Introduction


June 30, 2021

My destination: Anagance Ridge, New Brunswick, Canada

After the pandemic year of 2020, in which most travel was discouraged/prohibited, by early summer 2021, things were looking better, and I wanted to make good on my promise to Caroline to help her build her new garage and cabin. If I could get myself into New Brunswick somewhere, she agreed to come pick me up. For a number of reasons, I find myself on an Amtrak train, rolling from Emeryville, California, to, eventually, hopefully, Boston, Massachusetts, with a change of trains in Chicago. From Boston, I’d get a bus to the Maine/New Brunswick border and walk across, meeting Caroline on the other side in the town of St. Stephen. Amtrak’s Emeryville to Chicago route is called the California Zephyr.  Our train consisted of an engine (thankfully), a baggage car, two sleeper cars, a dining car, an observation/lounge/snack bar car, and two coach cars, in that order. I was assigned a seat in the second coach car, the last car of the train. I boarded the train around 9am and about 20 minutes later, we were speeding past our apartment in Berkeley.  My journey had begun.

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