Travel Plans Pending

For whatever reason April is conference season for me. Today is the first day of the three-day Las Vegas Writers Conference (online). At the end of next week is the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly event at the Orleans. And then at the beginning of the last week in May is the TMS Viva Las Vegas meetup. Being newly retired, I’ve attempted to par back on event participation and reduce the ticket investment. Add to these events, one of my nieces is having a wedding towards the end of May in Michigan and that’s got me thinking about the best mode of travel and whether I should extend this trip to something beyond a “there and back” type of trip.

In the before COVID times I wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping into my car and driving to Michigan for the wedding then spend the next 30-plus days tooling around the country. But I’ve become painfully aware, based on my experience driving back to Las Vegas from Palmdale in September, that over the last year my night-time eyesight feels like shit. But I still love the thought of a road-trip, except without the driving part, thus the idea of going on an Amtrak adventure popped up.

I’ve gone on two “long-distance” train trips, one from Flagstaff, AZ to Fullerton, CA in 1995 and another from Union Station in Los Angeles to Denver, CO in 2002 and what I remember most is that it took all night to slowly roll from AZ to CA and three days to get from LA to Denver. Train travel was not the mode of travel for those who just want to get there. The Flagstaff trip was a red-eye so I just slept for the duration. On the Denver trip the train left LA in the late afternoon and dropped us off in Sacramento at 11pm. The departure to Denver was not until 8 AM the next morning. I learned the painful lesson that train terminals do not stay open all night after the last arrival/departure of the day. So I spent a freezing night standing outside the terminal, like a homeless dude, until the building reopened at 6AM. On the return trip back from Denver I made sure that I had a place to stay for the overnight in Sacramento, and made some the good friends whom I met hanging out in the club car on the two days from Denver to Sacramento.

1995-01-01 Amtrak from Flagstaff to Fullerton-02
1995-01-01 Amtrak from Flagstaff to Fullerton-03
2002-01-15 OMAET-CSCL Conference – Amtrak best friends for a couple days

Anyway, when thinking about this coming trip I thought that if it took three days to get from LA to Denver, it has to take at least four or five days to get from Las Vegas to Michigan. Nope. Closest Amtrak station that goes to the midwest is in Kingman AZ (a little less than two hours car drive away), and the trip from Kingman to Michigan is about 35.5 hours or a day and a half. What?! Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. Also the price for one-way travel is about $216 for a seat in the coach car. That got me thinking, if it’s only two days there and two days back for around $432 (guesstimate), but a 30-day US Rail Pass is $499, how much more traveling could I add to this trip for not much more than a six-day trip to and from Michigan? Hmmm…

Amtrak Kingman AZ to Battle Creek MI coach

Amtrak Kingman, AZ to Battle Creek MI map

When I learned that the trip to Michigan was less than two days, I started thinking about where I might want to go after that. But then I realized that I had a doctor’s appointment at the end of May and tickets to see Ringo Starr in Las Vegas on June 1st. Starting the trip with the wedding and ending it with my appointments in Las Vegas would limit my travel to two weeks. That’s not a good use of a 30-day pass and not nearly enough time to explore the country. So maybe a better way to plan this trip would be to just mark off where I need to be when (appointments in LV May 2nd, wedding in Michigan end of May, back in LV by May 30), and work around that, instead of beginning with the wedding and see what I can add to the end of that trip. Also, it might be a good idea to find out who is available to visit and when…

It looks like I’ll be spending some time with the Amtrak route map and website and see how to best plan this trip. I’d love to head further east and visit friends in Florida, but I’m not sure this is going to work out for this trip. Right now, I’m feeling the pull to enjoy the West Coast weather and maybe head up to the Pacific Northwest, a trip that I haven’t done in decades, before heading east to Michigan and some places nearby… like maybe Madison? And maybe I can do a New Orleans/Florida Amtrak adventure in the Fall after hurricane season wears itself out. The possibilities are intriguing. 😎👍🚆

Tags: 2024 road trip, amtrak road trip, amtrak USA Rail Pass, leaving las vegas, travels