Category: Travel

a train trip to miami from orlando

whbeebe
The great train trip from Orlando to Miami

On Tuesday my wife and I traveled on Brightline round trip from Orlando to Miami and back again, all in one day. We traveled down to Miami for her to see a medical specialist at the University of Miami.

We were up by 5am Tuesday morning. I took care of feeding our six cats and two dogs, and we were out the door by 5:30am. We dropped the garage door opener off by the house/animal sitter on the way out of our neighborhood. We arrived at the new Brightline Orlando Station by 6am. We parked right out front of the station, then walked up to the departure area. Getting to the waiting area for the train was totally uneventful. There was none of the airline security theater to deal with. We boarded around 6:35 AM. We were out of the station by 6:50 AM, just like the ticket said.

The trip was uneventful, no interruptions, and we arrived on time. We managed to get to the University of Miami south lobby entrance. Once in we had enough time to eat lunch in the UM cafeteria. When then walked on up to the doctor’s waiting room, and well, waited until my wife’s appointment.

Unfortunately the trip to see this “specialist” was a complete waste of time. The “specialist” wanted to disagree with my wife’s preliminary diagnosis even though three primary doctors here in Orlando (a cardiologist, gastroenterologist, and immunologist) all saying, after eliminating all other causes, that my wife was certain to have this condition, but they wanted a specialist to examine the evidence and my wife. Unfortunately the “specialist” at UM did nothing except inpugn that my wife was doctor shopping. My wife came out angry but unshaken in her doctors up here, and more determined than ever to get to the bottom of what has stricken her, at times violently, since her early teen years. When she informed her Orlando doctors the results, one of them said “enough was enough” and it was time to check in with Mayo up in New York state.

The Brightline trip was twenty minutes late because some idiot driving a car decided they would try to outrun a train at a crossing on the tracks shared with other trains, and so paid the price of stupidity. The other train (not Brightline) was held and the tracks closed as a consequence, until FHP cleaned up the mess. No word on the fate of the automobile driver. We didn’t arrive back in Orlando until almost 9 PM.

The Brightline trains are new and comfortable, far better than riding on Amtrak here in Florida. The seating was comfortable, and the cars we rode on were clean and bright. The stations are all brand new and have the same look as an airport. The Orlando Brightline station is, in fact, immediately south of Orlando International Airport (see the map above). The one-way price right now is $50, but I managed to get a coupon in the mail that trimmed off $10, so my round trip cost was $80. You can bring luguage just like an airline, but since ours was just a day-trip, I brought everything I needed in my backpack, while my wife had a small half-size wheeled carryon. One amenity we both appreciated were all the easily accessible AC plugins at every seat. This allowed us to keep our devices fully charged. Decent WiFi is also available in each care, which I used to conduct a bit of work. Because it was a very long day I mostly rested both ways.

If I have to travel around the southern half of Florida I will either drive or take Brightline. I hate to fly and will avoid it whenever possible. There is no airline I want to fly on, and certainly no Boeing aircraft I’m willing to set foot on today. Brightline is excellent, but even if Brightline wasn’t, I’d still ride Brightline rather than fly.

a trip to atlanta to visit my parents

whbeebe2 Comments

After over three years of being unable to travel due to the coronavirus pandemic and other personal issues, I finally drove north to see my parents in Atlanta from Orlando.

I drove on a Sunday, a day I picked because it wasn’t a weekday. It took between eight and nine hours to drive the distance between my home in Florida to my parents home in Lilburn, Ga. That’s a distance of at least 450 miles. As usual, Apple maps grossly miscalculated the time on the road to get to my parent’s home, predicting a mere 6 hours 29 minutes to cover the distance. Never mind time lost due to the pee stops. Never mind having to sit in traffic at the innumerable traffic slowdowns due to accidents on I-75, or the really big traffic snarl between Macon and south Atlanta on I-75 that forced me to spend an additional $2.50 on the express lane running parallel to that section of I-75. I followed the express lane up to I-675 and then I-285 to finally reach my parents home. I have no idea why traffic was that bad on that section of I-75 on a Sunday afternoon, but it was horrid.

One of the delays in my travel was trying to find lunch down in Valdosta, Ga, after I crossed the Florida/Georgia border. It was 1pm, so I thought, why not, the lines and waits at any of the fast food places shouldn’t be long. Boy was I wrong. I stopped at four different fast food places only to find the lines snaking out the doors and filled with what I’ll assume were college students and young families. All this on a Sunday afternoon.

I finally ate lunch at a Sonny’s, spending $15 (tax + tip) on a Big Deal. I’ve long been a Sonny’s patron for forty years, when they first opened near Atlanta, but my patronage may come to an end. I remember Big Deals as being a big deal; meat piled high on your bun, with three sides which included fries. Now, the meat (pulled chicken in my case) barely covered the bun, and the french fries are an extra. I got enough to eat, and the food was good, but the days of inexpensive dining that I remember at Sonny’s are long gone.

On the way out of Valdosta I stopped at a Circle K (strange things are afoot at the Circle K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DsFMJQHbMs ) and tanked up for the second half of my trek northward. The gas prices are all above $4/gallon everywhere, a price this high I haven’t seen since the early 2010s. While standing at the pump waiting for my car to fill, the pump started playing ads complete with crappy audio. I can ignore the visual part, the the audio I can’t, and it’s a truly annoying experience. Except this time, someone had written, in Sharpie, next to one of the buttons, the word “mute.” I immediately pressed that button, and blessed silence ensued. To that unknown person who wrote that, bless you. I finished filling my car in blessed silence.

I made it to my parents’ home, had a bit of supper with everyone, and then crashed out for the night. The trip took more out of me than I expected. I guess that’s to be expected when you’re 68 and haven’t commuted anywhere in over two years due to retirement. I managed to stay fully alert due to the terrors of driving up I-75. There are a lot of crazy folks driving these days. I now spend three days with my parents, and then get to drive back to Orlando, experiencing the joy of driving on the open road in America. Lucky me.