Non-Trip Report

Well, that was a revoltin’ development.  Because of the storm that hit California the other day and is now around eastern Missouri and southern Illinois (at least that’s the reason I was given), Amtrak decided to just cancel today’s westbound Texas Eagle with no alternate transportation.  The woman at the Amtrak ticket counter was very nice, but the best that she could offer me was the family room on tomorrow’s train.  I decided to just cancel the whole trip.

So I won’t be attending the Southwestern Rail Conference after all.  My next trip that includes some train rides will be to Varna, Bulgaria the second and third weeks in June.

Travel to Japan

It turns out that there will be some meetings in Tokyo next March that I should probably attend somehow.  At present, I expect that I’ll just Zoom in because I wouldn’t want to sit in an airplane long enough to get there:  what seems to be the shortest flight, from Vancouver, BC to Haneda Airport, takes a bit over ten hours.  It’s too soon to be making firm travel plans since the trip is still almost a year away; but I’m wondering whether anybody can suggest some other options that I can mull over for a while.

I’m retired, so I don’t care how long the total trip would take.  I see that there are cruise ships between North America and Japan.  Another option might involve taking trains from Western Europe to the east coast of Asia and flying from there; and maybe I should ride the trans-Siberian train before I die. 😎

Hmm…