July 14, 2015

Washington, DC

So what was the Big Trip all about? What did we learn? Why did we do this in the first place? Did it live up to our expectations?

From Embry:

It has been an absolutely amazing trip, a trip of a lifetime, of course. (Who would ever do this more than once?) We have enjoyed experiencing it together and sharing all these wonderful experiences and memories.

• It has made our marriage better and stronger.
• It has provided a welcome “slowing down” and “growing into retirement” phase for both of us, especially for me.
• It has stimulated a creative burst of energy for Joe through his blogging (perhaps leading to another book).
• It has vastly increased our understanding of the world we live in, both the similarities between all members of the human race and the wonderful differences in the way they live their lives.

We will never forget how great it was, and never regret that we spent these four months together, as we ease into a new phase of our lives.

From Joe:

The idea of going around the world without flying was Embry’s. It sounded a bit crazy to me at first. Then I slowly warmed to it and got involved in the planning. This would be an adventure. We would see and do things we had never seen or done before. We would learn a lot about the world and about ourselves, and we would have surprises and stories to tell. And we would do something that few people, especially people our age, do (and perhaps for good reason). And if we were ever going to do anything like this, we needed to do it soon. Once you reach age 70, whether you admit it or not, you are in a countdown mode.

Part of idea was the challenge. Maybe the motivation was similar to why people climb mountains or cross oceans on sailboats or run marathons, or shoot class four rapids, or bike across the U.S. You don’t do it because it is easy and fun but for the opposite reason: because it is a challenge. Frankly, if you want to make a list of pluses and minuses about the Big Trip, this one is near the top of my plus list; but if truth be told, it did not come close to the examples just cited. This is something people our age (in decent health) can do with some planning, the right attitude (flexibility, tolerance and patience) and a bit of luck that nothing goes wrong. Looking back on it now, for us it was not all that hard.

We were fortunate in many ways. The trip had a lot of moving parts and connections that if missed could have thrown a monkey wrench into the machinery. We made every one of the connections, thanks in large part to two fabulous travel agents—D’Lane Maselunas for the European and Atlantic legs and Rebecca Mazzaro (Asia TransPacific) for China. All the hotels they booked were excellent, some fabulous. All the train bookings overseas worked out without a glitch. Most impressive, every train (out of at least twenty-five train connections) was on time, except in the US, of course, when our train from DC to Ft. Lauderdale was (only) an hour, and a half late and the train leaving Seattle was another one and a half hours late, arriving in Chicago eight hours late, par for the course we learned. The guides that assisted us in Russia and China were also excellent—dependable, professional, hard working and (mostly) knowledgeable.

The people we met along the way were friendly and kind to us two senior travelers. Without being asked, someone always helped us get our heavy luggage on and off the trains, never expecting or asking for anything in return. Help was always there when we needed it.

We would not change the overall itinerary. While traveling around the globe without flying sounds like you see a lot, we actually visited only eight countries (not counting the U.S. or Portugal, where our cruise ship stopped briefly in Madera). So when I make sweeping statements about the nature of the Planet Earth, it needs to be put into context. We have visited a whole bunch of other countries over the years (India, Vietnam, Thailand, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Jordan, many South and Central American countries, and most of the other countries in Europe), so we have additional traveling experience that colors some of our observations about this trip. But the fact is we really just touched the surface on this journey.

The countries we did visit, however, were good ones. They were huge (Russia and China), had had rich histories (all of them) and were all struggling with important issues.

Here are some concluding, summary observations. For those who have read every blog entry (bravo!), not much may be new, but hopefully it will put things in perspective. For those who have picked up snippets here and there, this may fill in some holes:

The Atlantic Crossing. This probably turned out to be the best value of the entire trip with a cost approximately the same as that of the Pacific Crossing on a container ship, about $100 per person per day. The big challenge, of course, was to avoid gaining a pound a day, as is the average for cruise ship passengers. We are generally not big fans of cruise ships, probably because of Embry’s Presbyterian upbringing and my love of sailing, but thoroughly enjoyed this way to get across the Atlantic. We would recommend it to anyone.

Spain. We spent about three weeks in Spain, most of the time in Valencia where we exchanged homes with the Parello family. The highlight for us were the famous parades during Holy Week, “Semana Santa.” The three parades, reflecting the moods of Maundy Thursday (Last Supper), Good Friday and Easter Sunday, embodied a universal spirituality that transcended Roman Catholicism. Other highlights in Spain were the excellent restaurant meals, the best we had on the whole trip, the beauty and charm of the historic areas, the dynamism and excitement of Madrid, despite the distressed state of the economy with high debt and high unemployment, and the friendliness of the population even though language was a barrier. In Spain we first encountered graffiti on a large scale, especially in Valencia, which signaled, to me anyway, that all was not well in Europe. In Madrid, of course, my wallet was stolen in something like the first two minutes we wandered out of our hotel. When I tell people I had it in my back pocket, the response usually is, “Well of course it was stolen in Madrid. What did you expect?” The final thing about Spain that stands out is that there was virtually no mention of the Spanish Civil War or the period under Franco.

France. The main purpose of the two-week French connection was visiting close friends—Embry’s “French sister,” Mireille, in Paris and our French sister-in-law, Martine, in Brittany. Both experiences were bittersweet because we do not know when we will see them again, and we are all getting up there in years. Some of us have health issues. Paris really captured me this time. Though I had been there at least a half dozen times, this time I really fell in love with it again and realized why it is the world’s most captivating city. We probably averaged walking close to ten miles a day, enjoying the fine spring weather and the street atmosphere that is uniquely Paris. Running into Josie and Melissa from All Souls Church was a special treat and surprise. Brittany was also special. There is nothing more beautiful than the French countryside, and no countryside in France more beautiful than the maritime countryside with its huge tidal variations, tidal estuaries and deep green pastures and fields. The best part of the French leg, of course, was spending time with people we love.

Germany. The only stop in Germany was a four-day visit to Berlin where we met our close friends, John and Grace Curry, now living in Ashville, who flew over to join us for this leg. This was the first time that I had visited Berlin, and the city lived up to its reputation as one of the most dynamic and exciting in the world. What impressed us most was the how the city had been totally rebuilt from the massive destruction of World War II and how tasteful and, in many instances, spectacular the architecture was. Though to a local person there probably remain big differences, as a tourist I was not able to discern what was formerly East Berlin from West Berlin. Most significant was how the Germans have not swept the Nazi period under the rug. There is a Holocaust Museum and plenty of information about this horrific period.

Poland. Warsaw was our first “transformation city.” Embry had been there in the late 1980s with her mother, who accompanied her on a Cathedral Choral Society/Charlotte Symphony concert tour, only a couple of years before the Berlin Wall came down. The city then was drab and gray with few places to eat, not much food on the grocery shelves, and pretty dismal. On this trip, while it was not as vibrant as Berlin, compared to what it was 35 years earlier and from the view of our Western eyes, it was thriving. (Interestingly our Polish captain of the Hanjin Copenhagen disputed that life is better since job security is not what it used to be and the safety net has shrunk.) The old section of the city had been fully restored and new high-rise buildings have gone up downtown. Restaurants and retail stores were everywhere. We joined John and Grace in attending the parade and daylong ceremonies honoring the Polish constitution, and the large crowds seemed happy and proud to be Polish. The second day there John and I took a day trip to Auschwitz, a moving experience that I have described in the blog. Talk about resilience and perseverance! Few nations have endured the hardships they have and have come back time after time.

Russia. We said goodbye to the Curries and made our way via overnight train through Belarus to Moscow. Embry and I had been here in 1993 and were not prepared for the total transformation that had occurred here as well, with all the new high-rises, fancy shops and malls. We watched with some trepidation as the soldiers, tanks and missile launchers paraded in front of our hotel during the commemoration of the Soviet Union’s defeating the Germans in the “Great Patriotic War.” Sidewalks were jammed with onlookers cheering their country and Mr. Putin. The real highlight of the Russian leg, however, was the great Siberian Railroad Journey across the country ending up in Beijing, a little over two weeks later. We were one of five Americans among the 100 passengers, mainly from Europe, and half the fun was getting to know many of them. The side trips every day exposed us to typical Siberian cities, most of them with populations around a million, not the kind of cities that you would want to live in necessarily—still a bit drab, frigid in the winter, scorching hot in the summer—but you got the feeling the Russians were really trying to move forward. The vastness and beauty of the Siberian landscape was to us as stunning as it was in 1993 with very few changes in the villages, which still looked forlorn and forgotten.

You did get the feeling that the country remains in a kind of malaise, saddened by the loss of world status and uncertain of the future. Good leadership will be critical in helping Russia find its new position in the world. Putin continues to be popular, especially when he rattles the nationalism cages, and for us Westerners he is a bit scary. Let’s cross our fingers that they can get it together without creating more world conflict.

Mongolia. Still on the Siberian Railroad tour, we spent three days passing through Mongolia, a vast and empty country of nomads and high plains, squeezed between two monster countries, Russia and China, neither of which they trust. During the Russian Communist era, they were a vassal state, which Stalin did his best to destroy. This was the scene of Embry’s ger (“yurt”) experience. Another highlight was our train’s pausing on the Gobi Desert at 5:00 am when our train was greeted by camel herders. Musicians with ancient stringed instruments sat in the sand playing ancient tunes as the sun rose to turn the desert first orange and then yellow.

China. We spent almost a month in this extraordinary country and for good reason. The story of China’s emergence in the last 30 years as a modern, economic powerhouse is one of the biggest stories of the last half century and probably of all time. A large number of blog posts were devoted to what we saw and experienced there. In a word, it was overwhelming. I was in China in 1986 when there was no such thing as a high-rise building and no experience in building new buildings or transportation infrastructure.

The number and size of apartment and office buildings in every city we visited stunned us. China’s trains were all on time, and about half the trains we took averaged over 180 miles an hour. Train stations were the size of our airline terminals. Their metro system was the equivalent of what you can find in London or Moscow but newer, faster and more pleasant. Over the past 25 years hundreds of millions of people have risen out of poverty. Their problems related to over building, over investment, and their shaky stock market are headlines in the U.S. but you can’t help feeling that with their can-do spirit and optimism, they will come through it. Many problems remain, the environmental issue probably being number one. How they handle this one affects not only the Chinese but also the rest of the world. We all need to hope and pray that they succeed.

The Pacific Crossing. As blog readers know, I was dreading this leg, fearful that we would be cooped up in a tiny room with our one porthole blocked by containers and bored to tears. The accommodations turned out to be great, and the three portholes were not blocked until the last couple of days. The food was pretty good and our traveling companions interesting, nice people, albeit a bit eccentric. After all, it is not your “average Joe” that travels on container ships. With the various DVDs of “Seinfeld” and “House of Cards,” time for writing, and our late afternoon cocktail hours, we made the most of it. I continue to marvel about how they get 5,600 containers off the ship and 5,600 new ones loaded back on in less than 24 hours. Many people have told me the blogs about the Pacific Crossing were their favorite.

Would we recommend a container ship for a world traveler? Yes, provided you view this as a means of getting across the ocean rather than a vacation. There is also the risk of having incompatible traveling companions and blocked portholes. It also appears than within the next few years, most officers will be Chinese and most crews from countries besides the Philippines. We may have slipped in at the end of an era.

The US Great Train Ride. Well, even though we were eight hours late getting to Chicago, the scenery was great and the Amtrak hospitality surprisingly improved from what is was several years before. Most of the people we met were friendly with interesting stories. Still, you have to ask yourself the question, how come all the trains we took in Europe and Asia were on time and why does the situation seem to be getting worse in the U.S..

So what to make of all this? For me three themes and one question have emerged from this experience:

Theme One: Suffering and Resilience.

When you travel through the eight countries we did, you can’t miss how sad and tragic life has been in each of the countries we visited. It stares you in the face.

You can’t miss hearing about the wars and hardships that have taken place on the soil of each country. Spain was in constant wars with France and England. There were the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews, the Inquisition, the Spanish Civil War, and Franco. In France there were wars with Spain and England, the French Revolution, Napoleon and World Wars I and II. The part of Europe now called Germany was the heart of the Thirty Years War, and the two World Wars, Hitler, the Holocaust, and the partition of the country in the Cold War. Poland suffered from all these events as well. One of my blog posts describes our experience at Auschwitz, which was on their soil. Russia, of course, is right up there at the top with hundreds of years of serfdom, both World Wars, the latter accounting for over 20 million deaths and another 20 million during communism. Mongolia and China—they too have had their ups and downs with dynasties rising and falling, civil wars, the Russian Communist dominance of Mongolia, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in World War II, the Chinese Communist Revolution, the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution. No country we visited had escaped.

But it is not only about the wars. We heard about the injustices and excesses that in many cases were the cause of these wars in the first place—serfdom, enormous gaps between the few who are rich and the many who are poor, corruption and graft in major institutions like government and the Church, human greed and raw ambition. Individual stories and histories follow the same pattern with way too much suffering for way too many people.

Nor does the US get off the hook. We have our own history of human suffering and misery: how we treated the Native Americans, slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, and great disparities in wealth and income.

It is not a pretty picture, the histories of countries. What is it about us humans? Why do we have such a hard time dealing fairly with each other? Why is life so difficult for some people, often through no fault of their own? The millions of young men and women who died in all these wars were just doing their jobs, what they were ordered to do because their leaders could not resolve problems peacefully. Their deaths were not caused by their own shortcomings. Natural disasters, illness and ultimately death: it is part of  what we experience as humans.

But fortunately, this is not the whole picture. We humans are also resilient. We come back. We don’t throw in the towel. We move on. That is also the story of what saw and experienced on this trip. Just think about it. Every one of the eight countries we visited, by comparison to what they were experiencing 100 or even 50 years ago, is doing so much better now. There was unemployment, stagnant economies and discontent to one degree or another in the countries we visited in Europe and Russia, but compared to where they were a half century or so ago, what a comeback!

And what about China? Who would have thought even 30 years ago that if you wanted to find some of the world’s tallest buildings, fastest trains, and most expensive shops, China is where you would go in 2015? This is “communism” today in China. They have their challenges too, especially in governance, overinvestment, and pollution, but compared to where China was in the 1950s and 60s, what a success story! Indeed, times have changed.

So the message here is good news. Despite our human frailty and ability to mess things up big time, we seem to have equal ability to get back on track, sadly often leaving in our wake sadness and human suffering beyond measure. That seems to be the way life works on the Planet Earth. That is why “ Tragedy and Resilience” is first on my list as to what I have learned on the Big Trip around the world.

Theme Two. One Destination, Many Pathways.

The theme, “One Destination, Many Pathways” is about religion. As many of you know I have always had an interest in religion. I stumbled my way through Union Theological Seminary in New York City, earning a M.Div. in 1968. I came close to becoming an ordained Episcopal priest. I have been an active Episcopalian most of my adult life, serving in virtually every capacity available to a layperson at one time or another. I routinely present a four or five part lecture series on early church history and theology at All Souls Episcopal Church, our neighborhood parish. You might say I have paid my dues.

So what does one who comes from the Christian Protestant tradition make of the religious practices we observed on our Big Trip? In Valencia we witnessed one of the most moving religious events I have ever seen, the sort-of-Catholic “Semana Santa.” We also attended the Easter service at the large Roman Catholic Cathedral there and throughout the Big Trip witnessed numerous religious services besides Roman Catholic and Protestant—Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, and Muslim. We did not witness the practice of Hinduism on this trip but saw plenty of Hinduism when we were in India a few years earlier.

What is a Protestant Christian supposed to make of all this? Aren’t we supposed to have it right? If we are right in what we believe, how can they be right too? In the Episcopal Church we say the Nicene Creed at every Eucharist, which pretty much says, this is the way it is, and if you don’t believe it, you are flat out wrong and not one of us. Certainly among most Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, “my way or the highway” is central to their belief. That is what evangelism is all about—to convert to what you believe those who are worshipping false gods or who have no religion or do not believe what you believe. So how do you size up what these other religions or forms of worship are all about as you move from country to country and observe people of different faiths kneeling, bowing, burning incense and praying with what would appear to be great piety and sincerity?

For me anyway, this answer to this question is a no-brainer: there is one destination, many pathways. In fact I have trouble figuring out how anyone who made the journey we did and saw people worshipping in different ways—but also strangely similar in some ways like candles, incense, bowing, kneeling, chanting, and praying—could conclude otherwise. This has been my understanding of religion for a long time, and this trip has underscored and confirmed for me what is the obvious.

We as humans have the brain capacity to ask the basic questions: why are we here? What is the meaning of our short life on this planet? Why do we humans suffer? How do we find “an abiding sense of well being” (the words of our mystic companion on the container ship, Ron)? Religion is the process of coming up with the answers and–unlike philosophy, its first cousin– putting the “answers” into action by what we do and say. Of course, religion takes different paths because we are all influenced by what our experience has been, our culture, and our way of looking at the world. And, of course, our experiences and cultures are not the same.

Two questions come to mind. First, does this mean that all religious paths have validity and therefore that nobody has the Absolute Truth? My answer is basically yes. We are all searching. No one has a lock on Absolute Truth, and if we did, then we would be God. To believe that you are right and everyone who does not see things your way is wrong is arrogant and if taken to the extreme, blasphemy.

That said, I do not believe that all religions are the same, and that while I believe that many spiritual paths are valid, all aren’t. The religions that are exclusive, that preach hate over love, that are intolerant, and that deny human responsibility for helping others are false religions. They can be found in all faiths. We know who they are—ISIS and Islamic terrorists, “Christian” hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists , and intolerant and hateful religious groups of all types. They are present in every religion and every faith and in my view are invalid and an evil force on this planet.

The second question is this: If there are no absolutes that humans can truly grasp, then why bother? We bother because we do not have a choice. We have brains, which ask the question, why. That is the blessing and curse of our humanity. Just because we do not fully grasp or fully understand Absolute Truth does not mean we don’t get glimpses of it every now and then. And chances are that if you are following a path, you have a better chance of getting a glimpse or a taste than if you are not. And many of us do not have a choice anyway, simply because we are human. This is the second lesson I have learned as we made our way around the world on the Big Trip.

Theme Three: Lifeboats, Not Battleships.

When you travel around the world as we did, you can come to either of two conclusions: the world is very large or the world is very small. Despite the eight-day Atlantic crossing and the 18-day Pacific crossing, I see the world as being pretty small and getting smaller by the day. Countries are more dependent on each other than ever and more interconnected by trade, travel, tourism, and, more recently, their carbon footprint. What affects one country ends up affecting many.

Two major things have happened in my lifetime that make our current situation different from what human beings have experienced from time immemorial. First, since the mid 1940s we have had the capacity to destroy civilization through the use of nuclear weapons. Second, since the early 2000s we have witnessed rapid climate change that could ultimately change the planet in profound ways. For humans to stay on this planet long term, we have to get rid of all weapons of mass destruction and adjust our behavior to reduce global warming. The pollution we experienced in China suggests that we are closer to catastrophe than we think. We humans have to figure out some way to deal with these challenges in order for our species to survive on this planet.

That is why I suggest that we look at our predicament as being on a lifeboat where we all survive or go down together rather than being on a battleship where our goal is to blow up the enemy. The solution is cooperation, not conflict. What affects one affects all. To use a cliché, what is required is a new paradigm. More and more battleships will eventually result in disaster. We are already too close to a point of no return on the climate change and environmental issue. We have to work together, not against one another if we are going to make it.

Question: So Is The U.S. Still Number One?

Many in the U.S. still believe we are the best in everything—education, health care, living standards, governance,  quality of housing, and every other important measure you can think of. Well, when you see how other people live in other countries, you realize that this is simply not true. Western Europe has us beat on land use and urban design (but not on graffiti!), public transportation, the social safety net and on primary health care delivery. Other countries like Russia and Mongolia, which have made great strides in construction, are still behind us in many ways but struggling to catch up. Moscow’s metro system remains among the best in the world. Their love for the arts, music and classical culture is strong among all age groups. Ulan Bator is now thriving. We should wish them both luck.

China, of course, was the big story for me. China has moved by us fast on transportation and infrastructure and in the extraordinary building that has happened. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have come out of poverty, and the disparities between the rich and the poor are not as extreme as in the U.S.—at least not in the cities. There are no “slums” that we were able to see in any of the Chinese cities we visited. Also we did not see a single panhandler or homeless person during our month there. We did not even see any graffiti! There is in China a can-do attitude and an optimism that does not seem to exist in the U.S. right now or in Europe. As I described in my last blog post on China, they still have big challenges, do not have a democracy and curtail free speech and a free press. It is far from perfect. That said, I recall one conversation I had with one of our Chinese guides. It went something like this:

Guide: You have been asking a lot of questions about free speech and democracy in China. I have a couple of questions for you. How old is your country, around 250 years?

Me: Close to that.

Guide: Our culture is around 4,500 years old and our country about 2,500 years. We have had our ups and downs, been a dominant world power many times. We have never had a democracy. In the Chinese long view of things, this is a relatively new concept.

Me: Yes, but one that is worth trying.

Guide: Agreed, but give us a little room for now. We are a fragile country of 1.4 billion people. We can go only so far so fast.

A final observation is that the economic power on this planet seems to be shifting from the West to the East. While the U.S. will remain a major player as will Europe and Russia, Asia–primarily China and India–are becoming increasingly important and one day will have the final word as to how we do on the environmental question and how and whether we survive on the Planet Earth. Since they make up almost half of the world’s population, this figures. What has changed in the last few decades is that they have both have emerged as major world players and economic powerhouses. It soon will be their time. Maybe it already is.

So does this mean that we are no longer number one?

My first answer is that being number one is not important or the right question to ask. There are lots of countries and lots of ways of doing things, and countries are better at some things and worse at others. We need to do better in figuring out how all countries can benefit from the “best practices” that are found worldwide. You know the issues in the U.S.: aging infrastructure, poverty and income disparity, lingering racism, environmental issues, health care, education, urban blight, gun violence, lousy spending priorities, the Koch Brothers, and Citizens United. The list could go on. There is lots of room for us to do better.

Despite this litany of challenges, I believe we still stand out from the countries we visited in important ways. We are still seen by many abroad as the world’s last and best “land of opportunity.” People still view the U.S. as the one country where anyone can make it if they apply themselves and have some luck. People want to move here. We heard that large numbers of wealthy Chinese are sending their children to prep schools and to colleges in the U.S. There is a kind of freedom and perceived opportunity here that does not seem to exist elsewhere. I believe—and hope—they are right. Perhaps equally important with being a land of opportunity, we are becoming one of the most diverse countries in the world and far more diverse as to race and ethnicity than any of the countries we visited. This is something we should celebrate, not fear.

While our Democracy is messy, it remains the best type of government we humans have been able to come up with. China remains far behind on this one. Our Constitution provides vital protections for speech, association, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. Our economic system is resilient and powerful. Many Americans fight hard for social change and social justice and do make progress from time to time. We have a great president. We have great artists and writers. We influence (for better or worse) a lot of the world’s  culture through our music and movies. We have a strong not-for-profit sector. We are a vast and beautiful country. We are, on the whole, generous people. We have a lot of blessings and much to be thankful for.

America is a great country. Yes, we have our problems and challenges. But there is no country I would rather live in, and I am deeply grateful that this is our home. It is great to be back!

And one last thanks for following us on the blog! We are honored and grateful. It has been quite a ride, as they say.

 

Note: Embry’s “lists” will follow shortly so  the blog posting is not completely over. Also if you have questions as to any practical aspects of the trip and travel planning, we would be pleased to answer them as best as we can. Finally, any closing comments  that YOU would like to post on the Big Trip blog  are welcomed and appreciated.

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Day 109, July 6

Seattle, Washington

We arrived in Seattle on July 3 where we spent three days. It was a terrific three days! After saying our goodbyes, we left the ship at 9:15 am and were met by our old and dear friends, Rick (Embry’s first cousin) and Karen McMichael, who drove us to their home in Burien, a southern suburb of Seattle. We had visited them before and remembered that it was a beautiful home overlooking Puget Sound, but the spectacular views surprised us again.

 

The next three days were a whirlwind. That afternoon we drove to see Mount Rainier, where I was struck with how racially and ethnically diverse our country is compared to those we visited. That was followed by dinner at a great seafood restaurant on the sound. The Fourth of July we visited the Pike Street Market and the sculpture museum in the morning, then that evening viewed the fireworks from the highest hill in Seattle. On Sunday, July 5, we accompanied Rick and Karen to Southminster Presbyterian Church, a small, family-oriented, very friendly church, with a screen and projector for Power Point accompaniment to the sermon and hymns, then lunch at their house with my old friend from my Japan trip in 1962, Libby, and her husband, Don.

That evening we enjoyed a steak cookout on their secluded back deck, and the next morning a three mile hike down to the park on the sound beneath their house before having lunch at a neighborhood bar/restaurant and heading off to the train station. There we met George Wright, a colleague and good friend of Embry’s from Mathematica days, and his wife, Diana, for a mini reunion, most of which was spent in the waiting room of the Amtrak station, talking about old times and what these two activists and reformers had been up to in Seattle. It was quite a three days and great to be back in the U.S.!

Karen dropped us off at the Seattle train station around 2:00 pm so we could meet George and Diana, but at 7:45 pm we were still waiting for our train, The Empire Builder, which had been scheduled to leave at 4:40 pm. When we returned to the station around four o’clock after coffee with George and Diana , there was a long line to board the 4:40 train to Chicago but no Amtrak employee at the counter. I waited until it was close to boarding time. There was no announcement and no sign of Amtrak personnel anywhere. A national parks guide who would be joining us on the train had alerted us that there might be a problem and that late departures were not unusual. If fact, he said that it was rare for an Amtrak train to leave on time from this location or for that matter, any location. That there was no information about The Empire Builder at the time of departure, I thought a little odd.

At five o’clock, almost a half hour after the scheduled departure time, a woman wearing a blue uniform casually wandered into the waiting room and at the top of her lungs announced there was an unexplained delay. You could leave the line if you wanted but be back in the station by five-thirty. It was very difficult to make out what she was saying when she reappeared every half hour or so to provide updates, but as best we could tell, the situation was this: the reason for the delay was that our original train was several hours late due to equipment problems—it had been due around noon—and when it did finally arrive, it had to be diverted to replace another train which had broken down. They were waiting for a third train which could have been diverted to take the passengers to Chicago, but unfortunately there were some issues with that train as well. More information would follow.

By seven o’clock, however, there was good news. One of the broken down trains had made it the station, but additional repairs needed to be made. No further information was available. Another Amtrak employee dressed in blue yelled out they were opening the doors to the waiting room to provide some relief from the oppressive heat (since there was no air conditioning in the station), but if anyone tried to leave through those doors they would not be allowed to come back inside the station. I was wondering why there was no PA system, why no information displayed anywhere about trains and why all the trains were breaking down.

“Happens all the time,” the person standing next to me said. When we inquired about the chances about making our connection in Chicago, he responded, “Never count on making a connection on an Amtrak train. If you are making a connection, always give yourself at least a day, ideally two days.”

As we stood around complaining that we would miss all the great scenery in the Cascades since it would be dark, someone else chimed in that it was not always Amtrak’s fault because Amtrak really was dependent on the freight train companies like BNSF, which owned the tracks. Even if by some miracle they could fix the train that broke down that was supposed to replace the train that also had broken down that was supposed to be used to assist another train that had broken down, you still had to get the ok from cargo train companies to find a time slot. Another person said that we should be grateful the trains were running at all since last week the tracks were shut down for the entire week due to forest fires.

Welcome to passenger rail transportation in the U.S.!

As a point of reference, we had some 25 different train connections in the nine countries we visited in Europe, Asia, and China. Every one of them was on time to the minute.

Suddenly a few minutes after eight, the Amtrak representative shouted something unintelligible, and everyone rushed to get a spot in line. By 8:30 pm, The Empire Builder had left the station–only four hours late, leaving us scant hope for making a two hour connection in Chicago– and we were ensconced in our tiny two-seat/bed sleeper “roomette.” Because we got off to such a late start, as we had feared, we missed all of the spectacular scenery of the Cascade Mountains, which we passed in the dark.

 

Day 110

July 7

On Tuesday, July 7, our train passed through the Rockies beginning around seven in the morning and lasting through noon. While it was foggy and rainy with limited visibility, the scenery was still spectacular with clouds and mist creating a magical effect. It reminded us a lot of the China trip from X’ian to Chengdu over the mountains.

I could not help mentioning to the nice Amtrak attendant who was our “carriage assistant” that all the other trains we took on our trip around the world were on time. With a disgusted look on her face she groaned, “Budget cuts. Gets worse every year. Layoffs, equipment failures. Nothing we can do about it.”

We later learned that The Empire Builder, the train that was “only” four hours late, was traveling with one less car than it was supposed to have, due, naturally, to equipment failure, meaning that there would not be enough seats for all the passengers (all of whom, of course, had reserved seats and had paid their money). The “solution” was to partially convert the dining car to a passenger car and to allow people to sit in the aisles or to stand.

After several meals with other passengers, we came to understand that the problem was not Amtrak. It was our mistaken assumption that trains were primarily a form of transportation. Our fellow passengers reminded us that trains in the U.S. have nothing to do with getting from point A to point B except in the Northeast Corridor. If a traveler actually wanted to go somewhere, he or she would drive or take a plane. The purposes of taking a train in the U.S. are sight seeing and adventure. Of all the people we talked to, only one couple had traveled on an Amtrak train that was actually on time, but because trains were for other purposes our fellow passengers were not upset. For example, a Boston couple, originally from Korea, spent their previous nine days traveling all over the U.S. by train, and no train was less than four hours late. It did not bother them all that much though the husband did say they would never take a train again outside of the Washington-Boston corridor. Another couple our age from Iowa experienced two delays coming from the Midwest to Seattle, a 12 hour delay due to a freight train derailing directly ahead of their train and a six hour delay due to the train engineer exceeding his daily time limit of hours allowed to drive the train. Since the assistant engineer had been laid off due to budget cuts, they had no choice but to park the train on a side track until a replacement engineer could be found. No one seemed particularly bothered. This was Amtrak. This was what you expected.

While this description was not exactly accurate—later in the trip we did talk to several people who lived in small towns along the route who actually did use the train to get from point A to point B—it probably did apply to the majority of passengers.

I suppose you could say that our “problem” was that we had been in countries in Europe and Asia where passenger trains were actually used for transportation and where trains were the preferred means of getting around, compared to cars and planes. I suppose we knew all this about U.S. trains before our trip but had forgotten. In any event once we got the paradigm right, we could begin to enjoy the trip across the country by rail, the last leg of our journey.

I also must give Amtrak credit where it is due. The Amtrak staff were courteous, friendly and efficient—a vast improvement from what it was like when we took the train from DC to Savannah several years before. They worked hard and tried hard to please. Some of the food was not that bad either. The train cars or “carriages” as they are often called, were designed well and in reasonably good shape. There was also a club car with an observation roof. So Amtrak is making an effort. Several people told us that problems related to equipment failure and delays were for the most part beyond Amtrak’s control due primarily to insufficient government financial support (which is present in all the countries with good rail systems that we visited) and to the freight train companies calling all the shots on track usage.

 

The Empire Builder chugged along. Eventually the high mountains and mist gave way to foothills and partly cloudy skies, and then to prairie with occasional cows and horses grazing, followed by endless wheat fields. Our country is as vast and beautiful as any we visited. In fact the grasslands looked very much like the steppes of Mongolia and the plains of Siberia and the mountains in the mist, a lot like China. What made the view different from what we saw in Europe and Asia was the absence of anything similar to the small villages that dotted the landscape. In fact it was surprising how few houses of any type we saw. Somebody was growing all this wheat and raising cattle, but it was not apparent where they lived. That changed after Havre, Montana, when small farm houses and mobile homes started to appear, but whoever lived in them was not making a fortune. Some of the homes were close to falling apart. We learned later that most of the poor housing was on Indian reservations.

While the train was jammed packed with not enough seats to accommodate everyone, that did not seem to keep people from having a good time. Our fellow passengers seemed relaxed and happy, and everyone we talked to said they were really enjoying the journey. There were lots of families with kids of all ages, a good number of grandparents, and retired people like us. A fairly large group–25 or 30 people–were Amish, who we later learned used this train all the time because they do not take airplanes. It was a Middle American kind of crowd though not very diverse as to race or ethnicity, so in that sense not really representative of our country. But it felt good finally to be on The Empire Builder and good to be going home.

 

Day 111

July 8

The question for today was when might we expect to arrive in Chicago and would we make our two-hour connection to the train going to Washington. We woke up to rain and clouds and vast green fields of soybeans, alfalfa, and corn. I assumed we must be in Minnesota. At breakfast we learned that this was not Minnesota. In fact we had not yet reached Fargo, South Dakota, and now were officially running more than eight hours behind schedule. We were told this was due not to equipment failure, the usual culprit, but to having to “give way” to an unusually high number of freight trains. Also there was rumor of a car parked on the tracks.

We sat with two members (mother and teenage daughter) of a family from a small town outside of Madison, Wisconsin, who used the train regularly to visit parents and grandparents in Montana. Of the dozen or so trips they had taken over the years, the train had never been on time but usually was only an hour or two late, often as much as four hours, but nothing like this, though the mother talked about delays of as much as 12 or even 24 hours that her parents had endured. Every year, she said, it seemed to be getting a little worse.

The Empire Builder chugged along during afternoon and evening as we sat in the club car, listened to a “Rails and Trails” Park Service volunteer talk about the history of the area, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. The grass became greener and trees reappeared along with crops of corn and soybeans. When we reached the Minnesota we traveled alongside the Mississippi River into Saint Paul and then followed the river toward Milwaukee. There were more small farms than we had seen before, many of them fairly prosperous. The light of the late afternoon sun was spectacular. Travel guides describe the journey as being special when you cross the Cascades and the Rockies, but actually the scenery is quite beautiful the entire trip. You certainly can begin to get a feel for just how big—and how beautiful—our country is. We were sorry when twilight came and then darkness with four more hours to ride without being able to see the landscape.

When we finally rolled into Chicago at midnight, it was raining. We were exactly on time to the minute according to the estimate we received at breakfast that morning—but a full eight hours behind the original schedule. Everyone on the train with a connection to another location was stranded.

Now you might think that this would raise some questions as to why in the richest and most powerful country in the world our trains would run eight hours behind schedule, and in every other country we visited the trains ran exactly on time. Indeed, I had been asking that question throughout the entire journey on the Empire Builder. Embry, on the other hand, was loving every minute. This is what she had in mind a couple of years ago when she first had the idea of a trip around the world after she retired. I am not totally sure what she envisioned, but my image was that she would be traveling in a Third World country where nothing was reliable and she would just roll with the punches and see what happened. I had images of crowded buses, mired in mud in dirt highways in the Congo, third class hotels, backpacks, hitch hiking—activities making the experience truly authentic, but for a 20-year old, not a 70 year old! When I volunteered to join her last year, the concept changed from hardscrabble, third class to first class-all-the-way-baby. Embry was gracious to go along with me on this adjustment in concept and probably secretly was delighted to have a respectable way out of her fantasy. But now, on the last leg of the journey, she was having the experience she had longed for—an authentic, Third World experience where nothing was ever on time and you never knew what would happen next. She was in heaven.

An Amtrak employee came on the loudspeaker just before we pulled in and announced that everyone who had a connection that was messed up would have a hotel room, compliments of Amtrak. The remaining, bedraggled passengers stumbled off the train into a chilling drizzle and headed as directed to “passenger services” where after searching for the right place for awhile, we were met by a lone Amtrak employee. He herded us all into a large waiting room and motioned for us to sit down. I counted how many of us there were—over 150. No one complained, not even one grumble. A bunch of people sat on the floor because of a shortage of chairs including one guy in his thirties with two huge dogs, a German Shepherd and a dog that looked sort of like an enormous boxer. I had noticed him on the train as I passed through his car on the way to the observation lounge. The two animals were seated in the train’s passenger seats. He was seated on the floor.

Around 12:30 am, the Amtrak representative began calling out names. When you heard your name called, you reported to the office where you received your various vouchers—one for a taxi, another for the hotel and a $10 voucher for a fine dinner in Chicago, which could be used only inside Union Station where all restaurants , of course, were closed.

We were lucky. Our name was the third called. There were about 145 people behind us. It took about five minutes for a clerk to process one passenger, and only two clerks were on duty. I did the arithmetic and calculated that it would be well over two hours before the last, weary passengers had what they needed for the hotel. But that was, thankfully, not our problem as we rushed to the office, obtained the vouchers and boarded a cab at 12:45 am to take us to the hotel. At one in the morning we arrived at The Michigan Inn, which turned out to be the coup de grace for Embry. The lobby was shabby and plain but clean, the carpets in the halls wrinkled, torn wall paper along hall corridors, dirt marks on the walls, busted toe rails, and the rooms pretty bare, but clean.

When we checked in, the clerk had us fill out a form which asked for reason for using the hotel—tourist, vacation, business or “distressed Amtrak passenger.” We marked “distressed Amtrak passenger.”

“This is terrific!” Embry exclaimed. “It is just like being in Africa!”

So this turned out to be one of the best legs of the trip for Embry, a taste of what her original idea of the trip around the world might have been like, a great way to end our Big Trip. I had to agree. Her original plan might not have been all that bad.

However, does it strike anyone as ironic that our authentic “Third World experience” occurred on the Empire Builder and in the city of Chicago in the United States of America?

 

Day 112

July 10

Chicago

We checked our email to find a confirmation of a booking leaving at 6:40 pm, the same train we should have been on the day before. We made the best of it by visiting the AT&T store and getting a SIM for my iPhone that I had purchased in Paris to replace the one that was stolen and fixing Embry’s email, which had stopped working. Then we met the former rector of All Soul’s Church, John David van Dooren, for lunch at the Corner Bakery near our hotel. It was a special treat to see this extraordinary Episcopal priest and good friend. He and his partner, Gary, have settled into Chicago where they both have great jobs. John David’s church is a thriving, (mainly) blue collar, very diverse, Anglo Catholic church, and Gary is assistant principle at a Chicago public elementary school.

After lunch we took a cab to the station where we sat outside in the sun and caught up with email before the train left, this time miraculously on time.

 

Day 113

July 10

Washington

The most interesting thing about our last day was breakfast with a tall, bearded guy from Southern California probably in his mix 40s, using a cane. He had a gold cross around his neck and we thought at first he might be Amish since there were a number of Amish passengers on the train. He was Christian but a member of an “extremely conservative” non denominational church. We pretty much got his life history. He was divorced, unemployed and going to South Carolina from California to visit his elderly mother. He had been involved in “not really legal” activities as a young adult but converted to Christianity when his father died and cleaned up his life, working at Wal-Mart on the night shift for some 20 years before retiring with disability due to a shoulder injury and epilepsy. He was obsessed with “upholding the constitution,” was home schooling his teenage son, and was a strong supporter of Ted Cruz. He was considering joining a Christian militia. His big complaint was the government giving a free ride to people who do not work. We listened attentively and resisted the temptation to point out that by receiving disability payments, he too was in fact receiving government assistance. When I asked him if the Christian militia had used their guns, his response was “not yet,” with an usually strong emphasis on the last word.

The train traveled along valleys and streams in Pennsylvania and West Virginia where streams were near flood stage, and the landscape was a deep green. Rail and Trail volunteers joined the train in West Virginia and provided a historical commentary as we chugged along to Maryland and then DC. When you get down to it, this part of the world is as beautiful as any we visited.

Hold your hats! Big news! Amtrak “Train 30” arrived on time at Washington’s Union Station at 1:00 pm on Friday, July 10, 2015. Our Big Trip was officially over. We were met in the station by our nephew, Alex, and our good friend, Naomi, who had been our house sitter for the time we were gone. Naomi produced a “Welcome Home” cake, which we enjoyed eating in the station before heading to Macomb Street.

What a trip it was! One more email will follow which will try to sum things up.

Many of you have been loyal and faithful followers to whom I am deeply grateful. Knowing that people were reading some or all of these posts kept us going. Several of you deserve special recognition: Embry’s older brother, Mike Martin, who is a writer, poet and artist and whose blog comments are themselves poetry; Bruce Swain, old friend from Davidson days, college writing and communications professor and our de facto writing coach, who has provided helpful and insightful suggestions and comments along the way, and both of our children, Andrew and Jessica, and their families who have been supportive of the blog effort, especially Andrew, who has cleaned up several of the posts and put in photos when our internet connections did not permit it. Thanks to each of you! And thanks to everyone else for following us.

Odd as this may seem, the blogging part of the Big Trip is near the top of my plus list. I loved doing it. And Embry did too. She also kept a detailed diary, which will add considerable depth and detail to a book effort if we ever get around to it. We would appreciate any thoughts you might have regarding whether you think the idea is worth pursuing.

So the Big Trip is over. It was Embry’s idea in the first place and a great adventure that would never have happened without her indefatigable spirit . We had a great time together and ended with a stronger marriage than before we began. So my greatest thanks goes out to her for her curiosity, free spirit, determination, honesty and most of all, for her love.

Stay tuned for one last blog post, which we will call “Reflections.”

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