Well.
We pulled into Boston just an hour and a half late, and my great American train trip was finally over. In total, my planned 77 hours of train travel turned into almost 98 hours stuck on the train. Yes, in total, I recorded 21 hours of delay—almost a full day of delays. Though I had planned and expected the timetable to shift, I don't quite think I expected delays of this magnitude.
While the scenery was gorgeous, there really is only so much grassy flatlands or rolling forest that one can look at before getting terribly bored. The trains I rode on had no communications systems, no WiFi, no entertainment, a modicum of food and drink, and were prone to random stoppages and breakdowns. Often, we spent thirty minutes or more with no cellular signal, and once, we even got stooped in a tunnel for more than an hour.
I finished both books I had downloaded on my Kindle, had exhausted my desire to play Angry Birds, had taken more than three thousand photos, and even if I wanted to work I couldn't be very productive as my cell signal cut out every thirty seconds. In the end, I resigned myself to playing music while I stared out the window at the unchanging, unending, undulations of America.