Ben and I love trains, so when we heard about Amtrak's special
Autumn Express train we bought tickets with only a mild amount of embarrassment. It was great to spend a day doing nothing but staring at pretty scenery, reading, and chatting. While we enjoyed the being-on-a-train aspect as well, we definitely weren't as enthusiastic as many of the other passengers - when the conductor announced that the train was being powered by some sort of historical engine or other, our car literally burst into applause.
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| Excited to be on a train, but not enough to applaud about it. |
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| Look at that fall foliage! |
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| Ben modeling the commemorative lunch bag. Yes, there were commemorative lunch bags. |
They handed out brochures about the
National Association of Railroad Passengers, figuring - pretty accurately, I'm sure - that people who pay money to ride around on a train going nowhere would also likely be interested in joining their train club. I was somewhat interested at first, until Ben pointed out that NARP is only one letter away from AARP (which also described the demographic of the vast majority of the other passengers). Perhaps in a few decades...
