From the Stormy Heights of Rhinecliff to the Pacific...and Back
by Frances Sandiford

Whenever I find myself "growing grim around the mouth" like Ishmael in Moby Dick, I know that it's high time for me to take a trip, however short, to some place fresh and green. Being semi-retired, and widowed, I don't have a lot of money for travel. That's why I was excited last summer when I heard about an excursion that Amtrak was offering for a mere $250. I could leave from the Rhinecliff station, just down the hill from my house, travel to San Francisco in three days, spend another three days there, and return in a final three days on an alternative route. It sounded like a marvelous way to see the country, if only from the windows of the train.

If the trip promised to be inexpensive and interesting, it didn't promise to be comfortable. In exchange for the low fare, passengers had to sleep in their seats and be satisfied with a sponge bath in Amtrak's restrooms. Still, the trip was too much of an opportunity to pass up. After making sure that my children knew where to find important papers in case of an emergency, I boarded the train on June 2 with two small travel bags and food for that night.

The first stop was a brief one in New York City to change trains, then we were off to Chicago. As it grew dark--Amtrak lowered the lights at 10 pm--people were sleeping around me. The car was only about one-quarter full, and relatively quiet. The sound of the train's wheels had a mesmerizing effect despite my less-than-ideal bed. I dozed off amid the rhythmic snoring of my fellow travelers.

The next morning, in Chicago, we had a six-hour layover, giving the passengers a chance to get out and spend some time in the city. When I again boarded my train, it was a different, two-leveled one. I was in a compartment downstairs with four other people: an African American couple, part of an old time jazz group, who were headed to San Francisco for a recording session; Tom, a fireman from Birmingham, Alabama; and Pat, who had survived personal catastrophes from cancer to spousal abuse. Thereafter, my name for Pat was Ms Disaster. These four people and I, who might never have met in the outside world, would be elbow to elbow for the next three days. Thankfully we bonded, fellow travelers on our Way West. What good was seeing the country and its landscape without also seeing its people, and having someone to interpret it with?

During the daylight hours, we would go up to the second level to the observation deck and look at the outside from elongated windows on either side of the car. We'd eat in the snack bar, or in Amtrak's dining room where the food was surprisingly good. Although the train had a TV, someone was usually watching a movie on it. In essence, we were cut off from the outside world. A national emergency could have happened, and we'd never have known about it.

Our destination was San Francisco; next stop, Omaha, Nebraska. In the evenings, after dark, the five of us would sit in our compartment as if around a campfire, and talk. Pat usually took the lead. For most of the trip, she wore a hot pink jumpsuit with matching baseball cap, a stark contrast to the doom and gloom of her stories. Pat had been a secretary at a testing lab. Samples of the chemicals were kept in an adjoining storehouse. Her employer told the staff that these chemicals would pose no threat, but they did. Pat found herself chemically poisoned, and nearly died of contamination.

As we traveled from Chicago to Omaha, the train passed miles of open green fields, with just an occasional pen of horses or cows, "Pollution!" Pat would yell when she saw these fields. "How do you think they stay so green? Chemicals!" Such green fields were all we saw of the country between Omaha and Denver. One night, a thunderstorm came up. With no trees or mountains to block it, the streaks of lightning extended from ground to sky like a natural fireworks display. I was surprised that the African-American couple were noticeably shaken by the display. Passengers had to physically comfort them and to convince them that we were in no danger. The couple, who often talked about the dangers they had endured in the days of segregation, were completely disoriented by the wiles of nature.

Tom was the quietest of all of us, but the stories he told were hard acts to follow. While on duty as a fireman in Birmingham, he had watched Martin Luther King's famous march. He had been right there when the Civil Rights Movement took hold. I couldn't compete with any of the others' stories, and none of my companions had ever heard of Rhinecliff, so I decided to stretch the truth a bit. I persuaded my new friends that Rhinecliff had been the site of a crucial engagement during the American Revolution and that patriots had launched a fighting ship there that had sunk to the bottom of the river and has been impossible to recover ever since. I then claimed that the waves from the Hudson River were huge and regularly lashed at the rocky shore, making Rhinecliff one of upstate New York's most dangerous places to live.

After Omaha, we headed for Denver, and from there to the last lap of the journey, Denver to Salt Lake City, and finally to San Francisco. This last lap, by everyone's vote, was the most thrilling of the whole crossing. We crossed mountain ranges where cars did not travel. At one point, we were on a precipice from which I looked down into what seemed a bottomless canyon. Then we plunged through tunnels, some only a few seconds long, others of fifteen or twenty minutes duration. Coming from darkness to the light, it was as if were being born over and over again.

Tom woke me in the middle of the next night to say "Good-bye." He was getting off at Martinez, just short of San Francisco, where his wife and children were meeting him for a family reunion. My remaining travel companions and I stayed on to San Francisco. We arrived the next morning just as the city was waking up. Old friends Patrick and Monica Casey, whom I had arranged to visit, were at the station to meet me. Rhinecliff was a continent away.

After three days imbibing the sights of the City by the Bay, on June 8th I once again boarded Amtrak for the trip home. By this time I was a veteran of sleeping on coach seats and washing in cramped restrooms. Without my companions Pat, Tom, and the African American couple, some of the pleasure had gone out of the trip. I did meet a pleasant young woman, also named Pat, who was traveling with a two-year-old Hopi Indian boy whom she had adopted while working on a reservation, and an interesting, recently divorced woman on the way East to visit her daughter, but they lacked the pizzazz of my previous group.

The return trip went through Los Angeles, then on to Santa Fe, where in a brief stopover I was able to purchase some Indian jewelry. From there, it was on to Kansas City and Chicago. Due to a problem, passengers had to sit in Chicago's station for several hours waiting for the Amtrak train that would take us to New York. When it finally arrived, it was packed to capacity. A young man beckoned me to sit next to him. He was Australian, and like me, he was trying to get a good look at the country. We talked well into the night, and when we parted company in Buffalo, he gave me a warm, good-bye hug, one of those unforgettable moments that can only happen to travelers.