Urbanist hell

LOS ANGELES – Three signs that the trip is almost over: – The view out the window of my hotel room at LAX includes another hotel, multiple surface parking lots and an air cargo loading center. – I slept in an actual bed last night for the first time in a week. – I’m in [...]

Gary Larson

DULLES, Va. – I was planning to write the last post on this blog before I left Oakland last night. I composed the whole thing and was about 30 seconds away from posting it when the flight crew said they had shut the door and all electronic devices needed to be turned off. I set [...]

Zen

SAN JOSE, Calif. – It’s late, I’ve spent most of tonight being angry about the train system in Silicon Valley and I have to get up early in the morning if I want to have any chance of spending a good amount of time in San Francisco. But I feel like I ought to give [...]

Finally

SAN MATEO, Calif. – It took a mighty long time, but I’ve finally made it to the Bay Area. I last blogged when the train left Colfax. Soon after that, we  were given permission by Union Pacific to divert onto a different track and pass the freight train that had been delaying us so much. [...]

The waiting game

One week from today, I’ll be setting off on a journey I’ve wanted to take for a very long time. I’ll be traveling across the country from Washington, D.C., to San Jose, Calif., by train, with a three-day stop in Chicago along the way. And in that peculiar way that only the Internet can foster, [...]