 Riding the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner in CA 2020 With my Walkman in one hand and my train ticket in another, I ran down the track as fast as I could. My backpack was shuffling from side to side and my headphones were tangling my hair into a wad of wire, but I didn’t care and it didn't matter. Despite my best efforts, I missed the train. It was dusk and, besides the cluster of pigeons, I was the only one on the track. And to be honest, I didn’t quite know where I was; somewhere on the Bordeaux coast of France. I walked back up to the booth and the attendant told me in half French and half English how the next train to Barcelona wasn't arriving until the morning. I was in a town that I had not planned for and it was both scary and exhilarating. Being my first backpacking trip around Europe, I had only read about these unexpected moments, the ones where how you react reveals what kind of traveler you are. There was no one to help me, but me. It was 2011 so cell phones were not a travel tool at this point; I had a tattered map and my Lonely Planet guidebook. The town was very dark. I had no idea where I was or, really, who I was at that age, but I knew that I had to keep walking. Navigating dark streets in search of the hostel was its own type of adventure and when they said it was full, I felt gut-punched. I was directed to a nearby hotel that had 1 star from LP and I didn’t care. I entered the room and practically passed out with my backpack on. When I woke up, the sun was shining through the most colorful panes of stained glass; a welcoming sign that I was going to be ok. I recalculated my Euro points, got a strong cup of espresso and was early for the morning train. When I walked down the same stairs and onto the same track I had been on just hours before, I was not the same tangled girl. I was now a traveler who reveled in the unexpected. I jumped onto the train and pushed play on my Walkman. I journeyed up the coast of France into Spain. What started out as a summer backpacking trip turned into a year and a half of living abroad. From rolling fields in Germany to the coast of Spain and whizzing through people's backyards in Austria; I loved sleeping in bunks with strangers who, with the help of booze and card games, became travel friends. Watching a full moon dip in and out of mountaintops from the window of my sleeper car as we crossed into Croatia and then waking up to border patrol banging at my door demanding to see my passport was exhilarating. Every time I stepped onto a train, I knew something interesting was going to happen, and even though I was traveling solo - everywhere I went - my Walkman was with me. Prior to leaving on my Euro trip, I burned about 30 CDs ranging from Bob Dylan to Tupac. I put them in a blue CD wallet and depending on the mood, flipping through my scribble of titles, I would choose the moment’s tune. My go to was always STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector 9), an electro jazz band from Santa Cruz whom I first fell for in college; and they are the only band I have roadtripped all over the country for. From Maine to New Mexico and all the way to Red Rocks, I have seen them close to 90 times. I guess you could say they're my closest and most consistent travel companions. Their album "Artifact" is a musical journey that is spiritual and uplifting and, for some reason, always seems to match the way I feel when traveling. When I was on a train traveling up the coast of Vietnam, Artifact played and this time not on a skipping CD but a digital album on my phone. That train trip was so cool because of how different the culture is there. We traveled through lush jungles, stopping in small towns where locals would sell us food and coffee through the windows. I took a sleeper car one night and when I arrived in Hanoi, it was dawn. I wandered the streets and with every step fell in love with the city. Watching shop owners sweeping was poetic to me, and so was a woman performing tai chi - it was so peaceful, I cried. As I write this Field Note from my spacious Pacific Surfliner Amtrak train car, in part due to the pandemic and also in part because I'm almost at the end of the line, STS9 is playing. From my window I see kids jumping along the surf, silhouetted by the setting sun, and while Sound Tribe’s song “Somesing” bursts through my headphones like rays of light, my love for train trips and all the correlating memories are ablaze. While in quarantine for so long, the memories were repressed and the feeling of going anywhere started to feel impossible. But tonight, I feel reinvigorated and my wanderlust to see more by train has been activated. Sound Tribe hits differently the older I get, but when I listen to them while riding a train, I always feel young. I feel like that girl running down the track - running to find herself.  STS9 at the El Ray in Albuquerque, NM
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