After taking the Carolinian from Durham to DC, I spent four lovely days catching up with my friends in the capital, a place I have lived at various points in my life. I finally had the chance to visit the African American museum, which was moving and spectacular. As I tend to do whenever I’m in DC, I stopped at the Lincoln Memorial. It felt particularly relevant this time, as I have been thinking more about my relationship with this country since becoming a naturalized citizen earlier this year.

An exhibit at the National Museum of African American History in Washington D.C.

On a Monday in late September, my brother met me at the Silver Spring metro stop, and we traveled to Union Station to begin the first overnight leg of the train trip on the Capitol Limited from DC to Chicago. Malvin had agreed to join me out to California, from which he would fly back home to Maryland.

Stopping in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, we recalled a family trip there some twenty years ago with our parents. It was a weekend drive, one of our first family outings after we had moved to the Baltimore suburbs from southwestern Australia. The lush forests and mountains of western Maryland and West Virginia are beautiful. We pass by what looks to be some sort of mining operation, through majestic rolling hills, fields dotted with tidy bales of hay, and handsome small towns like Martinsburg.


In Cumberland, we are granted a short ‘smoke and stretch’ stop. We make our way downstairs by the restrooms to disembark. There is a long line of passengers, eager for an opportunity to get off for a break. I bring a couple of banh mi with us, Vietnamese pork and cold cut sandwiches that I had packed for the trip earlier that day. It is my brother’s first time trying them, and he is not disappointed. 


As we mill about the platform, I combine bites of my somewhat soggy sandwich with leg lunges and neck stretches. We bask in the relief of precious moments unmasked (we are required to wear masks on board unless ‘actively eating or drinking’).


At a late night stop somewhere between DC and Chicago

“You’ve got about 30 seconds”, one of the Amtrak attendants tells us. They weren’t kidding about this being a short break. It was a brief five minutes of relative freedom.


“All aboard!” shouts another attendant, and before long, we are whisked back upstairs to our seats as our train resumes its slow journey toward Pennsylvania, en route to our final destination of Chicago.


After we finish our sandwiches at our seats, I suggest that we buy something in the concession cart, just so that we can hang out somewhere else on the train. Earlier, we were saddened to learn that this particular train’s dining service (white tablecloth, three-course meals) remains paused due to covid. Even worse, the observation car--where I’d looked forward to spending much of the trip, staring out the window--had been entirely removed. Also, the restrooms on this particular train were all cartoonishly tiny, which made my commitment to a full wet wipe shower all the more challenging.


Bird bathing with wet wipes in such confined space proved an interesting challenge

We buy some Banquet-quality microwaved chicken nuggets and find a booth, indulging in the suddenly luxurious privilege of sitting somewhere other than our assigned seats. I drink my can of Diet Coke slowly, dragging out our stay. It is about quarter to eight, and outside, the dark is rapidly enveloping our view. The train rattles along, and through the carriage’s large windows, I catch brief glimpses of meadows and country roads between the steady thicket of trees and foliage. 


This meal is not glamorous. It is a far cry from my Hollywood visions of the Orient Express. After all, we’re in coach class on an Amtrak train passing through West Virginia. But even still, there is something quietly glorious about conversing in a dining cart, looking out of the windows of our train at the darkening scenery, chugging along from America’s east coast into its heartland. It sure beats a regular day at my desk, juggling Excel documents.