I'm with Peter on the remarkable serenity offered by trains. I remember taking Amtrak from Vermont to New Jersey, thinking I'd find the long ride deadly dull. It wasn't. Freed from suppressing the visceral instinct to panic, an activity that occupies most of my plane rides, I knew I had nine hours of sitting there ahead of me and nothing -- nothing! -- to do but chill. I listened to my iPod, looked out the window, read, daydreamed, looked out the window some more, played games on my iPod, grabbed a sandwich, dozed off, looked out the window yet again...I've never felt so little pressure in all my life (which may say something worrisome about my life, come to think of it). Peter says:
It's like a miniature vacation, a time out, if you will, a designated period of time where the only structure is that which is dictated by your location. Yet it is better than a vacation, because in the end you get somewhere; you accomplish something; you serve a purpose.
That may be right. For whatever reason, I find most vacations intensely unsettling. I can't handle actually doing nothing. I get restless, antsy, start pulling out the policy documents or checking the blog. The train ride was, of course, short enough that I didn't feel the need to do any of that. The only other vacation that compared was the recent excess time spent in Des Moines, where I'd already finished my reporting and had a full day to wander around before going to the airport.
