Traveling by car may be long and tedious, but it does leave one in control of one’s own destiny. Last year, confronted with flooding in southern Wisconsin, my parents drove to a family reunion in Iowa by way of northern Illinois. Seven months previously, Northwest Airlines reacted to an unexpected snowstorm over the Rocky Mountains by canceling every flight related to those delayed.
Long-time readers of this blog will recall that I am no particular fan of air travel. Travel by car is, in a transcontinental sense, often somewhat inconvenient. It gives me some sour satisfaction to discover that trains are no better.
- Amtrack Sucks (Reason.com)
(Hat tip: Jalopnik)
It does make it somewhat easier to face the prospect of a day wasted in air travel tomorrow somewhat easier to face.
Every time we think about a traveling vacation we try the “let’s see if we could take the train” dance. We really want to take trains. The idea of train travel is very, very cool. And Euro trains mostly live up to that mystique.
But each time we give it a go it’s obvious in about five minutes Amtrak makes no travel sense.
That sucks.
I prever to drive, but make an exception for extremely long, cross-country trips. And I know, unless you’re an American, Canadian, Australian, or handful of other exceptions, the idea of a “long trip” within hte borders of one nation is foreign to you.