The Tucson station from the train window.

I think this is Benson, AZ.

Before dinner in the Dining Car.

I think this is Benson, AZ. . .

instagrammed photo of El Paso station

Another view of Alpine, with the Holland Hotel.

Alpine, Texas, from the train

Somewhere in Texas, no doubt!

The Alamo in DT San Antonio.

On the platform in Houston, TX

Houston DT from train

Cooter’s!

I liked the weatherbeaten look of this cottage

Shot of fountain with St. Charles streetcar in the bg

Corner of Dominican and Fern in NOLA

Real Nawlins Food.

Roof symmetry.

This made me laugh. Didn’t eat there.

Before an afternoon nap. Angel Heart, without the violence?

Audubon Park fountain.

I love the drama of the Spanish moss.

relocated slave quarters on the Laura Plantation

Another view. The guide said this house was abandoned after the Civil War.

Slaveowner’s retirement house, in ruins

Video, as well. Scroll down.

My final visit on this month-long trip with the train was to see my sister Kate and brother-in-law Dave Maleckar in New Orleans. It was a pretty quiet week – didn’t do too much, as I’ve been in NOLA a number of times and have pretty much maxed out the usual tourist sites – with the exception of seeing a plantation, which we did do.

The Laura Plantation is out on the River Road and a very interesting example of a Creole business plantation. An excellent tour, heavy on the history of Louisiana including the part before the USA got the Louisiana purchase, finally explaining to me what Creole really means. Highly recommended if you go down there and want to see one of the old places.

Other than that, just hung out and did a lot of walking around my sister’s neighborhood of Uptown (see photos, video) and visited with them. It’s been a very hard year for all, hard to believe it’s already 8 months since their daughter’s death (Alma Maleckar Bear). It was great to see them, as well as Alma’s husband David Bear. I took the Sunset Limited home to L.A.

And now, for the pros and cons of the train pass and Amtrak travel:

PROS

• economical way to go: my 30-day pass cost $649.
• Very relaxed way to travel – there’s no TSA. You don’t have to disrobe at the train station and there’s no groping. They actually do have food on the train (though you buy it, and it’s not cheap). There’s no traffic jams getting to an Amtrak station.
• On time departures: every train I took left on time.
• Clean and well-stocked restrooms: No train restroom I was in ever ran out of TP, soap, or towels, so unlike, for instance, the horrid and bitter end of a cross country flight where the restrooms resemble the final night of a decadent county fair.
• Diversity: Face to face with your fellow man, any race, any age, any size and disposition. For a writer this is like filling up a dry well.
• Helpful phone reservations: I had great experiences talking to actual booking agents on Amtrak, and it was speedy.
• You see fascinating parts of cities and the countryside you would never see if you were driving (and, if you were driving, you should have your eyes on the road anyway!)

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CONS

• Sleep, or should I say the lack of it. I had a terrible time trying to sleep in the coach seats. Next time I do something like this I’d either suck it up and buy the sleeper car (way way more expensive) or take shorter trips not involving overnights. That said, I saw plenty of people passed out like rocks.
• Children! Loud, misbehaving kids! Unlike airplanes where they can mandate seat belts etc, there are none on the train and nothing prevents kid antics like racing up and down train aisles, fighting, screaming and squealing! I know I sound like a crabby old guy, but so be it. I am a crabby old guy. This is probably less of an issue in seasons other than summer, I would guess (the kid thing – not my crabbiness).
• Unexplained stops, and late arrivals. Often, the Amtrak trains will stop in the middle of a field somewhere with no explanation. Usually, this is for another train to pass, usually a freight train. Since Amtrak doesn’t own the tracks, they are at the mercy of freight commerce. I didn’t so much mind these stops as I minded the lack of information from the conductor. The late arrivals: Two of my trains had equipment problems: one was delayed 2 hours to the destination, the other 1.5 hours. Seeing that these were both trips of over 40 hours, that’s not too bad, but could be disastrous if you had a tight connection or other kind of appointment you could not miss. For leisure travel, not so awful.

Key to the raw video below:

• the freight train, is Uptown New Orleans from the levee. The River is just to the left, out of the picture. There’s a bike/run path on top of the levee.
• Audubon Park, New Orleans
• Farms growing sugar cane and the bayou country right outside of New Orleans, from train. These fields were long ago worked by slaves.
• The Alamo, San Antonio
• Various shots of rolling into El Paso, Texas
• Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, from the train. You can see the border fence as well. The guy (the voiceover) in the BG was sitting in the seats in front of me.