WHERE TO GO? What to see?

You've got your 30-day rail pass in your hot little mind, and suddenly are faced with that thundering question: Where do I go?

Shall I go see old friends? Go to old places where I used to live, or where I have already visited and traveled in the past, and revisit my old haunting/stomping grounds?

Or shall I break out of the mold and explore the new? Go to places I never really got to know or never saw at all? Look up some of the readers I only know from their writing me after reading these gringo pages?

Or both? Can I, in 30 days of travel back and forth across the United States and Canada, visit both the old and the new to me?

Can I set foot on every single damn train that runs in these two countries (no, not even in 30 days) — well, then, let me see as many different trains as possible, as much different scenery as possible...

Scenery, people, places. And the beautiful, beloved word and name. America. The huge homeland nation (and its northern neighbor, Canada). Oh yes, yes, yes.

YES Nature and Physical and Human Environment to See: purple mountains majesties AND the amber waves of grain, the alabaster cities gleam above the fruited plain!!!

I also want to see for myself how many Mexicans there are, how many more, if more, in places where I once lived and saw them around everywhere with the whites and orientals and blacks, in Chicago fifteen years ago, in Washington thirty years ago.

THIRTY DAYS...?

Perhaps the most important strategic principle is the very nature of the Rail Pass itself. The very title of this blogging project: Thirty Days @ Train Blogging.

I want to literally spend those thirty days on trains. Every day and/or every night I want to be on a train. There should not be one single day when I am not at least spending some time going from one place to another. This strategic goal has been clear since I first read about the Rail Pass in the Amtrak System Timetable book. The actual words are:

"Enjoy a few short trips, or indulge in one long-distance adventure, with unlimited boarding and detraining anywhere along the way."

For me an epiphany reading those words gifted vision of travel that led to this project.

Let me back up a bit and explain that when I travel I like going somewhere and just staying there for a while. Two weeks in the same hotel in Morelia or Mexico City. A week in Papantla. A week and a half in Yucatan, most of it in Valladolid.

IN THIS CASE I would just Like to Stay on the Trains, trains trains for thirty days.

Yes, yes, of course every train eventually stops at its end of the line somewhere and I have to get off: I cannot just leap from one train to another, although that is a most intriguing idea... never letting my feeet touchhhh theeeee grounddddddd....... nah. No. Negatory.

And besides, I also DO Want to Get Off and see some places, maybe for an hour or three or even ten or twelve, until the next good train comes by.

But in the long run, I will be back on another train that same day, or no later than that day, or the next.

To the fullest extent possible I will spend the entire thirty days on trains, while the world moves by outside me, and you, and us. My left hand and my write.

And Therefore, in order to get on as many trains as possible and not be stranded somewhere at the end of this line or that line, I have understood that I MUST Plan the Route/Itinerary Carefully, Choosing Which Trains to Take. Therefore the detailed itinerary, with alternative variations, some of which shall remain secret, or perhaps only be written in invisible ink. That, too, is a strategy, although of a subtextual type.

Of course one must cross the continent. And then return. Maybe twice.

There are five basic routes. The Canadian, whose scenery is said to be stunningly beautiful, three days from Vancouver to Toronto.

The Empire Builder, from Seattle to Chicago.

The California Zephyr, from San Francisco to Chicago.

The Southwest Chief, from Los Angeles to Chicago.

The Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited, (already traveled) from Los Angeles to San Antonio, where it divides, part going north toward Chicago, the other portion continuing east to Florida.

If we operate on strict logic, one can only go and return on two routes at a time (Unless you go and return on the same route). Therefore one route might need to be eliminated. Since yours truly has already traveled east from Los Angeles to Texas (in February 2003), that is the no-go this time.

Which leaves four routes, each of which I would like to experience either coming or going across the west and midwest and northwest and southwest.

POINTS OF ORIGIN and DIVERGENCE

Tijuana, and San Diego, are the point of origin. The only way onward from here/there is onboard the Pacific Surfliner north to Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the first point of divergence. From LA, trains leave for Chicago, Texas/New Orleans/Florida, and San Francisco/Seattle.

Thus it is at Los Angeles where I must make my first big route-decision/choice, to go either north on the Coast Starlight toward Seattle and Vancouver to catch the Canadian transcontinental, or east toward Chicago onboard the Southwest Chief.

Reservation and ticketing considerations may decide me to make this decision some goodly time before my actual departure. The first itinerary I prepared is based on a Chicago choice, but....

TIMING ARRIVAL/DEPARTURE

The question of when one train ends, or arrives, in any city, i.e. the time of day, and when another train leaves from that same station, is also relevant to the strategic decision not to spend overnights in hotels, but instead to sleep, where/whenever possible, on the trains.

For example, all the trains from the west (from Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles) arrive in Chicago in the middle afternoon. Most of the trains from Chicago to points in the south and east, depart in the early evening. All trains back west leave in the early afternoon. It is practically impossible thus to arrive in Chicago from the west and return west on the same day. It is, however, theoretically (if the train is not too many hours late) possible to arrive in Chicago and depart for the east or south on the same day.

The question of timing is also supremely relevant in the exploration of the eastern seaboard cities of Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Charleston, Savannah, etc. The timing of Regional, Silver Meteor, Keystone, Palmetto, Vermonter and other trains up and down the northeast corridor will allow for multi-hour visits to those cities, before retiring for another ride and partial night's sleep onboard a next train.

In some cases, visits to city centers may need be timed for late night between trains. This might especially be the case with Portland, Maine, where I am seriously thinking of arriving at 01:30 after midnight and departing at 06:20 in the morning, spending four hours walking through its Victorian streets of night.

THE LIMITATION

One section of the rules is strategically limiting: "The pass may be used for a maximum of four one-way trips on any given leg."

To my eye this means I cannot go back and forth over the same tracks over and over again more than four times. Or does it mean only on the same train? The rule simply says "leg." My concern is that different trains traveling over the same tracks might all be considered part of the same "leg."

The one place where I am most concerned is the northeast corridor between Washington and Boston. "Four one-way trips on any given leg" might mean that I could only go up and back twice on the northeast corridor, regardless of whether I went via Regional or other train (there are several) between New York, Philadelphia and Washington. N.B.: The pass is not good for Metroliner or Acela Express — the other trains are runs to Chicago, New Orleans and Florida.

It thus enters into my planning strategy to maximize the difference of geographical routes as patently different legs, in order to preclude recurrences of one way trips on any given leg in particular. The core zone NewYork/Philly/DC must especially be carefully limited. Exploration of the south (Charleston, Savanah, Palatka) must be coordinated from Washington, not New York. Boston may also be accessed from Chicago via Lake Shore Limited connecting at Albany. Etcetera. It becomes, in fact, a mathematical problem of TOPOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY — similar to the bridges of Konigsberg problem — to be worked out by patient study and application of/with schedules and maps. That, too, is fun. Weird poet.