The Amtrak Auto Train

My bed on the Auto Train.

So here we are at the end. A little less than a week ago, I got home from my life-changing trip. Amazing how quickly I’ve settled back into home’s comforts, but this time I’m a bit more cognizant of the feeling of living in one’s own adult space (and lacking that).

Anyway, my trip.

I’ve already given you a lot of the boring philosophizing nonsense, so I’ll stick to more concrete details this time and tell you about my last leg, the Amtrak Auto Train. I have to say, I’m very glad that my trip ended with such an . . . experiential experience. The ride was just as weird and uncomfortable and interesting as I’d hoped.

The Auto Train, for those who don't know, is, rather predictably, a train on which you can take your car. It runs overnight between Lorton, Virginia - about half an hour away from Washington, D.C. - and Sanford, Florida, with a travel time of about 18 hours. It's basically for easterners who want to vacation in Florida, but don't want to fly or rent a car. It's actually not very expensive (though, full disclosure, I did not pay for my ticket; my desperate parents bought it for me to save themselves the anxiety of me driving back to New York). One coach seat on the train costs $139; bringing a car along is an extra $202, for a total of $341. Dinner and breakfast are included. It saves a lot of wear and tear on your car, keeps an extra 1,500 miles off your meter, and allows you to chill out instead of riveting your eyes on the road for 18 hours. And not only that - it's an experience.

I arrived at the Sanford Amtrak station in Florida four hours early because everyone had warned me of massive lines. But when I got there at noon, I drove right in, grabbed my stuff out of my car, checked in and sat in the terminal to wait. At the check-in desk, the woman cheerfully asked me which meal seating I wanted. I knew I wouldn’t eat anything, but I chose the 7:00 seating figuring I’d check out the dining car.

The Amtrak Auto Train departs the station at 4:30, but you must check in by 2:30, which is when you actually board. But on the recommendations of everyone I spoke to, I arrived at 12:30. So I sat in the terminal and waited as the room steadily filled up with people. A lot of older people, but also young families.

Eventually we were herded onto the train. There were sleeper cars and coach cars; I was on a coach, of course (thought a sleeper car would be another experience I’d love to have one day. I was on one in Vietnam with a friend last year but we shared it with two strangers. I want to try an American-style private train sleeper ride). These cars have two rows of two seats each, the same style as seats on a plane but considerably larger, with much more leg space.

I had asked for a window seat so I could gaze out at the passing countryside. And I was given a window seat - technically. That is, I was given a seat that was not an aisle seat, but there was also no window. It was one of those crappy spots in between the windows, so it’s mostly just wall. That was my first disappointment. A middle-aged woman was seated next to me, and she was fine, not the worst seat partner, but she hummed under her breath for a bit, which forced me to find a white noise video on YouTube, and then when she fell asleep, she snored. And when she turned in her seat, her butt protruded into my area. I was slightly bummed by my situation.

The "view" from my "window seat."

This was all before we left the station. Once you get on the cars at around 2:45 and get a brief tutorial about what not to flush and the locations of the dining car, you sit there for a while. And I noticed a pair of empty seats diagonal from me right next to a big ol’ window. Ideally situated. I determined that if no one new had boarded for those seats by the time we started moving, I would take them for myself.

But alas - I was not fated to have them. Before I could snatch the seats, well before the train shifted into motion, a blond, middle-aged woman somewhere behind me got up, cased the joint, and moved her stuff to the two seats.

Words cannot express the white-hot fury which filled my soul at this point. I glared at her so long and so hard that she probably started fearing that I was planning a spontaneous terror attack. She caught my eye a few times and kind of looked away, frightened. I watched her spread her stuff all over the seats, settle in with a contented sigh, stretch out her legs, gaze out of the window, and I literally wanted to murder her with my hands.

I sat there, boiling over with anger unlike any I had known. I texted my friends at lightning speed expressing my outrage. The anger just wouldn’t go away, even as the minutes ticked by. I couldn’t believe that this horrible bitch had stolen my seats. After a while, my anger predictably turned inwards, and I began to harangue myself for hesitating, for not seizing the seats while I had the chance. I could have been stretched out in a pair of seats on my own, with a window; instead I was squeezed in next to a wall. The level of comfort I would enjoy in my current situation was so incomparably low compared to what could have been that I was inconsolable.

Then, eventually, one of my friends suggested I look for other open seats, an idea which had vaguely crossed my mind but which I hadn’t pursued. I decided yes. I would not sit here when there was still a chance for me. I would do everything I could. I got up and began trolling. There was nothing open in my car, so I went downstairs and figured out how to get into the smaller compartment beneath and - lo and behold, two empty seats, occupying nothing but a cane.

This was no time to hesitate! I had to act! I asked the older couple across the aisle if the seats were taken. The husband said no, and kindly reached over to take back his cane. Excited but not yet certain - not yet in possession - I threw down my sweatshirt, said, “Okay, I’m taking them,” and ran back upstairs to get my backpack, purse, snacks, pillow and blanket.

My seatmate was fast asleep. I extracted my things and without a second glance of triumphant loathing at that blond bitch, I returned downstairs, to my still-wonderfully empty seats, and I put down my things and flopped down and hallelujah!!! Glory be.

I had my window seat. I had two empty seats to stretch out in. I was now on the same floor as the bathrooms, too. And the car was smaller, so fewer people and fewer noises.

I marveled at this for a few moments, grinning at my window view, and wondered what I’d been meant to learn from it, if anything. Get up and do something rather than complain? Don’t get angry because it all works out? Everything else so far had been a teaching moment, so what was the lesson?

Who knew. At any rate, I was happy again, and I wrote a blog post about my trip and about being happy, which I definitely couldn’t have written from my blank-wall seat next to the snorer and across the aisle from the thief.

The Amtrak coach seats are comfortable. I snacked, read, passed the time until the dinner call. To stretch my legs, and get a look at the dining car and other sections of the train, I decided to check it out. I followed the older couple next to me as they made their way to the dining car.

Passing through the lounge on the way to the dining car.

Along the way I passed a clearly religious couple. I wondered what they had brought to eat. When we arrived at the dining car, conductor/waiters were seating people in little booths. I hung back, not sure if I should sit down when I knew I couldn’t eat anything. But as I stood there, the religious couple passed me on their way in.

“What are you guys going to eat?” I asked interestedly, noticing they weren’t carrying anything.

In traditional asshole Jewish fashion, the man barely glanced at me, said “I don’t know” rudely and walked past. The wife ignored me entirely. They probably didn’t know I was religious - or even Jewish - but they certainly didn’t care to find out. All hail the Chosen.

But now suspecting that there might be kosher options on the menu, I stepped forward and was ushered to a booth with a single woman in her 50’s and my car-mates, the older couple. When I made inquiries of the waitress, apologizing for not having special-ordered anything ahead of time, she assured me they did, in fact, have a variety of kosher meals and she would check if they could heat one up for me short notice. She was incredibly nice and accommodating, and I was incredibly pleased, since I was starving. Plus, now I could have the experience of eating in a train dining car!

Kosher Train Food!

She brought me plastic utensils, and I started chatting with my fellow diners. We exchanged names, though I’ve forgotten them now, and shared what we had each been doing in Florida. Both other parties had been on long visits of a month of more and were now heading north to Montreal and New Jersey, respectively. The older couple were pretty definitely retirees, but I wasn’t sure about the middle-aged woman. For some reason, though, it seemed rude to ask, so I didn’t.

I explained I was not a student, but thanked them for assuming I was. (Many people on my trip assumed this, actually. Hurrah for good genes!) I told them a bit of my story. The Canadian lady had actually been to Israel on a cruise, and we talked about that for a while; the other couple hadn’t been but said they wanted to go.

At first I wasn’t sure about the New Jersey couple - whether or not they were tribe members. But that matter cleared itself up after the main course arrived, and even before that I began to suspect they were of the Gentile persuasion; they were simply too polite to be Jewish. I knew for certain when the wife complained quietly to the table about her fish being very tough, but refused to mention it to the waitress or send it back. Goyim for sure. The wife (who was not quite as congenial as the husband, with whom I discussed our mutual Long Island geography) even said, in a rather snooty way, that I was “lucky” they had provided me with kosher food considering I hadn’t ordered it ahead of time. That was how much she believed in the rules. That’s goyim for you.

I have to say, my Jewish identity came into play much more often than I had anticipated on the trip. At no point - not for a single second - did I ever once feel threatened, judged, negatively noticed, or unsafe because of my Jewishness, and at no point did I feel the need to hide it. Granted, I went to places pretty well known for tourism, and not podunk towns of the Deep South. But the people I met were from all over, and never once did I feel uncomfortable referring to my history and background. I wore my backpack with my name embroidered on it in Hebrew; I happily volunteered when a guide asked if synagogues were of interest to anyone on the Charleston tour. Everyone I told about living in Israel took it with equanimity, asked thoughtful questions, told me about their friends/relatives who had lived/visited there. During my dining experience on the Auto Train, one of my companions (the one who had cruised to Haifa) asked intelligent questions about kashrut which made clear she was familiar with the concept, and it turned out that the NJ couple had an in-law’s cousin’s daughter who was in Israel for a semester of high school, or something like that. Even Ken, my friend from the Comedy Barn, had known a couple who lived in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem teaching English at a school.

No one tried to convert me; no one seemed surprised to meet a Jew; no one looked at me differently. Everywhere I encountered only positive reactions. And almost everywhere, I encountered - Jewishness. It was odd. Little things here and there, an Israeli flag in a random place, glimpses of other Jewish tourists, and not only that but real American Jewish history in Charleston and Savannah, which both had Jewish populations from early dates. Particularly Savannah, whose Spanish Jews arrived in the seventeenth century, before many settlers. In fact, one of the very first things pointed out on the Savannah trolley tour was a large memorial stone marking an centuries-old Jewish cemetery, engraved with Sephardic names. That memorial - and the Jewish burial ground - was revisited during my nighttime ghost tour as well.

Jewish cemetery memorial stone in Savannah.

And so there was never any need to feel isolated - Judaism was everywhere! Not kosher restaurants, of course, that was something else entirely, there were virtually none everywhere I went, except Boca Raton (where I visited the pizza place twice). So food was not a big part of my trip, which is an extremely non-Jewish thing to say, but unfortunately a matter of course when you’re kosher. At times I felt a little sad that I couldn’t enjoy the huge restaurant scenes in the places I went. Trying new and local food is one of the major perks of travel. Every guide book has a massive section devoted to it. Tour guides were always talking up this or that restaurant with this or that amazing local delicacy. And I was existing on corn muffins, almonds, granola bars and bananas. Part of me envied those happy, oblivious, fat gentiles and their freedom to indulge in whatever crazy meat combos they desired.

But to be honest, it wasn’t that hard. I can’t say I spent a lot of time regretting that I couldn’t eat at these places. For one, it saved me a ton of money. And also, I didn’t have anyone to eat with, which is okay at a coffee shop but a little weird at a hip, bustling restaurant. But most importantly, the food itself didn’t really appeal to me. Every place in the south - especially on the coast - is all about bacon, pork, shrimp, clams. Give me the pizza capital of America and I’d be struggling, but downhome treif is not my thing.

And in some cases, there were more options than I’d anticipated - on the cruise, for example, where they provided abundant and delicious kosher meals for me every day. And on the Amtrak Auto Train, where I was served a piping hot wrapped meal of chicken, rice pilaf and green beans. The fact that these options were so readily available proved that there were many others like me who had traveled my path. We had made our mark!

My Amtrak meal was pretty good, but I was even more impressed by how helpful and accommodating the staff was. They weren’t annoyed I hadn’t called ahead, or that I demanded a special meal; true to Jewish form, they just wanted to make sure I had something to eat.

Dining.

So dinner, overall, was quite pleasant. I made some friends (names forgotten) and so easily slipped back into that person I had been for my two weeks on the road - that friendly solo traveler, always down to trade stories with someone new. I had seen that version of me vanish, almost with a poof, as soon as I reunited with my family in West Palm Beach. On the cruise, I couldn’t have been less interested to talk to anyone I didn’t know, and that’s the usual me. It was curious to see her go when company came, and then return as soon as I was alone again.

On my way back to my seat, I saw people getting comfortable with their pillows and blankets (all seasoned travelers take them; my Nana had generously given me mine before I left Florida). Kids were sprawled on the floor or playing cards in the lounge. Around 9, all the lights were turned out. I read for a while before the general nighttime atmosphere and lulling motion of the train took me over, then brushed my teeth in the tiny airplane-like bathroom, popped an Ambien, closed the curtains and snuggled up with my pillow and blanket. Since I had two seats I could lay lengthwise, and stretch out or curl up at will. I slept for eight hours, getting up once to pee. Moral: Ambien is magic! Don’t travel without it.

I woke up around 6:30 to a general feeling of unfamiliar stoppedness. Indeed, that’s exactly where we were: stopped, still four or so hours away from our destination in Lorton, VA. There were some murmurings, and then some announcements over the PA system. Apparently, we were informed, a rail was being repaired ahead of us, so we had to wait. And unfortunately, we also learned, we had been stopped for about 1.5 hours the night before when a freight train in front of us had hit a pedestrian in South Carolina. So we were rather behind schedule. We were supposed to get to Lorton at 9:00 AM; the new ETA was 10:30. But that proved to be pretty optimistic.

Stopped.

I headed upstairs for breakfast. This time I was seated with a rather less-friendly group of diners, with whom I conversed little. But there was cereal and kosher packaged snacks, so I ate, stole and left. We sat there for a while more, then eventually started moving at the rate of about one mile per hour. It was clear we were not going to arrive before noon at the earliest, which sucked for me because I still had a five-hour drive ahead of me and I had been hoping to complete it in daylight. Man plans, etc.

The rest of the ride was funny, though. The conductor kept making announcements to point out landmarks and towns as we passed through, as if he were a tour guide, which was cute. Finally, at 1 PM, 21 hours after we had left Sanford, FL, we finally pulled into Lorton, VA, collected our things, and stumbled out to wait for our autos to be unloaded from the Auto Train.

This was torture. According to an announcement, it could take up to an hour and a half for everyone to get their cars. In the meantime, we were all just crammed into the terminal along with the hundreds of shmucks waiting for the southbound train. There was no rhyme or reason to the numbers being called; they didn’t go in any kind of order. My car’s number was 072, but when 071 was called at 1:20, mine was not close behind, though 177 was, followed by 226, 291, 352, 032 . . . etc.

I waited an hour before my car was brought out. When with a cry of joy I rushed outside into the cold air to claim it, I realized how very easy it would be to steal a car off the Auto Train. No one checked to see if my ticket matched the number. In fact, the number had already been taken off the car. No one was even watching the cars, and all of them were unlocked with the keys inside. Didn’t seem like the smartest way to do things, but I did not care at that point.

At best, I was going to get home past 7 PM, meaning I would be hitting rush hour around Manhattan just as the sun went down, which was pretty much the least ideal time and place to be on the road, and I had to stop in Bethesda on my way to drop off a set of spare keys I’d inadvertently stolen from Michelle on my way down.

I managed to only stop once, to get gas in New Jersey. I was happy to be on the road again, and I was making good time. But it got dark as I approached the city, and that’s when things started getting hairy.

For unknown reasons, Waze decided to send me into Manhattan on some insane route through freaking Harlem and over the tightest, worst-paved, poorly-lit bridges and roads ever made. I was leaning over the wheel, clutching it so tight my hands ached, as tensed up as a guy going in for his first proctology exam. It was extremely unpleasant. And all the while I was muttering things like, “Why is this happening? Why am I here? What is going on? Where am I?” WHY WAS I IN THE FUCKING CITY?!?!?

Driving in the city is one of my worst nightmares. It is a terrifying place, and I am not aggressive enough to drive there. Driving in the southern cities was a pleasure, and even D.C. was super calm and chilled out. New York is an anus-clenching fear-fest. I had not thought for a moment that Waze would be so irrational as to make me go in there. How could that possibly make sense for my route? Well, I don’t know, my friends, but that is where I went.

Through squinting, cursing, wheel-gripping, jaw-clenching, and sheer hope that I might soon escape, I made my way unharmed through the monstrous loops and turns and merges and lights of Manhattan and slowly managed to crawl back to I-278 and the Cross Island Parkway, which I had never been happier to see. The traffic, surprisingly, wasn’t too bad. And within a short time I was approaching L.I.E. Exit 43, Baruch Hashem.

I got home at approximately 7:50 PM, immensely relieved and glad to be back. It would be nice to get back to sleeping in the same place every night, not living out of a suitcase, actually eating meals instead of Cheez-Its and raisins. My parents weren’t home, which gave the trip a nice kind of symmetry: I’d left an empty house, and returned to one. It seemed to underline the theme of independence.

Would I take the Auto Train again? Yeah, why not? The seats weren’t bad, the food (all included, by the way) was good, and I managed to sleep with the aid of pharmaceuticals. But I would not recommend it if you have a plane to catch, or an appointment of any kind waiting for you on the other end. Throughout the entire ride, everyone I met was telling horror stories of times their trains had been delayed 12 hours, or their friend who had been stuck not moving for 5 hours, or a train that hit a guy, or a train that broke down mid-journey . . . etc. In short, many unpredictable things can happen along the path of the Auto Train and the timetable is really more vague guesswork than an actual schedule.

Yet all of these people had returned again and again to ride it, so clearly it’s not that bad. I enjoyed my experience, both because it was somewhat enjoyable (the scenery was pretty, and moving trains do sway one to sleep rather nicely) and because it was new and interesting.

All in all, a good way to bookend my incredible, amazing, mind-blowing, and so on, trip.