{"id":2230,"date":"2010-12-09T17:15:12","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T00:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=2230"},"modified":"2010-12-09T17:15:12","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T00:15:12","slug":"taking-the-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2010\/12\/09\/taking-the-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking the Train!"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_754\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-754\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-754\" title=\"view from the train\" src=\"http:\/\/iwilloptout.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/view-from-the-train-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"picture through a window of Puget sounds and a small wharf\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-754\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">View from Amtrak&#39;s Coast Starlighter, Washington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We got on the train in Seattle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s King St. Station: a quick ID check, and that was it.<\/p>\n<p>No nude pictures.<\/p>\n<p>No irradiation.<\/p>\n<p>No groping.<\/p>\n<p>This is how travel should be.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Of course, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not ideal.  If we had flown, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have been in SF by lunchtime; instead, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get there for breakfast the next day.  The wifi connection on the train wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t working, so we couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get as much work done as we had hoped.  And since It takes almost 24 hours to get to San Francisco, so we had sprung for a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153roomette\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (a two-seat compartment that converted to two beds), which made it a lot more expensive than flying.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got plenty of upsides as well.  It took us back to the days of traipsing around Europe with rail passes and overnighting in couchettes, although the seats and beds are a lot more comfortable than we remembered.  There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lounge car, with games to play, and other passengers are friendly.  And most importantly, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re voting with our checkbook.<\/p>\n<p>We usually fly a lot, and so we called our airline to let them know why we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be taking any trips this holiday season \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and to ask them to continue to lobby the TSA as well as our Senators and Congresspeople.  The woman I talked to on the phone said they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten a lot of similar calls.<\/p>\n<p>So it really feels like the right thing to do.  And as far as protests go, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarkably comfortable!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>cross-posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/iwilloptout.org\/2010\/12\/09\/taking-the-train\/\">I Will Opt Out<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/kallistixf.dreamwidth.org\/8038.html\">Dreamwidth<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We got on the train in Seattle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s King St. Station: a quick ID check, and that was it. No nude pictures. No irradiation. No groping. This is how travel should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}