My name is Andy Clark and welcome to my newly-created blog The Amtrak Traveler. I got the idea for this, naturally enough, while riding AMTRAK across country last summer to California. I chose the northern route and took The Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland, OR, where I had a four-hour wait. Fortunately I have friends in Portland, and we went out lunch at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the harbor. The food was good, too, and reasonably priced.
From their I took the train to Los Angeles, where relatives greeted me.
A few weeks later I boarded the Southwest Chief for Chicago and then Capital Limited to Washington, D.C., to visit other relatives. And finally a few weeks later I board the train for Boston and home.
The journey was my third roundtrip cross country by Amtrak. The first two I made in summer 1989 and spring 1990.
While I was riding on the Southwest Chief, I was thinking about thank you letters I would write to my friends in California after I got home. The words The Amtrak Traveler popped into my head. I reminded me of a song we used to sing when I was a kid: The Arkansas Traveler. I think probably unconsciously my mind was playing on the sound of this old song's title and which somehow, in some mysterious way must have inspired the phrase, The Amtrak Traveler. Then I thought it might make a good blog. So I decided to create one.
I have never blogged before, so this is a novel experience for me. I will have to learn how to use this type of computer program and it will probably take me a while.
My blog is for anyone who travels frequently or infrequently by Amtrak and wants to comment on their experiences; and its also for anyone who wants to comment about their experiences or tell about trips taken by other modes of travel, or compare modes of travel.
All I ask is that anyone who posts a comment be polite and courteous and civil.
I will tell more about travels later. Right now I have to get to work.
