The Long Haul

I was consumed by blog envy reading Beatrice's blog and decided that I wanted one as a testament to my desire to be of modern times. The fact that I am at best a 'sensing-which-way-the-tide-is turning' adopter and that kids aged 4+ now blog before breakfast means that I am perhaps only chasing the tail of modernity but heh, at least I can still see the hulk of it in the distance and am not sitting in the dust lamenting the decline of great things and looking in the other direction.

This will also allow me to blog from my mobile, not a feat that I am trying today as I sit in Beth's house in Toronto (my thumbs gratefully back to their usual role of tapping the space bar rather than being my creative conduit).

So my train trip. I think when writers talk about the journey being the destination and picture it as some great flowering of the self, they are ignoring the fact that such journeys typically depend on chance meetings with a motley crew of strangers all of whom immediately display their idiosyncracies for cherry picking and subsequent recounting. So they are parastic really. Feeling rather coldy and nervous in a British way of striking up a conversation which could not then be terminated (what if ability to talk about say fishing from 10 hours is one of the idiosyncracies?) I was fairly self contained so my journey was the window onto that part of America.

I boarded my aluminium Amtrak train at Penn station. I was booked in Business class which gave me a little spring in my step when I discovered this, oh shame to ye that like to think themselves above the toiling masses. In fact, we are all equal now in the US and we have been equalled upwards. There is only business class. It may be an attempt to rival planes by giving more leg room as standard. My 14 hour trip would have taken 1.5 hrs by plane so there's got to be some recompense. It came in the form of a large comfortable seat at least 80 cm wide, the same again of leg room, and a pop up leg rest which if you opened out for the two adjoining seats created a pretty good day bed! The first phase of the journey was indeed used by business people going up to Albany which is the administrative capital of New York state. I sat next to one, Christina, a change management consultant for public agencies. We discussed jobs and background. It turned out that she had studied originally at a small town university tempted over by the full scholarship but had quit after a year, when she had run out of things to say to the one horse and had started again in Albany. I have heard this story again subsequently. It seems that the smaller 'schools' do their utmost to lure good students and the burden of debt will indeed push them in this direction but even the prospect of 35k GBP per annum fees isn't always enough to compensate if somewhere feels intellectually stiffling. After Albany the passenger roll call shook down into back packers, homeward bounders and going-slowers but we, the refugees from the air weren't numerous. Takes a special type to go on a journey that is nearly 10 times longer than the alternatives - well maybe charitably 8 times allowing for the journey to the airports which here are located very close into town.

I find that on long train journeys the buttoned up nature of the first few hours unwinds during the course of the journey as we all get more rumpled. Rubbish gets strew, clothes go awry as we try and find optimal body temperature, crumbs get distributed over clothes and seas and faces become slack and disconsolate as we count down the hours till the final stop. Unless you're organised that is and like knitting or tapestry work in which case much productive fun can be had. Me, I believe in staring, chewing (choc when poss), reading and exercising my two thumbs - the fruits of which you have already had.

The train follows the course of the Hudson river for much of the journey running along causeways where solid bank gives way to marshy ground. It must have been hot, hard work to win this land from the mosquitoes for the railroad. One one side the Hudson must be 500m across at least. Where the causeway divides the marsh from the body of water, the lagoons fill with weed, marshy flowers and the occasional heron. Waterways have been cut through the plant life and I expected to see a native american paddling through in a canoe any moment. Woodlands of slim trees, silver birch perhaps or maybe Aspen suggests Daddy, grow where the water has not claimed. Behind the Hudson lie the Adirondack and Catskills mountains. It's beautiful and endless. The country goes on and on and on and amazingly all still within the one state, New York. We passed hours of it, miles of it, blarring the whaarh whaarh of the horn as we crossed bisecting roads (I kept doing double takes listening on the Ipod to the brass heavy Janacek Sinfonietta as I seemingly detected a bass line that I didn't recognise!) Again I can see why the Americans can believe so strongly in God's bounty. Who can believe that the fish will disappear, why drought might come, why the ability to construct places of shelter might ever go when there is such largesse. But somethings are changing or have changed. The first industry in this area, trapping, lasted a hundred years or so before the abundant wildlife was decimated by the mid c18th. Industry, the next wave of prosperity, is now in decline. Like in the UK there are a lot of empty factories or derelict building lots. Houses, still the detached clapboard archetypes often look less well cared for than the New England wealth belt. It's clear that a newer source of wealth is required and there's only so far people can commute down to NYC.

We crossed the border into Canada over the dramatic river cliff rift that further along will be Niagara. Cliffs at least 200m high drop down to the river below. All at once things did start to change. "Le Prochain Arret" was announced as bilingualism kicked in and the change in building materials from wood to brick was very marked. Drew into Toronto over an hour late. Casuality of very officious border control. Where was I staying she asked (typical opening gambit) but then more personal. How long had I known Beth? Where did I meet her? I guess they're looking for hesistant and unconvincing stories. They took long time over the Israeli tap dancer going to visit his brother but with no return ticket a seat in front of me but even he got through so maybe it's just for show.

Time to push "post" and to go and get dressed. All this technological advance has taken time today. It's nearly midday and I am still in my pyjamas. "Love from" is such a good ending but presumably is not de rigeur in blog world. I assume you'll have to stop by and check out the blog to see if there is more. I'll try and blog every couple of days or so.