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| Nothing beats the feeling of settling into a train seat for a cross-country ride. The journey is longer but there's very little waiting in line and unlike air travel since 9/11 there's no invasive security check and they let you hold onto your knife. There's nothing between me and my destination--Charleston, SC--but an autumn continent and time. The train is a bubble of tranquility and calm. The sun burns bright and low over Puget Sound as we slip out. Coach is half empty and aside from couples everyone has two seats to themselves, good for spreading out or curling up for a nap. It's quiet and dark but for reading lights and the pages they illuminate like wings in the night. It's been a while since I've had the luxury of reading. I've come prepared: The Sun #346, October 2004 issue featuring love and war (sorry, Sarah, I forgot to ask if it was alright to take it); The Immortal Class by Travis Culley, a thoughtful treatise on bike messengering on loan from Lindsey; Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, a popular history of how the virus of western civilization has spread; and Eyeing the Flash, an advance review copy about a carny con-artist given to me by Joe B in parting after he gave me and Lindsey a ride down from my last weekend at Doe Bay. Like a library on a rainy day, we're neither here nor there and there's nowhere to go but the next page... |  |
