So, without further adieu, here are some things you should be prepared for if you plan on buying one of Amtrak’s 30-day passes.

- Shower whenever the opportunity arises.  Often, you might not get to shower for a few days.  Same goes with toiletries. I’ve had to buy deodorant, shampoo and conditioner twice now because I leave it in people’s bathrooms.  I’ve got in the habit of returning it all to my suitcase when I’m done showering, because not having these things sucks.

- Don’t rely on having internet access.  I have a Verizon cellular data modem (it’s a little USB stick that costs $60 bucks a month), and without that, I don’t know what I’d do.  Even with it, I still can’t stress enough that you can’t rely on having internet access. Things like your schedule and key contact info, keep offline somewhere.  Lots of rural areas the train rolls through will have zero cell service at all (especially the mountains, the South, Texas, and everywhere between cities), and in lots of urban areas it’s terrible.  I’m in Brooklyn right now, and I’m getting an average ping of about 5,000ms, and it regularly hovers around 50,000ms, with the bandwidth of a 28.8k modem.  (If you know what that means, you feel my pain)  In New Orleans, I had 200ms pings and a consistent 2Mbps connection, so don’t assume that the densest place in the country will have better internet access than the hurricane-ravaged South.

- Keep all your batteries topped up at every opportunity.  Phone, camera, computer, everything.  You will need those batteries, and you will find yourself in a position where simply topping them up the night before makes the difference between being able to take pictures or make phone calls when an important situation arises.

- Always carry cash.  When I lived in Los Angeles, I relied on everybody taking credit cards all the time.  In San Francisco, I always try to keep at least $20 in my wallet for when I hit a mexican restaurant that only takes cash.  On this trip, I’ve been keeping at least $100 in my wallet in cash with me at all times. Not only will you hit places that don’t take cards, but you’ll need to tip, reimburse people, and generally be flexible, and cash is king. On that note, smaller bills are very useful, and getting change when you need it can be difficult. If I buy something from a chain store, I use my card when I can or break large bills even if I have small bills.

- Don’t leave anything unwatched in the lounge car on the Texas Eagle.

- Pack clothes for all types of weather.  It was hot and humid in New Orleans, and cold and rainy in DC.  Austin and LA were warm, but in Brooklyn I sweat when I walk out the door.

- Pack clothes for all occasions.  If you’re meeting new people, I’ve noticed that it’s better to be clean-shaven and well dressed with combed hair.  People take you more seriously and trust you more.  Even if you can’t shower, change clothes often. This holds more weight in a city like New York, where people expect you to wear a sport coat in warm weather. On the flip side, I’ve learned that being grungy in the right situation will win you more points. When I was wondering around the most economically depressed areas in New Orleans, one day I showered and wore nicer clothes and I was much less approachable.  The next day I rolled out of bed and wore just a t-shirt and I wasn’t viewed as suspiciously.

- When your host introduces you to new friends, often these new people will say things like “oh, you’re the TRAIN GUY!  I’ve heard about you!”  Get used to it.

- Most of the time, you will be a pedestrian. Learn (quickly…  or ask) what the overall aggressiveness of motorists is like. In most cities, you can step off a curb into a protected crosswalk and cars will stop for you. In San Francisco and New York, you can stand on a corner or a curb and cars will stop and yield the right of way. In New Orleans, even if you cross at an intersection, cars will NOT stop, and will expect you to jump out of the way if they get too close. Even if a car is half a block away and you’re already crossing, they won’t stop. They will play chicken and you will lose.

- Carry a note pad, pen, and business cards everywhere.  I haven’t been so good about this.

- Get a transit map of the city you’re in if you want to go anywhere. See #1. My iPhone does not work in the NYC subway, so as amazing as Google Maps Transit Directions are, they’ll be useless when you need them.

- Be social with the train crew. This is ESPECIALLY important on long-haul trains but I’ve had great conversations on even the short ones. Besides great conversation, they’ll often go out of their way for you, do you special favors, and sometimes bend the rules slightly.  Even if you can’t reciprocate directly, pass along the good vibes.

- Figure out what kind of beer the train has on-board.  Different trains have different brews.  You can get Blue Moon on the Sunset Limited and Yuengling on the Crescent. Everything comes in glass bottles. It’s also about $5 a beer, although the price varies by train. Most of the rest of the beer selection sucks (think Bud Light), but if you get a temperature-sealed bag with a six-pack of a decent beer that the snack car sells, the crew will either assume you bought it in the lounge car or the unofficial policy is to look the other way. DO NOT ABUSE THIS. Seriously, don’t be a dick and bring a case.  It’s a violation of state liquor control laws. But, if you want to save twenty bucks and get a decent buzz going especially after the snack bar closes at 11pm, or get around the no-beer-on-Sunday laws that some of the most socially conservative swaths of the South and Midwest seem to enjoy forcing on you, you can fix that.

We hugged the lake for miles.  There were lots of these pilings sticking out of the water from former docks and piers:

I took a short nap, and when I woke up, we were in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

These gentlemen were loitering at the station.  Lots of people were loitering at the station.  The train only comes once a day, so I wasn’t sure why.

As we approached Birmingham, the rural landscape gave way to factories and old brick housing complexes.

We had a short stop in Birmingham, and I took a few pictures of the station.

Birmingham’s passenger station has a half-dozen tracks on three platforms, and since Amtrak only comes through once a day, the freight companies were using the station to shunt around freight cars.



Here’s the Birmingham skyline from the station:

They had this old luggage cart sitting on one of the platforms.  I really like the mural on the building in the background:

Moving away from Birmingham, the landscape slowly turned into dense forest and lush foliage.

In many places, the tracks sliced straight through a hill or a mountain, and in others they hugged the edge of steep cliffs and mountainsides, blanketed with trees.

I wasn’t expecting such a beautiful landscape out of Alabama.  I had completely underestimated it.

By nightfall, we had pulled into Atlanta.  The train station from Gone with the Wind is long gone, replaced by some utilitarian asphalt and a long shelter for rain.

I took a picture of the wheels for some reason.  I think it looks cool.

Once we got back on the train, I started talking with one of the passengers.  Our conversation lasted hours, well into the morning.  She was kind of tense about her trip, and popped Xanax like candy.  She offered me one, and I obliged, never having tried it before.  It put me into the deepest and most comfortable sleep I’ve had on the train yet, so much so that I fell asleep mid-conversation and woke up well past her stop.  We never got to say goodbye.

I headed back to my seat in the early morning hours to find that I had a new seat partner.  I learned two lessons that night: the first is not to take prescription pills offered by other passengers.  The other is that if you pass out in the lounge car instead of sprawled across two coach seats (really the most comfortable way to sleep), Amtrak crew WILL assign you a seat partner who will sprawl across your seat until you come back.

The gentleman I shared a seat with was actually a really nice guy, and after we woke up, chatted the whole way to DC.  Not the worst possible situation, actually a rather pleasant one, but I won’t be sleeping in the lounge car again, just in case.

I’ve met some very entertaining people on the train, but the most entertaining ones I’d rather not share a coach seat with.

Enjoy!



Josh borrowed a car from his co-worker John, and we headed down the Mississippi river toward Venice.

This is what Highway 23 looks like most of the way:

On the way downriver, the clouds were heavy and we often encountered rain.  We made a few mental notes of places to stop and shoot on the way back during blue hour, or after nightfall when the grey skies would add to the aesthetic of the photo instead of detract.

There are large levies on either side of the highway, so it’s impossible to see anything on either side.  We pulled over a couple of times when a road led to the left or right over one of the levies, but mostly we just came up to gates that looked like this:

These docks abut virgin wetland:

A little over an hour into our drive, Josh pulled over.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I lost power all of a sudden”.

Turning the ignition did nothing.  The car would not start.  Everything seemed normal…  we’d just put gas in it, so we weren’t out of that.  The oil level was normal. We ran through all of the possibilities, but nothing added up.

We were stopped relatively close to a service station, so I walked over to ask the mechanic if he’d take a look.  There was a pickup truck from the United States Environmental Service getting an oil change.

The driver had a “Haz-Mat Response Team” emblem on his t-shirt shoulder.  I asked him what he was doing.  ”Cleaning up the oil spill”, he responded.  I tried to press him for more details, but he wasn’t in a talkative mood.  He had come down from Houston and didn’t seem too thrilled with being in Louisiana.

I had to wait awhile…  there was one mechanic at the service station, two other people waiting with various car maintenance issues, and he wasn’t in much of a hurry.  I wandered around a bit…  not far from the station was a washed up boat.  A field seemed like a strange place for a boat, but I wasn’t sure if it was being stored or abandoned there, or if it was left there by Katrina.  There was nobody around to ask.

Finally, the mechanic walked over to take a look at the car.  He tried a bunch of things, plugged in and unplugged some wires, but shrugged and gave up.  He didn’t have the tools or diagnostic equipment or expertise to work on a Mitsubishi.

We called a tow truck.

Josh is not thrilled.  I had already contributed a full tank of gas to this adventure but I felt obligated to pitch in another $50 for the tow.

There is Venice, just ahead where the oil tanks are:

So close, yet, so far:

On the way back, we passed some of the sights I had wanted to shoot.  The timing was perfect, the rain was cleared, and there was a massive flame coming out of this oil refinery:

Nonetheless, the car was being towed back to New Orleans and so there wasn’t a chance of pulling over to shoot.  I snapped these photos at a high ISO through the window, but it was the best I could do.



It’s so hot and humid that most people hang out on the street.  Everywhere I walked people were sitting on their porch, or, if they didn’t have one, their front steps:

Many houses still have spraypaint markings from the Katrina search-and-rescue. This one had some additions spraypainted on to liven the bleak mood:



This kid had the biggest grin I think I’ve EVER seen.

Some of these houses are beautiful, but generally are waiting to be leveled by the city:

This building is either being refurbished, or is about to be flattened.  I couldn’t tell.

Here’s detail of some of an interesting piece of illegal street art that appeared on the back door:

One of the locals I talked to for a minute after shooting the above building:

This young man was very suspicious of my taking pictures of houses in his neighborhood.  I talked to him for a few minutes, but he and his friends wouldn’t let me photograph them.  He did show off his belt, and when I asked if I could take a picture of that, he agreed:

More graffiti on abandoned walls in an industrial corridor:

This was on an abandoned rail car:

I thought it was interesting how this billboard takes up the entire roof footprint of this house.  I’m not sure if the house was occupied or not, but you have to wonder how that house supports the billboard.

I thought these warehouse roofs looked interesting:

These truck cabs were parked in a yard.  I’m not sure if they were there before Katrina or not, but the way they’re packed in there, I’m not sure they’re going anywhere.  They look like they’ve been there for awhile.

Shot of the railyard from the viaduct bridge:

A lot of houses are being flattened, ostensibly because they’re completely beyond repair and the real estate is worth more empty.  This house must have been on a concrete slab.  These slabs are like giant potholes in the surface of the neighborhood.

Every other house seemed boarded up.  Some of the houses looked really nice, but there is no way to know what they look like inside.

All of the residents I talked to seemed like they were in good spirits.  This man’s face says it all:

Standing on a corner for a minute, waiting for Josh, this woman walked up to me and asked me if I’d take her picture:

I’m not sure where she was going, but she was drinking a beer and had tons of energy.

After I met Josh, we wandered over to this bridge.  It looks like it survived the hurricane just fine, but nonetheless it’s closed completely.  Most of the mechanical cables that help it go up and down are completely severed, and swing freely in the wind.  I’m not sure if it was damaged in the hurricane or not, but it doesn’t look like anybody is in a hurry to fix it.

We wandered across a railyard on the way back from the bridge:

Near the bridge, this abandoned warehouse is being completely reclaimed by nature.  Similar buildings are so covered in vines that they just look like building-shaped vine cubes.



The sign on the left says “No Loitering, No Crack Selling, No Cat Selling, The Facts”.  Realizing that we weren’t actually doing any of the second two things, we loitered for a few minutes and I took photos.

Josh and I were driving around and found this abandoned gas station, ostensibly left since Katrina rolled through.

After some quick deliberation and a run back to the car to pick up my tripod, we went inside:

You can see the water line in the refrigerator glass:

The inside was just a little bit torn apart.

The inside of the refrigerator still smelled terrible, five years later.

I took one last shot of the outside and we continued our adventures.

As we made our way toward the lakefront, massive abandoned boathouses lining the shore were the first things we saw, still damaged and boarded up from Katrina.

In some cases, they weren’t even fenced off or boarded up.  You can really see the scale of the damage here.  I’m amazed that they’re standing at all.



A very short distance down the road is the lake house.  The contrast between it and the houses on the road in is amazing.

Josh wanted me to take a picture of his car:

The lake shore is lined with massive chunks of broken concrete:

In the waning light, I went nuts taking photos of this former pier:



I decided to take the streetcar to the cemeteries.

I didn’t wind up using the pass after the first ride.

I don’t have many words for you today.  Only photos.



My old friend Josh came to meet me at the New Orleans Amtrak station.  I’ve known Josh since the fifth grade, and we went through middle school and high school together.  Josh is now a naval architect (he designs boats), and works for a firm in New Orleans.

The first thing I noticed right away about New Orleans is the textures of everything:

Lots of concrete and brick surfaces haven’t been painted in awhile, and during the years it takes the paint to wear off, rust and simple dirt fill in the small pores in the concrete.  The humidity definitely plays a role.

Much like San Francisco, New Orleans has some unique architectural styles that you won’t find in any other place in the United States.  Some of it is utilitarian…  the ceilings are high to keep the inside cool in the summer, and the balconies are for when that doesn’t work.

Almost all of the buildings have a certain…  flair to them.  Yet, this flair is old and covered in dirt and in many cases completely neglected.  Yet some serious effort above and beyond the simple utilitarian need to build shelter went into the carpentry and painting:

Of course, it doesn’t matter where you look, New Orleans has Po-Boys:

I thought it had to do with the price, but five or six dollars seems about average for a sandwich.  Apparently it has to do with the bread.  I’m going to research this more by eating.

This is Josh and his dog Zack:

I forgot this gentleman’s name, but his ability to multitask is impressive.  I’m making it a habit to go out of my way to take pictures of people.

I don’t think I’ve seen more buskers in such a concentrated area than New Orleans. Although New York City has a lot of buskers, it also has 26.82 times more people (Ilooked this up on Wolfram Alpha). If we were to determine a way to calculate busker-per-capita, I’ll bet New Orleans would come out on top.

The other thing is, that all the buskers are very very good.

St Louis Cathedral:

Literally across the street from lots of bars.

We wandered through the French Quarter on the way home as it got dark.