We planned these stops in New Orleans and DC on the way to Philadelphia in order to break up an otherwise intolerably long rail trip. They also happen to be cities I quite like and that Stephanie has never visited. Yet each time we arrive in a new place, we recall the importance of taking a break from the trip. Momentarily ignoring where we are to let the body rest. Writing. Napping. Going to the bathroom in comfort and with dignity!

So after our brief stop at Cafe du Monde, Stephanie and I holed ourselves up at the hotel Tuesday afternoon. I caught up on my blogging, Stephanie caught up on some email. We did this until nearly 8pm, when we began to feel the first stirrings of hunger. So we struck out towards K-Paul’s for some good ol’ Cajun cuisine. We covered all the bases. Stephanie had a cup of gumbo and the shrimp étouffée, and I had the turtle soup and the jambalaya. We returned to the hotel, via Bourbon Street, stuffed.

On Wednesday we continued our routine of respite, and spent the morning laptopping in the hotel’s central courtyard. Around noon, when I felt I could follow up the previous night’s consumption with a small nibble, the clouds opened up and unleashed a ferocious downpour, with thunder and lightning to boot. We waited it out, and about an hour later, the sky was blue and the sun was out again. Lunch was a shared bowl of gumbo. We walked up and down Royal and Chartres streets for a couple of hours, looking at the art and antiques for sale, and then sat in the shade of a tree in Jackson Square.

Stephanie was enjoying the gumbo so much that we went to The Gumbo Shop for more of the same that night. She had the chicken and andouille gumbo, which was very deep in flavor, with almost a hint of coffee, while I had the barbecued shrimp and a side of red beans and rice. With our culinary bases fully covered, we ended the night at an unusually subdued Pat O’Briens with two of their specialty Hurricanes and a view of their fire fountain.

The train ride was uneventful. The sleeping compartment was small, which freaked Stephanie out at first, but she adjusted. We did our best at getting some sleep, which was interesting given the frequent sounding of the horn at crossings and the surprisingly bumpy ride. Imagine a 16 hour flight where you’re constantly jostled by turbulence. Was the night train we took in France this rough? I can’t remember.

Earplugs and benedryl helped some, such that we “slept” right through breakfast. We made it to lunch though, and were pleasantly surprised to discover that meals were included in the price of the sleeper compartments. The romance of the dining car somewhat compensated for our lack of deep sleep.

It was here that I finally realized why all travel guides advise you to take the train instead of flying. We were seated facing two other travelers who had just gotten their meals. The woman was talking on her cell phone about real estate, and the man barely acknowledged our arrival, focusing instead on his pork and gravy served over rice.

I found the fact that we were seated with strangers jarring at first, and I shifted my gaze towards Stephanie. But once our food arrived and the woman finished her call, I made my first attempts at engaging them in a little small talk. They had gotten on the train in Los Angeles (at its origin), and were taking it all the way to New Orleans (the terminus). 46 hours in all, with our mutual destination only 2 hours away. They admitted they were a little stir crazy. They looked it.

I realized we’d have many more opportunities for interactions like this one, not just on our upcoming train ride from New Orleans to DC, but over the next several months as well. Even though many would seem rote or fleeting, these moments would comprise most of our social contact, so it would pay to get used to it—and get good at it.

We arrived in New Orleans an hour early! When does that ever happen? Though it was raining as we approached the station, by the time we got off the train it had stopped. We caught a cab to our hotel in the French Quarter, Place D’Armes, and then made a beeline for Cafe du Monde.

My parents took off from work on Monday to drive us to San Antonio so we could catch our train to New Orleans. On the way we stopped at my brother’s high school. He’s a history teacher (and the department head) at a brand new high school that one might mistake for a small college. They have a food lab, a sound studio, even a robotics lab. All the classrooms are organized into pods with glass walls looking out into a central “lounge” outfitted with armchairs and tables. It’s very cool, and my bro seems to be totally in his element.

After the tour we continued on our way to San Antonio. We didn’t have anything planned to do when we got there, so we went to the Rivercenter Mall and hung out for a bit, and then we walked along the River Walk to find a place for dinner. My parents still had the drive back to Austin ahead of them, so after dinner we said our final goodbyes in the parking garage, and then Stephanie and I walked off into the sunset.

It was around 7, and we still had 5 hours to kill before our train left, so we went back to the mall to catch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It was awesome. I would totally go see it again.

Afterwards, as we were walking out of the empty mall onto a dark street with our packs strapped to our backs, I got that first inkling of what it must feel like to be a vagabond. We no longer had an apartment or a car, or my parent’s house and their car. We had finally shed all the insulating layers of comfort and familiarity. I was wondering when things would stop feeling like a vacation. Now it was just the two of us. On an unfamiliar street. With only our packs. On foot.

The one thing we did have was a plan. We were taking Amtrak’s Sunset Limited to New Orleans, a 16 hour trip that would arrive early in the afternoon the next day. After a day and a half in the Big Easy, we’d take the Amtrak Crescent all the way to DC, a 26 hour trek, arriving Friday morning. We’d spend Friday and Saturday exploring DC, before catching a train on Sunday to Philadelphia. There we’d be staying with my cousin and his family until we board the Cap Cleveland on Tuesday, September 7th.

We spent last week in Austin recharging our batteries and making all the final preparations for the boat trip and beyond. The former involved spending time friends and family, eating out a lot, and going to Schlitterbahn Waterpark. The latter involved taking all the things we’d brought with us from San Francisco, laying it out on my parents living room floor, and slowly moving the things we were leaving behind to one side of the room and all the things we were bringing with us to the other. If only I had made a time-lapse video! My Dad found it so amusing that he’d just sit back and watch us sort through things, move things around, and add things to lists. It was a multi-day affair.

Once we could see all that we were bringing (or intending to bring), organized by rough categories on the floor, we realized we needed more packing cubes (specifically, Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Cubes). All of my clothes fit into a full-size cube and two half-size cubes (all double-sided), but I needed two more half-size cubes to hold all of my electronics and meds (without having loose ziplock bags floating around). Conveniently, all five cubes fit perfectly in my REI Vagabond pack. I also put two pouches (Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Sacs) in the pack’s top compartment for easy access to toiletries and first-aid. Stephanie has a similar configuration, but with one less half-size cube to make room for a pair of sandals, and one less pouch to make room for a glasses/sunglasses case. Then on top of everything we each have a laptop.

I’m probably going to sound like a clean-freak, but organizing (and procuring) our toiletries was probably one of the most challenging things to prepare. When I normally travel, I usually just throw everything into a large ziplock bag and hope I haven’t forgotten anything. But since we’re going to be living out of our bags for an extended period of time, I knew I had to optimize our toiletries and medicines both by context and frequency of use—so that I wasn’t constantly digging for a nailclipper at the bottom of an over-stuffed ziplock bag. Of course there were some things we each needed a “copy” of (marked x2 below), and there were some things one of us could carry for the both. Here’s a rough outline of what I came up with:

1. Frequently Used Toiletries (x2)
   This is all the stuff we each want to have at a moment’s notice, before bed or in the morning (e.g. toothbrush, toothpaste, deoderant, nailclipper, face wash, ear plugs, lotion, razor, etc.). It’s all in a small pouch that’s easily accessible at the top of our packs.
2. Shower Toiletries (x1)
   These are the few things we need if we’re going to take a shower (e.g. shampoo, body wash, cotton swabs). They’re in a small ziplock bag in one of the packing cubes. Since we’ll be taking a shower once a day (or less!), it made sense to keep this separate from the frequently used toiletries, and shared between the two of us.
3. First Aid (x1)
   This stuff (e.g. bandages, laxatives, anti-diarrheal, hydrocortisone, etc.) is less frequently used than our normal toiletries, but more than medications. We put it all into a single pouch because we wanted it to be easy to grab and stash in a daypack for hikes.
4. Medications (x2)
   These are not that frequently used (e.g. antibiotics, anti-malarials, motion sickness, pain meds etc), so we’ve put them in a ziplock bag, and they take up about half of a half-cube.
5. Outdoor Toiletries (x2)
   Just sunscreen and bug spray. These are in a ziplock bag in one of the pack’s side pockets for easy access, without weighing down any of the other bags.
6. Backup Toiletries (x1)
   Finally, these are lightweight bulk items like tissues, earplugs, cotton swabs, and anything we might pick up in slightly larger quantities and transfer to our frequently used toiletries as needed. In the meantime, it’s in a ziplock bag in one of our packing cubes.

We didn’t exactly get up early on Friday morning. Especially considering the time zone change. In fact we barely got the car back to the rental place before 10am. Then we started on the long drive towards Big Bend, about 5 hours from El Paso. Unlike the rest of Texas, El Paso is in the mountain time zone, so we experienced another time zone change, making it yet another hour later. We drove through some spectacular downpours on US-90 outside of Marfa, TX but when we headed into the park, it seemed that the worst was behind us. We were wrong.

We arrived around 5 o’clock. It was very hot and sunny, but with a lot of dramatic clouds in the sky. We continued up into the Chisos Mountain Basin, where the campground was located, and discovered it to be about 20 degrees cooler that the surrounding desert. In other words, low-80s. Perfect! Except those dramatic clouds in the distance started looking darker and more ominous. We rushed to get our tents set up in order to weather the storm, if it came. At first we had an inconsequential summer shower that came and went. Maybe that was all? Nope.

Suddenly it began to downpour. We dove into Dad’s larger tent and watched it rain and rain and rain. The rain was coming down so heavily we couldn’t even see the surrounding mountains. Everything was just grayed out. And then we noticed water in the tent. It was coming up from the bottom. It was dripping down from the top (even with the rainfly on). The rain was not letting up, and it seemed Dad’s borrowed tent was not waterproof.

So we decided to throw in the towel. We ran to the car, leaving the tents behind, and headed up to the lodge, hoping there’d be a room available. There was, as well as a restaurant (with no power!) so we sat down, ate ham sandwiches off their “power outage menu”, and watched the rain and lightning show through the floor-to-ceiling windows. By the time we were done with dinner, the rain had let up, so we went back to the campsite to tidy a few things up and check on our tents. Ours was completely dry, but Dad’s was not, so we emptied it out, and headed up to our cabin for the night. It was particularly nice knowing we’d get good night’s sleep, as the next morning we were waking up at 6 to go rafting down the Rio Grande.