I’m back from Seattle, where I had a lovely time visiting with writerly type folks. I took the train back. It was half an hour late pulling into Seattle, but made up time so we were only about fifteen minutes late arriving in Portland.
Now… let me explain why I take the train instead of driving to Seattle, or indeed, anywhere that I can take the train.
- It’s a beautiful ride. This is true almost anywhere trains run. They tend to go through countryside that you can’t see from any other angle without hiking.
- I am not driving, which means I can write. Finished a chapter on the way up. Halfway through one on the way down.
- Better use of resources. It is way more efficient to use mass transit than to travel solo.
- Really interesting conversations. And today’s is a case in point. The gentleman that was sitting next to me was on his way to Portland for a friend’s birthday. We talked about my WIP, history, Jack Johnson, travel, AND he mentioned his daughter’s website.
Which turns out to be really, really cool. Those of you in Seattle, who aren’t already reading buschick.com allow me to encourage you to. I’ve just spent the past half hour trawling through it and reading about her car-free lifestyle. During the course of which I found this very cool video on an open-source “transit appliance” that the City of Portland uses.
The World’s First “Transit Appliance” from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
And that long string of things is why I like to ride the train. But in particular, it’s because of the people that I get to meet. Today was a lovely example of that.
