80/100 Something I Would Do Again
Traveling by Train
One of my financial goals is to get to a point where I can actively save for a vacation without ignoring the essentials. What I would do is take a train.
I’m serious. I would do it again. I’ve mentioned this before, and I mean. I love taking trains to places, and I would do it again, too. Actually, one of my top goals for getting financially fit is to afford little trips. Little trips are the best!
They’re so low pressure but still new. You’re probably not far from your home base, but you have the space of a new breath. It’s excellent.
In California, I was known for loving the train (shout out MetroLink, shout out Gold Line, shout out Orange Line). I have earlier shared how taking the train to LA would be a formative experience, this first distance I came to see as growth and as a journey to the new “big”.
It was a weekend thing.
Later, when I moved to Old Towne Orange, I used the train allllll the time. I gave up having a car (it was too expensive), which is to say I also gave up much of a social life since having a car is the premise of California. I would take that line up to Fullerton and meet my family or friends there for the next thing.
One time, my family met me on the train from the Fullerton station, and we all jammed up to downtown LA for a museum day. I loved that time.
In my Boston life, I tried that again. It wasn’t the same. I took the commuter rail to Salem to at last see what the deal is with this sleepy town. It was sleepy. The peace on the train was familiar and exciting, but the destination was not as fulfilling as I would have wanted. It was fun in the basic sense of “I don’t know where I am” but the place was nearly empty and it was uniquely cold there. Nothing felt right. I took a selfie there. It looks like I used to work for Facebook when I was in my early 40’s.
I’m glad I tried it.
I never got the chance to take the train to western Massachusetts and see the mountains there or take it to this random town that had a massive art museum in the middle we passed through in the move to Boston.
What I would do now? I don’t even know where I would go, but the point is that everything is connected to DC. It’s a beautiful life here. I’m certain there is more of that around for me to find. I expect it.
There are also all the times I used trains while traveling in Europe. Being pensive or in love or melodramatic on a train is one of the best experiences available to us. It’s a gift of modern civilization that we get to be moody at rapid speeds without the pressure of control and attention to the actual movement. All you have to do is sit there, and you’ll eventually show up at your destination. Name something better than that!
More soon,
Trevor