Jaunt ’24 i

I’m back in the borough of Queens. 

Here are some jaunt numbers: an initial 2450 miles by air to San Diego, and then alternating car and train journeys that racked up 5000 miles and 4000 miles respectively.  Amtrak’s railpass provides a good framework to build a journey around the US with;  building that tour carefully paid me back with satisfaction.   I visited lot of friends and family but I also spent a lot of time alone or with strangers, some of whom were quite interesting.  Others were just noisy; next time I’ll pack earphones so that I don’t have to overhear loud and too-revealing conversations on the trains.  Of the 3000+ photos I took, I’ve posted less than a small fraction of 1 percent, although I can’t vouch for the other 99% being any differently interesting .  I saw seascapes, landscapes, and other places I’d only ever imagined.  I saw some animals in numbers I’d never seen in the wild, like bison, coyote, and pronghorn.

I saw farming and water use I’d never seen.  I am genuinely interested in water use, not just because I call this a water blog. Of course California has massive water transfer infrastructure, and that’s what allows it to produce a disproportionate amount of the US food supply.  Here’s another link illustrating that. The Vista del Lago visitors center above Pyramid Lake was the outstanding.  But there were other instances of water distribution systems I saw;  I stumbled onto the Loup Canal that I’d never knew about, small but there nonetheless. 

As an observation, New York City has a massive water supply system, and I don’t know of an education center that as fully explains where NYC’s famed water comes from.

Drought is real in the Great Plains, on again and off again.  Other significant farming regions I saw were in the Columbia Basin and the Willamette Valley.

Surprises were plentiful, like April climates around the US, temperatures like 21 in Arizona, 17 in Wyoming, and 75 in California. Prairie wind is real, whether it’s driving snow or blowing your hat off your head or your car all over the road.   

Among the biggest shocks was the number of people living outside in the US, many in encampments or derelict vehicles along the rails and roads, even more than I did last year when I did my shorter traxter expedition.  I know that my random sightings are far from a basis for any significant conclusions, but a report like this is more solid.  What similarities are there to the US 90 years ago in the time of hobos and Hoovervilles and before?

If you want to read these in chronological order, here are those links.

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

Part i follows.

A different type of surprise happened as I tried to head east of the Badlands on I-90, where I first encountered posted speed limits of 80 mph.  More bothersome than the speed, the land use started to feel too familiar, hinting to me the trip was over even before I crossed the Mississippi, and I didn’t want it to end.

Given my gas-guzzling (20 mpg) rental, I got off the interstate after Mitchell SD and headed southsouthwest across Nebraska for Lebanon KS and then Route 36 east, where my photos pick up in Cuba KS.

Scenery similarities exist between this part of Kansas and the Caribbean island.

A difference is that these are still used,  personal monuments or potential restorations.

I could have counted antique threshing machines in the hundreds across the west.

I bailed off 36 northbound in Hanover KS.

 

Beatrice NE is home to the Homestead National Park, an excellent site.  As an aside, the first homesteader received title to his land was Daniel Freeman in 1863.  Guess when the LAST homesteader received official claim to his land?  Answer follows.

Unrelated, the state oversaw the founding Arbor Day, important in the land of prairie winds. 

My jaunt felt like it ended in Omaha;  after a visit with an old friend, I got on a train, crossed the Missouri at Plattsmouth,

crossed the Mississppi at Burlington IA, 

We passed this display of the 3006, built 1930, in Galesburg IL.  

I changed from the California Zephyr to the Lakeshore Limited in Chicago;  daybreak looked like this near Ashtabula OH.

East of Erie in Lawrence Park we passed the locomotive plant where the tech is changing.

Static display of train equipment is commonplace along some sections of rail like North East PA.

Buffalo Central Terminal awaits restoration.

In Palmyra there’s the crossing I crossed on foot to go to school in grades 1-8 . . . almost seven decades ago!  Back then, the bridge those cars are on was much more primitive and daunting.

Utica is home terminal to the Adirondack Railroad.

Mohawk, Adirondack, and Northern is a line I’d not heard of before.

Albany Central Warehouse, build 1927, will not be long standing here on the edge of the west shore of the Hudson.

Hudson’s shanty town may also be gone soon.

After all the rockiness of the west, it was good to see these crags in Cold Spring NY.

We sped through Sing Sing,

Spuyten Duyvil bridge where the Weeks 574 works, 

the last mile sees us in a “trench” seemingly below the street level of the west side of Manhattan, and then I

head into the LIRR section of the terminal to get my last 17-minute train ride home.

All photos, any errors, lots of omissions, WVD.

PS:  The LAST homesteader, Kenneth Deardorff, received his land in Alaska in 1988.

Some really really quirky surprises include the following in no particular order:  Antelope OR.  Scenic SD, Badlands National Park, Cosmic Highway CO, and Earthship Taos visitor center, and Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.   

Amtrak routes ridden on this pass include parts of  Southwest Chief, California Zephyr, Coast Starlight, Empire Builder, and Lake Shore Limited.  Last year I did a similar trip blogged here as traxter.

I still have mostly ship photos from the trip, and will be posting those soon.