{"id":1399,"date":"2012-03-22T04:18:55","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T11:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2012-03-22T13:28:38","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T20:28:38","slug":"seduced-by-a-train-whistle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1399","title":{"rendered":"Seduced by a Train Whistle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15013.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1400\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15013.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Train whistles. I suppose to most people they\u2019re a warning. To me, they\u2019re a calling.<\/p>\n<p>That is, ever since I was a boy, the sound of a train whistle has beckoned me. But it\u2019s stronger than that. Think of Odysseus who had his men tie him to the ship\u2019s mast so he wouldn\u2019t follow the seductive song of the Sirens.<\/p>\n<p>Those low, mournful blasts of train whistles have been like that for me, especially when heard alone and in the early morning hours. Don\u2019t know what makes me want to follow. \u00a0Maybe there\u2019s something (pick one) beautiful, adventurous or\u00a0magical that lies both along and at the end of those tracks.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why last Sunday morning a train whistle set me thinking. What if Charlotte and I saw the U. S. this summer from the top deck of an Amtrak Superliner?<\/p>\n<p>A few hours online, and I began to sketch an itinerary.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll begin by driving to Albuquerque to meet the Southwest Chief on its way from Chicago to Los Angeles. Will board at 4:45 p.m. and arrive in LA at 8:15 a.m. Then, we catch the northbound Starlight Coast, which leaves at 3:30 p.m. and arrives almost 30 hours later in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m thinking we\u2019ll take a three or four day break there, rent a car and discover some of the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n<p>Then, back to the Emerald City to catch the Empire Builder to Chicago, about a two-day trip. From Chicago, we end where we started by boarding the Southwest Chief, which will get us to Albuquerque in a little over 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p>All told, we\u2019ll travel 5,742 miles in just short of five days (plus another four off the train).<\/p>\n<p>Will keep you up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Train whistles. I suppose to most people they\u2019re a warning. To me, they\u2019re a calling. That is, ever since I was a boy, the sound of a train whistle has beckoned me. But it\u2019s stronger than that. Think of Odysseus who had his men tie him to the ship\u2019s mast so he wouldn\u2019t follow the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1402,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}