Train kept a rollin'

Photo: A glowing golden light rains down from unbelievably tall ceilings on this writer and her lifelong travel buddy. We are masked and vaxxed, and ready to roll!

    Our mode of travel today predates even the last global pandemic. The first trains in the US ran on wooden tracks as early as the 1720s, but iron horses as we know them now took about another hundred years to get going.

    Though I've loved trains for day trips on the east coast, it's been a dream of ours to take a long distance journey by rail. The grand train station at Utica, New York, with it's huge marble columns, Grecian styling and gilded decorations, feels majestic and slightly anachronistic. Train travel itself, can feel like it is out of step with the speeding world today. 

    We're headed West, young man/woman/person! Stay on track for our off-the-rails journey, in a sleeper car that will be our little nest for three whole sleeps. When we emerge from our metal cocoon, we'll be seeing josh and James, who we've missed for the whole pandemic year.

   I hope you'll check in, see where we are (wi-fi permitting), and hear my reflections on an ancient and timeless mode of transport that will be interesting, if nothing else... 

   Aaaaall aboooooard!