thelastadventureblog

[thelastadventureblog]

Chapter 1: Burly or Bust

Wednesday, Aug 16th 2023

3:06 AM

Yuki sits atop my green suitcase. I give her scratches behind her impossibly soft ears and head on the white space that parts the black stain on her face like a pulled curtain opening for a Vaudeville act. There is a dramatic, pleading, expression on her face that begs to be noticed. Cats always seem to know when you're leaving, and despite how they may ignore you, they never want you to go... I mean, how else are they supposed to get food without you?

3:30 AM

Andre arrives in a large black SUV, ready to deliver me to the Louis Armstrong Airport. He exits the vehicle and opens the back up for me. I lift my luggage into it and step into the passenger side. While on the road he regales me with tales of being an Uber driver. We laughed and joked the whole way to the airport.

4:03 AM

We stop at the drop-off and get out of the Car Andre helps take my suitcase out and hugs me good bye. My fear of getting lost in the airport lingers at the back of my mind as I walk through those gates.

See, I think most people that have a fear of flying are really just scared of the plane crashing.

To me, that is a perfectly reasonable thing for a ground dwelling creature such as ourselves to think. This is despite the fact that, statistically, airplanes are the safest way to travel. Road bad. Sky good.

No, my fear is getting lost on my way to the boarding flight. Simply not being able to read the signage. However, evidence to the contrary, everything seems to be laid out plainly, and I have yet to get lost. I blame you, John Hughes.

4:15 AM

I get a coffee, and a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich when I reach my destination. I sit down to eat, adjusting the strap of my small brown leather bag to get comfortable. A petite Japanese woman with auburn shoulder length hair jogs in place in the line at Starbuck's.

5:20 AM

My group is called to board at the gate. The jogging lady jogs up behind me and continues to do her thing in line. I scan my ticket and head down the jet bridge. The jogger darts past me, pumping her knees as she goes. She proceeds to jog into the fuselage, her hair bobbing up and down.

#travel blogging #blog #solotravel #the last adventurer #vacation #vermont

[thelastadventureblog]

Thank you to everyone who got me to 50 likes!

It only took a year and a blaze to get there. 😭

#50 likes #tumblr milestone #thank you #travel blogging

[thelastadventureblog]

*Note: this was meant to be posted one year ago during my trip to Chicago, but then life happened, I guess. I'll try to catch up over the next few days.*

Chapter 6: The Brown Line

Tuesday, August 16th 2022

10:26 AM

I have managed to loop the block trying to walk to a sandwich shop, turning right out of Union Station when I should have hanged a left. It seemed that everyone along the sidewalk was very sharply dressed in business attire. I will have to assimilate later. I wasn't able to change into something fresh with my clothes stowed in the baggage car on the trip up here.

10:32 AM

I'm sitting in a Potbelly sandwich shop, eating an Italian Sandwich with hot sport peppers and pickles. This is quite a tasty sandwich, and much better than anything on the train anyway. I will consider coming back here another time.

After finishing my meal, I walk up to the cashier and ask about the restroom. He tells me the restrooms are out of order. That won't do, so I leave on a new quest. I'll try to take one of the trains to my next location. There's the red line, the brown line, and the blue line. Maybe more, but I didn't take a close enough look on Google maps.

11:07 AM

Somehow, I have gotten myself lost. I guess that's what I get for not planning every aspect of this trip. I still need to use the restroom at this point. While I could have just gone back inside Union Station, by this point I had already made it to the Underground. Waiting outside the stairs to the blue line was a bus, idling patiently. No surprise to myself, the Underground Theme from Mario Bros plays in my head. What's going to be down there waiting for me? Will there be rats? Thieves? Generally mean people? Goombas? Turns out it's nobody. Not even someone to tell me what to do.

I figured to slap my phone against the reader on the turnstile to pay the fee. I hear a click, and move forward, lifting my suitcase up and over the steel bars of the now locked turnstile. Facing me now is a gate with a revolving door. I pull my luggage through, but the corner of the luggage gets stuck in the door, and now someone is behind me looking very disappointed and annoyed. Pushing back and then forward frees my duffle bag and bulky green suitcase, and I step through. I apologize, but he rolls his eyes at me. Hard! Oh he meant that!

There are only two directions to go, so I walk right and head up the stairs, ending up in front of the same idling bus from a few minutes ago. Well, that was pointless! Consider that fare a $5 a tip, Chicago.

11:30 AM

Frustrated and too embarrassed to take the steps back down to the Underground, I take a different approach. I take a good, hard, look at my Google maps app and walk in the direction it tells me to. However, it's not too long before the weight of my bag and suitcase becomes unbearable. I sit on a garden wall near a styrofoam plate of half eaten food and order an Uber. My stomach growls and I am stricken with panic. I will have to squeeze.

11:45

Although the app didn't have a good lock on my location, my driver found me. Venancio, My Uber driver, listens to me talk about my struggle with the revolving door. I doubt he understood my ramblings--very few do-- but he did get me to the Medieval Torture Museum, so I tip him well.

Sweating profusely at this point, I buy a ticket and leave my luggage with the clerk. This was a self-guided tour, so first thing I did was guide myself just past the brazen bull to the restrooms. Some sort of device used to constrain male genitalia let me know I was in the correct room.

Ah, sweet relief! After doing my business, I kill some time looking at the bloodied dummy corpses and twisted iron instruments used for torture. I can't believe humans are this sick. It truly takes a disturbed individual to come up with these kinds of things. Many of the devices and methods I saw where implemented in the name of religion.

3:24 PM

After grabbing coffee and a donut, I consider taking the brown line to the hostel I booked. However, dreading the underground, I decide to take a bus instead. Feeling bedraggled by my burdensome luggage, I decide to find the 151. "Excuse my sir, can you--", I hear to my right as I pass a woman in her early 20's. I take a sneaky look back at heMy time in New Orleans has prepared me for people on the street asking for change or trying to lure me into an alley. Which is to say, I move with purpose and avoid eye contact. It doesn't feel very good to do, but it does some me some time and helps ensure my safety in some situations.

A bus ride, and another walk later, I step inside the Chicago Getaway Hostel. Friendly faces greet me from behind the large white desk. The two gentleman take a deposit from me, tell me about the continental breakfast, the common kitchen, and the foosball table. In the lounge there are several tables and long sofas for sitting, a pool table, a foosball table, and den with a TV. Attached on the opposite end of the lounge is the kitchen. Guests are allowed to cook in the kitchen before Midnight.

I take the keycard from one of them and ride the elevator up to the third floor where my room is. There is plenty of space for one person, and the room is modestly decorated with a minimalist but mature approach. I like it. There is a red racing stripe along windowed wall, and stencils of cassette tapes on the wall nearest the bunk bed that I have all to myself.

3:30 PM

I'm in the bathroom now. I brought with me a change of clothes, my toiletries, and a fresh towel. Upon my disrobing, I notice, to my horror, a thin brown stripe running down the crack of my white shorts. Oh my god! How long had I been walking around like this? Had people been staring at me and I hadn't noticed? Standing nude, I bring the shorts up to my face to sniff them. I wince as I brace for the worst, but all I can smell is dirt and the light musty odor of having sat in a train for 16 hours. Were they like this on the train? How many of my 5 hours of walking around downtown chicago did I have a brown stain on my shorts? I washed them off in the sink. Whatever if was, it came out very easily. Crisis averted? Maybe nobody noticed. At the very least, nobody would remember me.

#amtrak #travel blog #travel blogging #solotravel #the last adventurer #america runs on dunkin #chicago #torture museum #what the fuck

[thelastadventureblog]

Travel companies hate her for this one simple trick.

#travel blog #travel blogging #blog #solotravel #the last adventurer

[thelastadventureblog]

Sometimes people surprise you.

People I met for a few moments that live in my head forever.

[thelastadventureblog]

You're probably wondering where I've been. I'm sure it seems like I stopped just as I was getting started. I'll get to that, but first, let me tell you why I began writing this blog. And if I'm talking to myself, I suppose that's fine.

(TW: suicide, depression)

In the spring of 2022 I lost a friend to suicide. This wasn't a friend that I was particularly close with. We weren't closer for no reason other than we only saw each other at work, and seldomly at that. Our usual conversations were about jewelry making, and art markets. As jewelry makers and silversmiths, we'd show off our newest pieces to each other, and talk about how sales were going. I had always been impressed by Sleepy's creativity.

Then one day I had arrived at work, and people kept asking me if I knew Sleepy. I said I didn't know them very well, though jewelers do seem to know each other. We all talk. Apparently Sleepy didn't show up to work that day, and that just seemed very odd. That made me nervous, and at the time I didn't know why. There were some mumblings about maybe they were sick, or going through a breakup. I wasn't sure myself. By the end of the night, however, it became clear, and my heart sank. They took their own life. My dear friend Joe broke the news to me. He pulled me close and told me how much I mean to him and that if I ever need some to talk to, he'd be there. I'll tell you that he has lived up to his word, and still checks up on me from time to time.

Their death hit me a lot harder than I expected, however. I spent the following days sobbing for hours in my bedroom. You see, I too had been in a dark place around that time. In truth, I had been suffering from depression since childhood. For all of my adult life up to that point I have experienced the gnawing feeling of deep loneliness. There were times when I'd feel as if I had been eaten away until there was nothing left, like I'd been hollowed out. I had suicidal ideation, thinking of all the different ways I could die, like Harold without Maude. Nobody really seemed to care or understand. Or maybe they believed my lie whenever I said I was doing okay. Whatever the case was, the advice I was given to combat these feelings were as follows: hug your roommates, talk to people, get over it, have sex with a random woman, maybe you're gay, get off the internet, etc.

I wanted to feel a real connection with people and places, and I wanted to once again experience the touch of a woman who truly loves and cares about me. The Pandemic™, as one can imagine, made my touch starvation worse. Any semblance of a relationship fizzled out at that time as well.

Before that time, when I had been in relationships, they were long distance and not physical. I silently suffered in them because I didn't want to feel lonely. They too fell apart in the end. Any friendships I had that involved a cush (I've had a few), just stagnated until I was eventually ignored completely. So I've held onto that resentment and grief well past their expiration date.

At Sleepy's memorial, thrown by close friends, I learned that he had a crush on me. I didn't know. There are a lot of things that I'll never know, and many things that were left unsaid. I didn't want that to be me. Being in my 30's, I felt that I had stayed silent for too long, that I hadn't really experienced life or accomplished anything. I left the memorial service with love in my heart from a person who couldn't talk to me anymore. I knew I needed to make a change in myself.

Soon after the memorial, I pushed myself to get a therapist. With a little help from some friends, I found one. Together, my therapist and I made a list of things I wanted, and how to achieve those things. The first thing on my list was travel. I took the opportunity to stay with my neighbor and her family on Dauphin Island that June, and returned to New Orleans just before July 4th.

By August I had train tickets, and I was off to Chicago. It was during this trip that I started writing a blog, hoping to capture my personal experience as it happened. After a few wonderful days there, I was on my way to New York City. I found NYC to be different from Chicago, but what stood out to me the most was that despite how many people were crowding the streets, I still felt lonely. That feeling stayed with me there, and followed me home. I stopped writing the blog.

In September, I met someone at a friend's birthday party. Soon after, we started seeing each other. She was everything I liked in a partner: smart, creative, nerdy, dresses up nicely, great taste in food and movies, curly black hair, drop dead gorgeous, and she liked spending time with me. We would spend time doing nothing, just enjoying each other's company. Some nights we'd cook and watch a movie. Although Initially physical, within a few months, all pretense of that stopped. My romantic feelings were unwanted, and I was being pushed away. Regretfully, I didn't respect her boundaries as well as I could have. While I feel like there were mixed signals in the beginning, I couldn't help but have feelings for her, despite her telling me not to have them. I couldn't be with someone in that way without having feelings for them. That's not how my heart and mind work. However, she wasn't about that. And... I miss her, and whatever closeness I once had with her. We still talk now, but without urgency or importance, and I fear that I'll be forgotten about some day.

Suffice it to say, I needed to not have another mental breakdown. So I talked to my therapist, worked some things out. Here I am now, my needs still unmet. It's been difficult to progress without slipping into the same cycle I've been experiencing for decades. I hope in the future, I'll find a way to communicate my feelings better.

So get out there and love someone. You never know.

#travel blogging #why i stopped writing #personal #blog #feelings

[thelastadventureblog]

i love how delusional some articles of clothing are, like you read the tag and its like “hand wash only/tumble dry on low” son you are a cotton tshirt. youre going in the warsh and whatever happens in there is in gods hands

[thelastadventureblog]

Inside Union Station

#union station #chicago #travel blog #solotravel #amtrak #travel blogging

[thelastadventureblog]

Ahh. That's a mood right there.

@mkvx

[thelastadventureblog]

Chapter 5: Be Gay do Crime

7:25 AM

In Arcola, IL, I catch a glimpse of a mural the reads "The train they call the New Orleans". Now why would they go and do a thing like that?

7:45 AM

I have breakfast (sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich with coffee and apple juice) with Miss Cynthia. We talk about how green Illinois seems to be. She muses that they must be growing, corn, wheat, soy, and milo. Some 60 people board the train in Homewood. We both spy some Mennonites coming aboard. She mentions that she had a great cheese in kansas made by Mennonites. This is not the first time she mentioned cheese. Last night she asked if I've ever had limburger before. I hadn't. I'm curious what it tastes like.

8:10 AM

Cynthia chuckles as she informs me that her sister has just passed us on a train heading to Mississippi. That's where Cynthia currently lives. Though she did live in Wyoming for 7 years. She's been all over.

It was supposed to be a surprise visit from her sister, but they'll both miss each other. I wonder how many people I cross paths with on a daily basis. How many souls that I don't get to meet. I think about the few loves I've had in my life and if I've ever been in the same place and time again and never known it. I bid Miss Cynthia a fond farewell and return to my seat.

10:15 AM

Chicago at last! Expertly placed graffiti welcomes us from atop a distant apartment building. It reads "Be Gay Do Crime".

Upon entering Union Station, I get the sense of feeling incredibly small. I am taken away by the space I find myself. The station drips with an oppulent majestry, even if it is, at least for the most part, form without function. I'm curious if time has only made it feel more like this with people taking the train less over the years. I don't know why they wouldn't want to. Train is a great way to travel. Not only is it more economical than an airplane, it's more environmentally friendly than flying and traveling by car. Perhaps a train just isn't fast enough. Great for sightseeing though.

I pause, stopping momentarily to get my bearings, and to take in the size of the place. At my feet lay large marble tiles. The floors are dotted with rows of gorgeous oak pews. The arched ceilings seemed to stretch on forever. An American flag looms at the back, reminding visiters that they are still in the land of the free.

#amtrak #solotravel #travel blog #travel blogging #the last adventurer #chicago #union station

[thelastadventureblog]

Chapter 4: Ghosts

Tuesday, August 16th 2022

6:45 AM

We arrive at Effingham, IL. The hazy morning sun wakes me from an uneven and agonized sleep. We gain a few more passengers and set off once more. Farmland stretches as far as the eye can see. It's really quite beautiful to see all of this greenery. The bulk of this ride has been filled with images of dying old rural communities with crumbling infrastructure and abandoned industrial buildings where even the ghosts grew bored and left.

7:01 AM

We get a flat. Just kidding. Trains don't have tires. I'm just checking to see if you're still alive.

7:05 AM

It occurs to me that the windows have gathered more dirt since leaving Memphis, but I think this is just regular dirt this time.

7:09 AM

The train made a sudden stop under an overpass. Okay... and we are moving again. Not sure what that was about.

7:12 AM

Oh. That was apparently a train platform. Amtrak must be building up new infrastructure, because most of these stops so far have been at roadside stalls with no stations in sight. I did, however, manage to see spools of wire, piping, and bricks strewn about. Shame they had to tear down the old buildings though.

#train travel #travel blog #amtrak #travel blogging #rural landscape #america the beautiful

[thelastadventureblog]

Chapter 3: The Layover

5:00 PM

We arrive in Jackson, MS for a one hour break to board more passengers. I make my way back to my assigned seat as Toad Woman is leaving to take a smoke break. She comes back some time later to complain about drink prices, then leaves again to smoke another cigarette outside.

5:57 PM

It is clear that someone has lit a joint. We're all getting high on this ride tonight.

5:58 PM

TW is from Kansas apparently. Just a little fun fact while we wait for a delinquent engineer to arrive. I wonder if dinner will be served, or if I have to get more pre-packaged food from the cafe. Truthfully, I am fine either way.

6:37 PM

Someone farted.

6:52 PM

I have now spent more time in Jackson, MS than I've ever wanted to. I texted a few friends, and before I knew it, we were heading off again. This was great for many reasons. Namely, and immediately for me, it's great because the passengers had become irritable and restless. I guess they've never had to wait for a bus in New Orleans. TW got snippy with one of the complainers-- apparently a woman who does a lot of traveling-- who took issue with the long, unexpected layover. "We're on a train, dumbass!" she croaked. I don't know if she heard her, or even what the totality of that statement meant, but the well-traveled woman kept quiet after that.

7:09 PM

I'm pretty sure that this going to get me sick. She keeps coughing without covering her mouth. I can already feel a tickle in my throat.

7:30 PM

Dinner is a pre-packaged buffalo chicken wrap from the cafe car. I eat it while eavesdropping on an interview being conducted a row over. When it was over, I handed those people business cards, because of course I do. Even when I'm on vacation I'm still doing work things.

8:17 PM

I have lost track of time talking to a wonderful human being named Cynthia. She's going to Wichita, Kansas and changes trains in Chicago. She has kids there in Chicago too. Her son was the first black Engineer for Amtrak, she tells me. Pretty cool! Like usual, the conversation turns to food. We discuss my disdain for American style goulash, and how the only way to remedy that horrid dish is to try and make it as close to the original Hungarian verson as possible. Eventually, the conversation moves away from food and towords climate change. We agree that it will only get worse and that we should have made the change to alternative sources of fuel some 50 years ago. A little negative, but I don't think too unrealistic. I tell her that Canadian money smells like maple syrup and she laughs. That's true, or so I've been told. I cannot confirm. We laugh a lot. She's high spirited and kind. I enjoyed her company.

9:20 PM

The train is starting to rock her to sleep. I'll leave her alone now

#travel blogging #amtrak #travel by train #blogging #travel blog #vacation #meeting new people

[thelastadventureblog]

Lonely peanut butter.

#peanut butter #food in weird places #lonely food #amtrak #travel by train #the last adventurer

[thelastadventureblog]

Chapter 2: Don't Stop Believing

3:02 PM

I squeezed past the toad woman, and made my way to the dining car. I walked the three shaky segments away toward the middle of the train. Heading down stairs, I ordered a beer and a cheeseburger. After I acquired my food, I went back up and sat at a window-facing seat in the dining/observation deck. Despite having a full train, most of the seats were available in this car, except for a seat where a man was quietly strumming a sleepy ukulele.

3:25 PM

McComb, Mississippi. A few more people boarded the train. Nothing much to note here. Barren and uncared for, the train was quick to depart again for a more interesting vista.

3:41 PM

I gathered enough courage to ask the quiet man if I could film him. He shyly agreed. I whipped my phone out and filmed him as he played his instrument. He hummed along to his music, which seemed to be of his own creation. Nothing I recognized anyway. I thanked him for playing, and I asked the gentleman his name. He told me his name was Carlos. For a short, yet informative while, we talked about Chicago. Things to do, and places to see. I told him that there was a museum of torture devices that was really piquing my interest. He'd never heard of it, but wondered if somehow there were remnants of the Chicago World's Fair there. I guess I'll have to see.

Carlos himself grew up in the suburbs there, but didn't speak much more about about it. At this point he started jamming out to "Hey Oh" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers on his uke. What a cool guy. Not a worry or care in the world.

4:11 PM

Carlos plays "Don't Stop Believing". I still like him though.

4:27 PM

I stare at my reflection in the dust covered window. That grimey little bit of New Orleans that wants to cling to everything. I consider that grime a right of passage, in a way. You don't get to leave New Orleans without it. And I'll proudly take it with me wherever I go. A person may drown their sorrows, but they'll never, for better or worse, wash away the filth. A baptism in mud. It digs in deep and sneaks under your first layer of skin. But for some, the ones that keep coming back, that call this river of mud their home, it's more than skin deep.

#amtrak #peoplewatching #travelblog

#neworleanslife

#Mississippi #amtrak #travel #vacation #making friends #ukulele #carlos was so cool #blog #travel blog

[thelastadventureblog]

Chapter 1: Emergency Exit

Monday, August 15th 2022

9:23 AM

The melatonin gummy the night before helped prepare me for a more restful sleep. Not a full 8 hours, but I'll take a solid 6 anytime. Max came down and made me a cup of hot coffee. I returned the favor by making the boys some oatmeal. Joey took his with cinnamon, brown sugar, hemp seeds, and bee pollen. That was mostly my doing. Though I think he apreciated my unique accoutrements.

11:07 AM

My nerves are softening a bit. I know I'll be fine on the train, but that wait is something. The weeks and days leading up to this has been nerve wracking for me. It's always like this for some reason.

12:45 PM

Heading to the Amtrak Station now. Everything seems to be going smoothly so far.

1:06 PM

A train conductor hopped on the speaker system to make an announcement. This was him making the call for passengers to board the train. Or, so I thought. What he said was this: "Can I have your attention? Can I have your attention? Ahem. I hate the Cowboys! That is all." The sitting passengers roared with laughter. Then a family stood up and defiantly waved around a Dallas Cowboys blanket to boos and laughter. All in good jest, of course. New Orleanians are actually gracious hosts to rival teams, even the ones that win.

1:20 PM

Upon boarding the train, a woman with a voice as smooth as gravel yelled at me to go "up, up!" onto the train. "I'm going up, Lady! Don't yell at me. I don't' even know you."

Naturally, she was assigned to sit next to me. She smelled of stale cigarettes and booze. So far, I can't imagine being friends. Unable to read my mind she croaks out "I guess we're friends now."

1:27 PM

Her phone jingles with each incoming text. She reads each message aloud in her croaking tone.

1:40 PM

She mumbles something about smoking. Then tells one of her 3 kids that its not even cold on the train and she'll cut those damn hoodies off if she has to. She bought them after all, and she says she'll feel pretty good about it too.

1:43 PM

Lord this woman is a disaster. She catches a whiff of someone's lunch--a teriyaki chicken sandwich from Subway-- and claims that she's about to throw up. I believe her.