOO’s Out Loud program. She told me she even gave voice lessons to one of my favorite singers, Joe Stevens.

Fortunately I had my portable recorder on me, so asked if I could interview her. Poeina did one better; she also let me record one of her newest songs, Miracle. I include the interview and song on the latest episode of Climate Stew where I also talk about train travel–new service, delayed service (thanks a lot crude oil), and discontinued service. We even have a report from the year 2164 looking at train service over the next 150 years (turns out Tom Cruise is going to be around in one form or another for a LONG time.) But the jewel in this audio crown is Poeina Suddarth. Enjoy!

Off the Rails–An Interview with Poeina Suddarth

Poeina Suddarth

Tag: Amtrak