New Orleans

We left Chicago as we arrived, on an Amtrak train. This time, though, it was a somewhat different experience, in coach. The route is called 'The City of New Orleans', so there's no prizes for guessing our destination. This trip was only 900 miles and thus only took a respectable 19 hours. We'd planned for our not so grand tour to more or less wipe out our life savings, but in the interests of avoiding going into debt on top of that, we thought we could economise in economy. We left Chicago in the evening, and we planned to simply sleep away a large part of the journey.

Given that I'd compared our last experience, in a Roomette, to flying in business class (disclaimer: I can only imagine what flying in business class is like), I was certain that coach would resemble cattle class. Alas, I was pleasantly surprised when we settled into our huge reclinable seats, me by the window, of course.

Apparently everybody else intended to sleep through the night, but their doing so certainly kept us from slumber. The problem with trains, you see, is that they're much quieter than airplanes. Which is great, if you have your own roomette. As it was, our carriage reverberated with the snores of Goliath, who must have been sitting down the back somewhere. Then there was a lady (who was anything but) across the aisle from us. This sow (and she was roughly that size) proceeded to feed her piglets COPIOUS amounts of junk food for dinner (and later twinkies for breakfast), before falling asleep and drowning out Goliath. As others dozed off too, we were surrounded by a "sounder" of pigs. Apparently that's a true collective, and I've not complained about Daniel's snoring since. 

So I was well and truly awake at daybreak. It was with silent awe that I sat and stared out the window, a little incredulous at what we were passing by. From memory, I'm fairly sure we pulled into Memphis, TN, in the early hours of the morning, which meant daylight was spent traversing almost the full height of Mississippi. There's some serious money in America (see, for example, my posts about Boston). But there's some really serious poverty. We passed through tiny town after tiny town, all with main streets scattered with derelict buildings, abandoned cars. It felt as though there were more trailer parks and mobile homes than houses. Fire had swept through many places, who knows how long ago. I don't know if anybody could afford to pull these buildings down - they were just abandoned, many of them collapsed inwards after being neglected for too long. If you think Australia has a problem with rural decay (and if you don't, go and watch Cunnamulla), it's got nothing on Mississippi. It was really, really sad.

We arrived in New Orleans mid-afternoon, exhausted, vowing never more to travel coach on a train. Even better, I'd managed to sleep on a skittle - grape, incidentally - and disembarked with a large purple patch on the bum of my jeans. Welcome to N'Awlins.

Perhaps it was lucky there would be no more train travel during this trip, though it's definitely something we'll do again. Phileas Fogg knew what was up - there really is something delicious about slow travel, about spending hours on a train savouring every scene that flies by your window. For the most part, it's very civilised. More so in a Roomette than in coach, perhaps.

“It may be taken for granted that, rash as the Americans are, when they are prudent there is good reason for it.”
― Jules Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days