Choo Choo ka Choo!!

This year’s summer vacation started with a 34 hour train ride.

Since the big brother and sister were, for the first time, not along for summer vacation, it was just my 13 year old son and I, off to our annual jaunt to Michigan. The train ride started in Flagstaff and concluded in Chicago – we experienced 12 states – Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, boredom, excitement, hunger, delirium and sleep. Mostly, my son was bored, and I was excited.

The train had a dining car, a viewing car, a lounge car, a sleeping car, and where our assigned seating was, steerage. Riding the train is not what it used to be – there’s electricity at all the seats, so electronics can be plugged in to watch movies and play games. Before we left, Clark picked out a couple DVD movie collections – you know those $5-10 DVD boxes that have four movies with common themes or from the same series of movies. The two he picked out were Lethal Weapon 1 thru 4, and a grouping of 4 Police Academy movies, which I assumed would be 1 thru 4. I like the Lethal Weapon movies, and thought, “I remember the first Police Academy, and Clark would probably like it”. Turns out the box contained 4 Police Academy movies; like, Police Academy, 5, 6, 7 and 8!?!?!? Who knew? If you thought Police Academy 2 and 3 were awful, you should see 5 thru 8. It reminded me of a Hollywood rule about sequels that brother Paul once explained to me – that every sequel is half as good as its previous installment – I did the math on this - a 4th sequel is therefore 12.5% as good as the original - which puts the 8th at about 1% as good as the original. I don’t think they could make a 9th, because it would have no discernable value. (.00391) The Police Academy movies seem to prove out this theory. And do you remember the original Police Academy? It wasn’t very good to start with. So anyway, I read a lot.

I also went to the viewing car a lot. I loved watching the country unfold as we zipped across the Great Plains at speeds approaching 90 miles an hour. I also loved the cross section of people – at one point we were playing cards in a booth in the viewing car and talking with Amish from Iowa, Eagle Scouts from Kansas, an urban family from Chicago, and a college kid from Northwestern. The Amish family was particularly patient with a well-spoken 10 year old city-boy who streamed a gaggle of surprising questions at them: “do you know what a car is?” “do you know what a school is?” “do you know what a TV is?” “do you know what a cow is?” “do you know what McDonalds is?” “do you know what a plane is?” Sheesh. He must have thought they were an alien species from another planet. I guess to him, maybe they were.

In the Dining Car it was by appointment only, so we made reservations, put on fresh shirts and hobnobbed with the privileged for one meal, where I met a beautiful woman named Rose, and we laughed and strolled the decks together and.…. Oh wait, that’s another story…. This one has a much warmer ending. Where was I? Oh right, we made reservations for the dining car and we had bad food all gussied up to look like good food. Right, now I’m back on track. Get it?! Back on “track”! Haha!! Sorry, 34 hours on a train get’s you a little punchy.

The rest of the meals we purchased from the lounge car; it was the same food anyway. No waiting. We always seemed to be a little ahead of schedule, so when we stopped, we had a little extra time before scheduled departures – until we got to the Chicago area. It seems traffic in Chicago isn’t limited to the highways. We arrived 2 hours late, but no worse for the wear.

In general, I liked the train ride very much, and my son a little less so. But if you decide to take a long train ride, bring cards, plenty of reading material, and know that there’s electricity, and soon they expect to have internet as well!! Have no fear of ice burgs, but expect to meet interesting people. Kansas and Iowa don’t seem to have changed much over the years – and it’s comforting to know, neither have Eagle Scouts, Amish or City-folk. All is well on the Great Plains.