Category: Like Life

My year in cities, 2025

More sweet, sweet travel.

Overnight stays in 2025:

Plus four nights in transit by train.

Urban railfanning in PA-NJ

Inspired in part by posts by Classy Whale and Trains Are Awesome, I drove up to the Philadelphia metro to ride some transit services that were new to me.

diesel light railquick shotOn Friday, starting from Trenton, I rode the River Line light rail to Camden to connect to PATCO for a short hop to Philadelphia. Hmm, the heat in my River Line car didn’t seem to be working. While there are plans to renovate/redevelop it, the Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden is, right now, nothing short of a dump.

one of the seasonsI closed the loop with a SEPTA train back to Trenton. The tile mosaic in Jefferson Station is stunning.

thanks for ridingwaiting and fullSaturday was a bit more enjoyable. Starting from Trenton again, I rode New Jersey Transit’s (NJT) Trenton line to Newark Penn Station, switched to a PATH train and rode it as far as Exchange Place.

view thru light snowlight snowA quick snap of the New York Financial District in some light snow that followed the overnight wintry mix, and then I was off to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail station.

you are hereyour are here (closer detail)During my 10-minute wait in the chilly weather, I glanced at the rather fine historical map built into the Exchange Place station platform. (I’m still looking for some information about this map.)

not so poshlast one for the tripThe HBLR took me to Hoboken Terminal, where I boarded an NJT train that ran all of two stops to Newark Broad Street. From there, the third of NJT’s light rail systems, the Newark Light Rail, took me back to Newark Penn Station. Completing my round trip on the Trenton line, I was back to Dr. Hardtacks and headed for home.

Hoboken Terminal is a place of drafty, broken grandeur. Flooding from Superstorm Sandy didn’t help the situation. Some stained glass remains, and the vintage benches are still serviceable, but a renovation (also planned) cries out to become reality.

Something the video bloggers don’t talk about much is how much time you spend waiting. Since I was traveling on Saturday, I had a bad connection at Hoboken Terminal and laid over for almost two hours. Fortunately there are two coffee and donut shops still operating there.

In Newark, my first return train was cancelled. There were lots of delays on Amtrak and elsewhere posted on the departure boards, no doubt due in part to the winter storm.

Meterstones, 2025

Small accomplishments during the year, not otherwise accounted for. Not major milestones, but bigger than inchstones.

  • I completed 1000 hours of service as a Virginia Master Naturalist.
  • I repainted my front door, using a color match of the paint under the kickplate: alas, my cluster association palette calls for a paint color no longer offered by any vendor. My paint job looks OK from the curb, but not that great close up.
  • I’m wrapping up my fifth Christmas Bird Count (CBC) as a sector leader in the Seneca count circle.
  • I earned a Grognard Mirabilaire badge with Wikipedia. Still no barnstars.

Meterstones, 2024

Small accomplishments during the year, not otherwise accounted for. Not major milestones, but bigger than inchstones.

  • I took on new responsibilities for Virginia Native Plant Society.
  • I resumed working in community theater, stage managing Dance Nation for Silver Spring Stage and Kindertransport (in rehearsal) for Rockville Little Theatre. Much waiting in traffic to cross the Cabin John bridge.
  • After trips to three different shops and a returned online order, I found the right replacement halogen bulb for my bedside lamp. After multiple trips to local stores, I bought a $7 (+ shipping) threaded rod from McMaster-Carr and successfully repaired a chair from IKEA (model long discontinued) that I’ve had since I moved into this house.

My year in cities, 2024

Moar travel!

Overnight stays in 2024:

On deck: 27

another on deck picThe shelf was getting a little unbalanced toward fiction, so I ordered some new titles and now it looks like back-to-school time. Still not keeping up with Kate Atkinson.

During 45’s term, I reread Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy. I wonder what would be a good palliative read this time around.

Postcards from Ohio: October 2024

I made another road trip to Dayton and environs, primarily to inspect new memorials for Mom, and secondarily to see… stuff.

the bench in its settingthe plaqueMom’s new bench in Stillwater Prairie Reserve is looking quite sharp, although it appears that the plaque has already acquired a bit of scratchiti.

Also spotted at Stillwater were several Eastern Fox Squirrels (Sciurus niger).

where am I?In Greene County, I walked Sibenthaler Fen and Russ Nature Reserve. I do like a well-executed trail post. The lat-long is a nice touch.

I'll get the next oneheading downtownSome transit geekery: I rode the Cincinnati streetcar up to Findlay Market for a spot of lunch.

As for Cincinnati’s two connector expressways linking I-75 and I-71, the short Norwood Lateral (Ohio 562) might be the only freeway in the country whose control cities on the big green signs are the same at each end, namely, Norwood, because that’s the only place the freeway goes. On the other hand, Ohio 126 is only signed Ronald Reagan Highway—because it won’t take you anywhere useful, mayhaps? Ohio 126 smooshed property values on Mom’s condo when the road was built to Reading Road.

my ride's herenext busAnd I rode Dayton’s 4 bus downtown, with a return on the 7. The 4 was running trolleys and diesels, while the 2 and 7 were only diesels. I rode bus #1958, pictured at left; in the photo at right of bus #2064, the trolley poles are easier to see. There are no trolley wires at the end the the 7’s run, but the new hybrid equipment allows the driver to “drop the poles” for a stretch. Downtown I saw buses on the 8 doing that.

worth a shotI tried this place for dinner, and it was pretty good. I broke my vegetarianism to sample goetta.

Forte

Linda Holmes nails it in her response to Apple’s crass iPad advertisement.

But these are not practical items to begin with. Nobody owns a piano because it’s practical; it’s about the least practical thing you can own. It can wreck your floor. It goes out of tune. And if you happen to get a new place, you don’t just need movers for it; you may need special movers. You don’t own a piano to get from point A to point B in the most direct way you can. You own a piano for the reason we had one in my house: a person plays it. Someone sits down, as my mother did, and plays the “Maple Leaf Rag,” and you can hear the pedals lightly squeak, and you can watch hands skitter across keys, and of course you are listening to music — but also, those are your mother’s hands.

In my case, the piano’s owner was Leta and the player was Grandmother Madeline.

And in my case, the piano was in the Northern Michigan University dormitory lounge and the player was Audrey from Rockford, Ill., and the song was indeed “Maple Leaf Rag.”

My year in cities, 2023

Finally some out of state travel!

Overnight stays in 2023:

Plus four nights in transit by train and plane. All told, I was on the road 26 nights. How ’bout that?

California Zephyr 2023

A few snaps aboard Amtrak train 5, the California Zephyr, from Chicago to Sacramento via Denver and Salt Lake City.

climbingClimbing the mountains along South Boulder Creek, Gilpin County, Colorado.

through the divideHaving crossed the Continental Divide via the Moffat Tunnel, we’re now following the Fraser River downhill to its confluence with the Colorado.

somewhere on the downslopeUhh, somewhere on the Colorado River, still in the state of Colorado. (I failed to save my GPS fix.)

basin and rangeAnd the next morning, having crossed Utah in the dark, here we are in Churchill County, Nevada, northeast of Reno.

Good food on both Amtrak trains (the Zephyr and the Capitol Limited). After three days you sort of get used to the bumpy ride. The Capitol Limited was 45 minutes late into Chicago (largely due to an automated systems failure at CSX); the Zephyr was two and a half hours late into Sacramento (late start due to two different cars that needed to be swapped out; amplified by an unplanned detour through the Union Pacific yards at Reno). Better than I expected!