On to New Orleans: Sunset Limited

Friday morning. It’s like a time capsule - being set back a couple of decades: train travel in the U.S.A. This time we took the Sunset Limited ( Los Angeles to New Orleans) to get from San Antonio to „The Big Easy“, New Orleans Awake at 4:20, up by 4:45 am, took an Uber to the railroad station (in the old days we would have walked), checked our luggage in in the station building (photo). Train was already standing there for hours and departed on time, at 6:25 am. 

The coach class car - where we had booked seats - was full and therefore (though seats are pretty spacious and comfy), we decided soon to move on to the lounge car, with an observation level to get out of the smelly, dark atmosphere of our car. From sunrise on, we were sitting there, enjoying the views, the airy atmosphere and - strangely! - not too many other people around. There were outlets for laptop/phone, though still today AMTRAK seems to be ignorant of modern amenities like WiFi. While there was free internet in the small San Antonio station, there is none on the train and none in the Houston railroad station (pic far below). 

We spent one hour in Houston and got out to exercise our legs a bit, to check out the train (1 baggage, 1 sleeper, 1 dining, 1 lounge/observation, 1 coach car) and the station building. A food truck with Mexican food was appealing, but since we had a backpack full of different goodies from IPW, we denied.

 

Cattle and vast pastures when we left San Antonio, huge industrial areas around Houston, then slowly getting more of a „Louisiana feeling“. Beaumont, Texas, almost on the border to Louisiana - a lot of oil and other industries. Then, rice fields coming up, which are lateron flooded and used as crawfish ponds. Towards the east rice is superseded by sugar cane, which is about 10-15 inches high by now. 

Only good memories when we stopped in Lafayette/Louisiana - where we have been at a grandiose music festival once - and in New Iberia (pic below), where good friends of us live(d) and where we stayed many times. Oil industry, swamps, rivers, little towns and (Afroamerican) settlements along the tracks, crossing the Atchafalaya River (below) At 8 pm it became dark, and it got a bit boring (or: we got really tired).

Train was slowly crawling into the New Orleans metro area, for whatever reason, and, we arrived about 1/2 hour late - no big deal with Amtrak! Despite old trains with outdated bathrooms, this train trip was in total more convenient and relaxing than a flight would have been, and, cheaper as well.

Arrived to the Higgins Hotel in New Orleans at around 10:30 pm - it's been a long day for sure, and, a shower was in high demand as well!