Not "Always In Airplane Mode" Anymore
A story of train travel across the country
Danish philosopher Kierkaard described anxiety as the “possibility of possibility”. He posits that unlimited choice brings a “dizziness of freedom”. That’s how I felt in 2015 when I was graduating from college. After studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea, the only thing I could say I wanted to do with any certainty was travel, so I became a flight attendant.
I flew regional routes, meaning I traveled to exciting metropolitan areas like Little Rock, AR, Louisville, KY, and Des Moines, IA. Outside of my initial 6 month placement in Dayton, OH, I really enjoyed exploring the mid-sized cities of the country. While I flew, I kept a travel blog, Always In Airplane Mode. I’d get home from the hotels of three cities and the jet bridges of six more, and be too tired to say anything about my trip. Writing the blog during the trip was a way for me to tell the kind of detailed travel stories I love to read.
Since I’m no longer “always in airplane mode”, this post is the travel journal for my recent NY to CO trip via another form of transport: the train.
I’m officially on summer break from my full time job working for a very popular book fair company. My school year ended June 7th, and on June 8th I was boarding the Amtrak from Rochester to Denver. I opted for the train because I want to prove to Daddy Government that the people yearn for public transportation. Also because I recently watched Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, and I firmly believe in romanticizing my life.
I boarded the Lake Shore Limited line around midnight and fell asleep in the surprisingly spacious seats (take that airline basic economy!). I was awoken around 4am by a group of soldiers in Cleveland. I inferred this from the flash of khaki and lace up tactical boots I saw under my sleep mask. I wondered why trains weren’t better funded if this is how they were deploying the military, and flipped over in my seat to sleep. When I woke up for good around 6am, near Toledo, I saw that it was actually a Boy Scout Troop of two adult men and a bunch of boys in varying stages of puberty. We chatted about final destinations (of our trip, not the horror franchise, although I wonder if they set any of those on a train, or if it’s just M. Night Shyamalan who uses train accidents for plot?). I talked with engineers in hopes of schmoozing my way into one of the expensive sleeper cars on my next train (I was unsuccessful), and just watched the world go by outside my window.
In Chicago, I stored my bigger bags and headed out to fill my four hour stopover. Chicago wasn’t one of my airline’s hub cities so I never stayed there on a work trip, and I never wound up there on my own time. I know the big things about Chicago: The Bean, The Bear, “Da Bears”, 2nd City Improv, pizza, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I decided to follow in the famous truant’s footsteps and hit the Art Institute of Chicago. The walk to the museum passed over the Chicago River, which reminded me of two more cultural Chicago touch points: the hottest non-kiss kiss scene from My Best Friend’s Wedding, and the Dave Matthews Band tour bus poop dumping incident.
My natural reaction when entering a museum is awe. When I’m sleep deprived, hormonal, or hungry, and I enter a museum, I cry in the lobby. So, most times I enter a museum I cry. It’s very hard to not be any of those three things as a woman. I shed my sleep deprived tears, bought a ticket, and found my way to the perfect painting for a Sunday on the Chicago River: George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. Cue The Smiths. Cue zoning out to pictures of a blue and red pointillist puppy.
Next I started a game of “find the female artists”. In the classical galleries this proves nearly impossible, but Georgia O’Keefe is a Midwest girl made good, there was an additional cost exhibition of her work, and more scattered throughout. My favorite was an oversized piece hung at the top of a staircase in a hallway. Sky Above the Clouds measures 8 x 24 feet and reminded me of icy winters on the Great Lakes as well as my many hours spent above the clouds. A postcard version traveled to CO and back with me, and now hangs on my gallery wall with art from so many other trips.
After a charcuterie snack, I worked through the Modern Art gallery. I was about to leave, something that refreshingly easy to do when you’re traveling alone, when Christina Ramberg’s Exhibition grabbed me. She lived a short life, but had a prolific career in the Chicago Modern Art scene. Her work ranged from the erotic, women’s disembodied hands, corseted and trussed torsos, backs of heads in every position; to the comforting, soft quilted patterns and tessellations of household goods. It was abstract and stimulating and the perfect conclusion to my visit.
Back at the station I waited for the California Zephyr line to board. It was a two floor train with dining and observation cars, much larger than the one I’d arrived on. I wound up in the middle of an Amish collective that raised questions about just what their stance is on technology in 2024 (I didn’t ask any, because you could definitely see my nipples through my shirt). There weren’t any ipad kids, but I did see one of them snapping photos on his flip phone. I learned from another passenger that unmarried Amish men don’t have beards, and married ones do. Google told me train travel is preferred for long journeys over cars or planes, and the New Order Amish are more accepting of technology.
Leaving Chicago I sat next to a single dad traveling with his two daughters, the girls looked at me like I was Hannah Montana after they learned I worked for a certain book fair company. Entering Iowa I had a delicious steak dinner in the dining car with some fellow Rochestarians I know through hosting trivia. Then I enjoyed an after dinner drink from my flask (because there’s no TSA at the train station) in the observation car. The seats in that car face out rather than forward, and the windows extend to the ceiling for an almost full 360 view. The view in that part of the country was very, very… flat. Back at my seat I met a woman who was traveling out of her small town for the first time, taking the trip she and her grandma always talked about, with her grandma’s ashes in a pendant around her neck. We talked about romance novels and tarot and life after death until my sleeping pill kicked in, then we had a lovely coffee together at Union Station when we finally made it to Denver.
For now, it’s easier to fly in America because we haven’t invested in new routes for passenger trains. A White House press release from December 2023 covered the $66 billion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, “the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak 50 years ago”. This includes a high speed rail from California to Nevada, which Musk via Tesla has been talking about for years. With the trend from the last few decades being one administration undoing the previous one’s policies, one can only hope that development still takes place. It’s also more efficient to fly because “the average American worker gets 11 days of paid vacation per year”, according to Forbes, so who can afford to spend 30 hours on the journey alone? In 2022 there was a very public labor dispute between railroad workers and freight railroad companies. Through collective bargaining and Federal mediation they reached “an immediate 14% wage increase and 24% salary increase over five years, plus one day of paid leave per year.” Hopefully that means one more day of paid leave a year, maybe they’re beating the average and raking in a 12 whole days! *Cries in American proletariat*
Ok, so not everyone wants to take the time to ride a train across multiple states. But what about the availability of train travel for shorter distances? I traveled by bus, tram, and train in Germany this winter. I navigated Tokyo’s infuriating subway, and took a bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo in Japan this Spring. It felt equal parts patriotic and activist to take the train in my own country. Why is it so unusual for Americans to use public transportation, or mass transit outside of the major cities? The Light Rail Transit Association’s current count is 27 active light rail train systems in 26 US cities. Statistics from May 2024 list more than 109,000 cities and towns in the collective US. I’m more of a Humanities girlie, but even I can do that math. Is there hope for mid sized cities to reinvigorate investing in safe public transport? Not just one bus every hour at an uncovered stop with no seating?
I’m writing this to remember my travels, and a few of the thoughts that I had while I was alone for the 30+ hours of it. I’m also writing this to remind myself to slow down, to meet strangers in the next seat, to share my snacks and ask questions, to look out the window more, and schedule time to be overwhelmed by the beauty of centuries of art gathered in well lit rooms. I’m also writing this to remind myself that my time is valuable, my time (and yours) is this country’s biggest natural resource, and it’s going for pennies on the dollar with so little time off. I want my tax money to be spent on services that serve the people at large. And the people yearn for affordable expeditious public transportation!