mage of an egg. “This is your brain”. Crack the egg and dump it into a skillet “This is your brain in downtown West Palm Beach.” Sizzles. “Get the picture?”

My buddy Pete F got some Brightline tickets (I don’t wanna know where), good for two seats from Orlando International to West Palm Beach (this high speed rail goes all the way to Miami). So we drove out and went into their sleek space port – I mean railroad station, waited in comfortable seats and were eventually permitted to enter our coach. While there was lots of leg room (and either seats don’t go back or there is a higher class of people aboard (yes, “Go Greyhound”, you dirtballs!)) but otherwise they were pretty comfortable. Well, a little narrow, perhaps (or possibly Pete was a little wide). Regardless, it was a good start to an interesting day trip across Florida.

The only problem with the view is that they wrapped the train in ad-wrap for Adventist Health, which pictures smiling people who aren’t dealing with the same billing offices I am. And worse, it makes looking out of the train a little restrictive since everything is covered with a cloudy hue. If I wanted a “cloudy hue”, I would have taken a plane, no?

The blogger and the train he would ride out on. Lots of bugs on this baby! (Photo: Pete F. Like, who else?)

But as fast as a plane, we rolled out, trundled through airport property, got on the high rail and quickly ramped up to 110 mph. I’ll say this – that long haul when driving out to east coast train ops just blurs by. If the average traffic is 75 mph, we are passing them at 35 mph gain-speed. Posh! We got onto FEC rail as we turned south along the coast, but one of my bucket list items (actually see a real FEC engine) was a fail. We blurred by other trains but that hardly counted. So no joy for that.

Once we got to West Palm Beach, Pete and I wandered over to the Amtrak station a couple of cracked, abandoned blocks away, not a big deal except that this if Florida in late May and we were walking across the surface of the sun. We got to the station – a little wet – and watched a couple of Amtraks and Metrorails come and go. We got food in a small fry pit inside the old station – witnessed the dumbest customer I’ve ever seen.

So this rotund couple come in right behind us. “I want the twenty wing combo” she demands. The cook: “Ma’am, all we got is ten wing combos”. “But I want twenty wings. How are we supposed to eat ten?” “Well, you could get two ten-wing combos.” “I don’t want two ten wing combos. I want a twenty wing combo!” And that went on for a minute more until she left in an outstandingly ignorant huff. Talk about pride in idiocy.

While there, I was literally “bum-rushed”; everyone was coming and begging. Pete would just give him that “Evil New York eye” and they’d leave him alone. Me, I’d give them explanations and they were humping my pants legs for money. Pay for my lunch. I need train fair. Man, they were either actively pitching or sprawling on shady sidewalks and benches. Time for the black marias.

After that, we baked our way back to the Brightline station. There wasn’t a lot of action there and, now having looked at google, there was an interesting pub just across the street (Doh!). After enough baking, we decided to hang around inside. I did get security-checked – I found that surprising. Oh, and we saw Patrick Goddard come in – the president of Brightline, who was riding south to Miami. Let’s see David Calhoun ride a Boeing plane, eh?

The trip back was so amazing Pete and I conked out. However, just as we left FEC tracks, I did see a pair of FEC engines so scratch that one off the list. Quick dinner and then over to the club where I spent another six hours keeping the children from tussling.

Thanks, Pete, for a great day!

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