Amtrak Update
As I mentioned in my post on Amtrak last week , there's a whole sub-sub genre of YouTubers who liveblog their Amtrak trips. They aren't really train buffs like I am; they seem just to enjoy the scenery combined with amenities like eating in the dining car or riding in the sleeping cars or business class. This would be perfectly fine, except that Amtrak travel is predictably nightmarish, with trains regularly canceled or running nine or 12 hours late or even longer, with the diner and snack bar out of food, toilets clogged, heat out, and so forth. In that post last week, I mentioned one of the best-known Amtrak YouTube channels, Grounded Life Travel, with the charming couple Allie and Rob, who go ga-ga over the Amtrak long distance trains they ride several times a year on crosss-country trips, often between cruises on opposite coasts. Frankly, this sort of Amtrak travel is high-risk activity. Even Allie and Rob mention oh, by the way, Amtrak canceled the Coast Starlight on t...