Bonus Episode: Train Traveling from LA to Boston!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm checking my chuck check check check. Okay, we're good.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hey, everybody, welcome to a bonus episode of the Ready
to Retro podcast. I am your host, Max, and joining
me today is my lovely wife, Jasmine.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hey, Ready to Retro.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
So just a few housekeeping real quick. We've been a
little delayed this month. It is December. We are doing
holiday movies, but it's the holidays, so it's been hard
to schedule and to get everything down. But I am
so happy to announce that we're gonna to be doing
a eight Crazy Nights review and a Home Alone two review,

(01:05):
So we have some special guests for that, so stay
tuned for that. But today we wanted to talk about
something a little different. Jasmine and I had a super
awesome trip that we wanted to share with everybody. I
don't know if you want to listen to this, but
you might find it interesting as you are doing your
workout or cleaning, or doing your daily commute to work

(01:27):
right now. So Jasmine, let's tell the people I'm Ready
to Retro what we did just I guess it was
a few weeks ago. I guess it was about what
six weeks ago? Yeah, seems a little longer.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah it does. Well, it's about a month ago that
we were heading out. So we did what is really
a very retro thing, and that is that we took
a cross country train trip. We sure did. Yeah, I mean,
how much more old school can you really get than
train travel? I think maybe covered wagon. But we didn't

(02:01):
want to do that. I know, if you can do
that anymore, why would you want to really? Not even
the homis to do that anymore, which we we learned.
Maybe we could talk about that a little later. Okay,
a weird segue there, but yeah, we took a train
trip and we saw like miles and miles and miles
of this beautiful country that we live in.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
So tell the peeps where where's our final destination? Where
we take off from?

Speaker 1 (02:31):
All right? Well, we left from Los Angeles, California, and
traveled with many stops along the way, all the way
to the very beautiful city of Boston, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes, pretty far. This was the middle to end of October. Yea,
so we were.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
The best time to travel, by the way, Well, we think,
no objectively? Object objectively yes, okay, mid to late October time. Sure,
do you want to share why you disagree? Max oh,
just because.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's like football and spooky stuff. But it is beautiful.
It is a good time to travel. It's the downtime.
Jasmin tell the listeners how we got to this place
and explain what the rail passes. The Amtrak rail Pass.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Absolutely. So we were tossing around ideas for our vacation.
We had already taken the time off. We just didn't
really know what we were going to do, and we'd
been kind of mulling on it. And one day Max
says to me, Hey, what about a train trip? And
interestingly enough, I had already been thinking about that and
done a little bit of research. So we kind of

(03:39):
put our heads together and thought, well, we like this idea,
Let's see what's out there. And we discovered the Amtrak
USA rail Pass and found our means to go.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
So what that is. It's for a thirty day pass. Essentially,
it's ten legs, ten stops that you can do within
a thirty day. You could do that all in one day,
or you can do it spread out.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I guess you could do it in one day. I
don't know why you would, but you could. Maybe can
you get to ten places beyond?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Like? Yeah, I guess anyways, So there's some restrictions on it,
so you can't travel outside of the United States, so
this doesn't include Canada. And it's not a sleeper car.
So as I've told people about the trip that I took,
everybody wants to know is it a sleeper car, And
we'll talk about that a little later. But you're able

(04:39):
to travel as much as you want, as far as
you want to go in thirty days for five hundred dollars.
And we were looking at that and we were like, well,
there's no way we can travel to We ended up
being in eight different cities, major cities, like some of
the biggest cities in our nation. And there's no way

(05:00):
we could travel eight times like that in five hundred dollars. No,
not even close five hundred dollars each, right, so yeah,
but still one thousand dollars. There's no way.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
There's no other way, not on a road trip, not
in right plane.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, no, not even with lodging and things like that.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Well watching isn't included, right.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
No, But I'm just saying, but we did spend some
nights on the train, which actually kind of save money
in certain aspects. So as far as like traveling for
bang of your buck.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
The rail passes where it's at it's legit.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
And apparently it used to be like two hundred dollars,
two hundred and fifty dollars right after the pandemic. So
I would say do it now because I'm sure it.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Will go up.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
It won't ever drop. I don't see it ever dropping
from five hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
So I do think they have sales maybe like once
a year where it's four hundred, but I wouldn't ever
hit that pandemic level. Anyway. This is all as of
the time of this recording. You can research it when
you're listening to this. We definitely recommend the option, though, definitely.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
So let's talk about the map and the routes we
took and how we decided to go where we were
going to go so jaz and why don't you tell
the listeners kind of our route and which city we
stayed in, all that good stuff.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
All right, here we go. I think we should post
maybe like a written itinerary for people who want to
know too, but you can follow along with your ears.
For now, I'll put it in the show notes. How
about that perfect Okay, we started in Los Angeles and
the way Amtrak works is they have I don't know,

(06:43):
at least a dozen, maybe twenty long distance routes that
you can take, and these are cross country. They go
all over, but the trains are built for long distance,
so it's awesome. Anyway, we started from Los Angeles and
our first stop was Albuquerque, New Mexico, New Mexico. That's right.

(07:03):
The line was called the Southwest Chief and we followed
that all the way for our first three stops. We
stopped in Albuquerque and we got off the train and
we spent twenty four hours in Albuquerque just seeing what
there is to see. Next stop, Kansas City, Missouri. After that, Chicago, Illinois.
Then we switched up the route and we headed east.

(07:25):
Well we've been going east, but even further east kind
of south to yeah, right, we had gone all the
way north and now we're coming back down a little bit,
and we went to Washington, d C. From DC, we
started a series of short trips. So this is more
of like a commuter style train that we were on
at this point, and all these cities are real close together.

(07:46):
But we went from DC to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to New York,
New York to New Haven, Connecticut, and then finally to Boston, Massachusetts.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
And then flew out of Boston. Right, So people were like, oh,
you then took a train from Boston, LA. No, And
we should say that there is no direct train that
goes from the west to the East coast. Chicago's kind
of that hub.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
I think.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
I guess if you go south you can.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
I think the furthest you can get from Los Angeles
on a like on one train line is New Orleans,
and then from there you gotta hop off and take
something else, right, or take a different train.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
So there isn't a direct train that goes from the
west coast to the east coast. You have to get
in a hub like in the middle of the country. Well,
and the other thing we did look at possibly going south,
going through Texas and then maybe going to New Orleans
and heading back. Yeah, then we were decided, you know,
we've always wanted to visit New England in the fall,

(08:48):
so let's just do that.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, we went in the other route. The other thing
we should say that we haven't yet is that this
was a two week trip. So we got from LA
and back in two weeks and we flew home, so
we spent pretty much two weeks on the train and
all these stops to Boston.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Right, so let's talk about the life on the train, Like,
what can listeners expect from when you buy your rail
pass and all that stuff?

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, so you can, they've got Amtrak has a great app.
So we use that all the.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Time, which most transportation companies do not have a great app,
but Amtrak actually does. It's pretty pretty good.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah. Yeah, So you can book all your legs there
you should probably, I mean you can buy your reil
pass on it too, I think. But anyway, so you
buy your rail pass and then you book the individual
trips and again it's a coach ticket, so you sit
in coach. But the great thing is, when I think
coach previously, I'm picturing a little tiny airplane seat with

(09:54):
no leg room. I'm squished up next to two strangers.
What if I get a middle seat? Oh?

Speaker 2 (09:58):
No.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Thing about Amtrak is there's only two seats, so there's
no middle seat, and if you're traveling with a partner
or a friend, you get both seats. It's awesome. Yeah,
And do you want to tell them about the leg room? Max?
How much legroom do we have? It's actually a lot.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
So that was one of the things that was kind
of hard to determine from pictures and reviews and stuff,
is how much legroom.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
I guess you don't really.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Know until you're there, So we should emphasize that this
is on the cross country. This isn't the commuter trains
that have all this leg room.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
True, although the commuter trains still have a lot more
leg room than an airplane. That is true.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
So between Jasmine and I, we were able to fit
like our backpacks in front, bags of food and still
have a bunch of leg room.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
So we'll still have enough room to basically extend your
legs all the way out. And the seats have like
a little foot rest that comes up and they recline
really far too, so you can lay not perfectly flat,
but at a very comfortable sleeping position in your seat.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So the way that I describe it as a dentist chair,
because you can bring up the flap for your legs
and you can almost lay down, not fully, but enough
where you can definitely fall asleep. It's not like a
plane where you're sitting and you're falling asleep. This is
you have some wiggle room to lay down and even

(11:22):
if you're small batite, you could probably like you know,
huddle like in the fetal position, but asleep that way too.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah, that's comfy. I mean definitely side sleeping. It all worked.
It was good.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
So there's one thing that we discovered on the train
and chain traveling was the observation car.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, this is the best part of the cross country travel.
So also this is the best part of train travel
is you don't have to be the one physically driving,
and you can see everything out the windows. Even at
your seat. You have really big windows. The whole side
of the train is lined with and you can see

(12:02):
the whole time. Then, as a bonus on the cross
country trips, on these longer train lines, they have these
observation cars where the windows go up even higher and
it's all windows and you get seats with a table
in between them, like a almost like a restaurant booth.
And this is where for us we would go. We'd
have our meals at these tables, might bring a card

(12:24):
game or board game and sit and just take in
the scenery. Yeah, you just inhale the night. That's how
it felt like a big wow. And we'd eat there too.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
I think that's the biggest thing about chain travel is
it's not as stressful as maybe air travel, like.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Don't go through security actually, which is a little sketch. Yeah,
you think about it, so you don't go through any
kind of security checks or anything like that. You just board.
There's always this, at least for me, I'll speak for myself,
there's always this a little bit of anxiety, like, Hey,
I'm about to be on a freaking plane, and if
that plane goes down, I'm a gonner basically, you know.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
What I mean.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
That maybe is not in the forefront of my head,
but it's there subconsciously. On a train, yeah, there's train
crashes and things like that, but very rarely, and I
don't know, you just feel a little more solidified on
the ground and you're not going super super fast. You
run fast, but not like crazy. It's not a bullet train,

(13:26):
so we're just on.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
A never been on one. It might be cool, but
I just wasn't that.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
I just feel like it takes longer, but it's way
less stressful.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, everything about it is so much more comfortable. You
can bring on a lot of the lines. Actually, I
think on any line it just gets a little complicated.
You get up to two checked bags and two carry
on bags and a personal item. So that's a lot
of luggage. And we'll talk more about whether or not
you should actually bring that much stuff with you in

(13:56):
a little bit. But it's awesome because you have plenty
of space to carry your belongings and you can A
lot of stations will actually let you check the bags
so that you just pick them up at your destination
and you just can walk on. You can move around
on the train, so it's not like an airplane where
you feel like, oh, if I get up and wait
in line for the bathroom, I'm gonna be in everybody's way.

(14:17):
It's not like that. There's room in the aisles and
there's these observation cars. Yeah, there were a few trips
where we weren't in our seats hardly at all. Yeah,
so maybe we should also talk about the bathrooms, Max.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, so the bathrooms, I'll say, if you're on the
beginning of a trip, they're a lot cleaner towards the end.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
I guess that would be.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
My only critique is that the staff really doesn't emphasize
cleaning the place. It's really up to the passengers, which
is you know, you know what I mean, like, yeah,
I mean rash out and things like that, but there's
not someone who's going in and cleaning the bathrooms.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
During the ride. Right, Let's just say they do start
out clean and they clean the trains. It's not like
they never cleaned. But on a long route, say from
Los Angeles to Chicago, there's no like stop on the train,
so if you get off, you stop, but that train
keeps going, so they don't stop to you know, really

(15:15):
like do a whole cleaning like they went on a plane.
They'll take out the trash. Obviously they refuel, but the
longest stop on that route is maybe thirty minutes, and
then the train just keeps going. So that is a
good to actually go to the bathroom early on and
then otherwise it just is what it is.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, So I mean there's like, you know, it gets
kind of gross. But there is a handicap bathroom that
is on each one and we actually didn't discover this
untill later in our trip. On the long trains, Yeah,
but there's a handicap bathroom, which is a lot of
room because the bathroom that is on the train like

(15:53):
a normal bathroom is about the size of an airplane bathroom.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Right, maybe a little bigger maybe.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Maybe, but it's pretty much the same. But the handicap
bathroom is huge and you could go in there, and
that's where Jasmine like change and stuff and.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
She you know, yeah, you go freshen up, wash your face,
brush your teeth, you know, like if you need a
little wipey shower, you could do that.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's also like a one room that was also like
that as well.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Yeah, there was this other one that is called what's
called like the Ladies Lounges on which sounds way cooler
than it is. But what that was nice. It had
two sinks in a little bench, but it was it
did not lock, so can't fully recommend it for changing.
Go find the accessible bathroom. It may not be on
the car that you're in, but there is one on

(16:42):
the train somewhere, so go find it and definitely recommend
that for if you're feeling like you need a change
freshen up. It's a good spot totally.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Another thing is just your experience on the train will
determine by the people that you were with, so so
it's a mixed bag, you know. Yeah, And just like
any traveling I guess it just depends on who's with you,
So not just with you and your company, but the
people who inhabit your environment during that trip. So our

(17:14):
first night was great. Everybody was quiet. We had kind
of a I guess it would be a red eye
quote unquote. We left at like five point thirty and
then ended up in Albuquerque in the morning. So we
slept through the night and that was cool. Everybody was quiet,
everybody was chilled. The next night, however, there was a
family and they were just super loud and uh forever
reason didn't have headphones or refused to have the headphones.

(17:37):
So it was like one o'clock in the morning, and
you know, this lady's watching horror movies and I just,
you know, was woken up by like screams and things
from her phone. So and you know, so it's just
and the staff came, you know, and they would tell me, hey,
you know, we've gotten some complaints, but I guess if
it wasn't super excessive, we're not going to throw them

(17:59):
out unless it's it's really excessive. Plus they had kids,
it was just kids weren't being really supervised that well,
so and then the difference between that night. Not only that,
but we were at a specific place in the train, right.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, So if you have a choice, don't and you're sleeping,
like you're spending an overnight on the train, try not
to get the seats directly across the stairs from to
the bathroom. They leave the lights on a lot of
times there and it makes it harder to sleep. But again,
we were on another line where they actually even turned
those lights down a bit. So if you have like

(18:34):
an issue, just mention it to the staff. They're really
helpful and they can like they understand people are on
the train and they want to sleep overnight, so they'll
they'll help you out.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Along those same lines on a cross country train, you
will be assigned a seat. On the commuter. You just
kind of get on like it's a bus, like a
city bus or something like that. You don't get to
pick out your seat. So if you are traveling during
a really busy city or a popular route, there's a

(19:07):
chance where you might not get to sit with the
people that you are with traveling with.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yeah, I'll say, like specifically the line that called Northeast Regional,
which goes between a lot of the East Coast cities.
People use it every day to get to work, and
so you get rush hour times and it's just very popular.
So do your best to get there early. But depending
on where you are in the route, the seats may
already be pretty full. That's true. So just just hop on, good,

(19:35):
go on for the ride, and once you're on, relax,
look out the window. You'll be Okay. Let's talk about
the food aspect.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
So there is a restaurant on the train where they
take reservations and it's like, what forty five dollars fifty
dollars a person.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
It wasn't that much for that maybe for dinner dinner,
but they.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, breakfast was like twenty five bucks, thirty bucks, right,
and like times too.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
I was like, it's pretty expensive. It's a little pricey.
If you do travel on a sleeper car of any kind,
your meals are included, but in coach they're not there.
It's also not guarantee eating coach that you will be
offered the opportunity to eat at the restaurant or it's
called the cafe, or it's called the dining car. Dining car. Yeah,
but we found that a lot of times they were

(20:22):
opening it up for reservations for coach, So it's an
option and if you're on a long trip and you
want something a little bit more prepared or you know, nicer.
We never tried it, so we can't speak how well
how good it is. That is an option. There is
also kind of like a snack shack on there. It's
called the it's the Cafe Car Cafe.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, so it's just you know, an Amtrak worker and
a little booth basically, and they just have like a
microwave and maybe a toaster. I don't even think they
add a toaster, but I think it was just a microwave.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Well it's like a you know, industrial sort of oven,
not like a microwave like we have in our house. No,
there was definitely a microwave. Well, I'm sure they had
that because they were sort of being like cup of
noodle and you need a microwave for that.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
So they have like you know, hot dogs and burgers
and but it's all frozen, like I said, and they
kind of just heat it up, and you know, it's.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Pretty pretty affordable.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
They have drinks, Yeah, there's alcohol, beverages, cocktails, things like that.
We didn't do that. We brought all of our food
because we were trying to maximize our dollar because we
wanted to go and do a lot of things while
we were on the ground in these different cities. So
anyway that we could save money we did. So we
actually had two full bags of just food snacks.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
There's actually four when we started. It was four, yeah,
including like a little cooler.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
Yeah, we had a cooler, and because we stopped and
stay in a hotel, we had ice, so we were
just filling up that cooler and we were able to
have like cheese and salami. One night, we had like
a small cheese board. Yeah, we had a couple of
noodle one night that was a dinner.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Yeah, we brought our own.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, and then sometimes we had leftover.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Do we eat leftovers? Not really, We made sandwiches. So
we also, like I think we had peanut butter and
jelly with us. And and then at the beginning we
brought fruit and we every once in a while we'd
pick them up when we were at a stop and
just bring that with us. And then we just had
lots of like dry good type snacks, so even beef

(22:27):
jerky or you know, cashews, like trying not to just
eat chips the whole time. But we also had some chips.
I mean, what are you gonna do. We did snack
a lot on the train, yeah, on the train, and
not fresh food. Once we got to the.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Cities we were going to for sure, and there's like
this little bar area and the observation that's not in
use anymore, but they do have a water filter there
that you could fill up your water bottles there.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
That's a little right. That was the other thing is
we just drank a lot of water on the on
the train and filled up our refillable bottle.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
And we did go to the cafe sometimes if we
wanted like a treat, like we bought soda sometimes or
bought a candy bar if we wanted, but really we
didn't use that option.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Here's what we did do because you know, we're coffee drinkers,
so you can go to the cafe car and get
hot water. Or we also brought like cold brew concentrate
with us and made cold brew in the morning with
ice and water that we got from the cafe car.
So they gave us ice, yeah, and when we had
our cup of noodles, they gave us hot water. So

(23:32):
we just would tip the the Amtrak worker there and
felt like that was a great option too. Yeah, and
that's I guess.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Another tip would be just like talk to the staff
and be super nice to them, because not just so
you get something out of it. I mean, one, they're
human being and you know you should always do that,
but you know, if you're nice to them, they're there
to serve. You know, they're there as a as a service,
so you know, be nice goes a long way. And

(24:00):
I struck up conversations and you know, these people are
on these crazy.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Three four day like work shifts, you know, work shifts,
sleeping on the train and it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
So and they love it too, And that's I guess.
The last thing before we talk into the cities that
we traveled was just there's a lot of people and
a lot of people have stories, and there's some people
who really want to just talk.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
To you, and there's other people that, oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
You know, just want to be left alone. But there
is this kind of like train culture, I guess, and
people who go there and that's their way of transportation
a lot, and they like to talk to people, which
is cool if you want to meet somebody new.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
We may eventually become those people. I don't know who's
to say.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh, I don't know who's to say. All right, we're
gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're gonna just give a little highlights of each city
we visit it. So don't go anywhere.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
I remember you. You're the one you made my dreams
come true to.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
All right, we're back here on Rady Retro. We're doing
a bonus episode. We are with my wife, Jasmine, and Jasmine,
let's just go through a quick highlight of each city.
So we experienced so much stuff and probably be hours
and hours if we went through details, so let's just
do highlight. I will say, I'm looking at these pictures.
And before we did this trip, do you remember what

(25:28):
we did the day before?

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, we went to go see Weezer.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yes, we saw Voyage to the Blue Planets. And it
was the anniversary of my favorite album, thirty Years of
the Blue Album.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Wow. Yeah, it was super fun to see that. First
time you ever saw I've never seen Weezer. Yeah you
can tell their nerdy introverts, but hey, we love their music.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
So Rivers Scomo did not talk to the crowd once, Nope,
just song by song. Actually we were recorded a quick
to snippet right after we saw them, and.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
That's true in the part find it on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
We're gonna play it right now.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh we're gonna.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
Okay, Jasmine, we just got out of the.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Blue Album Voyage tour. What were your thoughts. That was
a lot of fun. Oh my gosh, I have never
seen Weezer, so I mean just being able to like
sing those songs at the top of your lungs. The
Blue album is.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Your favorite albums of seeing you totally like lose it
in that context was super fun.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
It was a great show.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
It was really engaging and they had all this like
storyline and everything.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah, it was amazing. My voice is gonna be gone.
Min's a little like already scratchy too.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
That's the thing about Weezer is every song, especially on
the Blue album, and you can just belt out and
sing on the top of your lungs.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
And it was a lot of fun. I was surprised.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Seeing so many kids there. I mean, there was like
a lot of kids, Like it was kind of like
a family show. And I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
I loved it.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
There was a lot of like gen Zers.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Too, so it's cool to see new generations of Weezer fans.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting mostly.

Speaker 4 (27:23):
Like Gen X millennials. But it was pretty mixed, and
I would say it was like pretty all ages, but
pretty young. I would say it was younger than I
was anticipating, you know, being able to listen to a
complete album like that. Like I love when artists do that,

(27:44):
especially when it's your favorite album. So there was like
there were songs I thought I would never see live
because I didn't see Weezer in nineteen ninety two, so
I never thought I would see Sorry ninety four only
in dreams, you know, I never I never thought I
would see you know only only in my dreams.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
That I think that I would see only in dreams live. Yeah,
it was so great show. We came all the way
from LA to Palm Desert and apparently we're gonna be
in a movie apparently.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah, yeah, because I don't know what I'm in it. Yeah,
we were all right, Well that's our initial reaction. Fantastic.
It made me love the Blue album even more.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Yeah, I mean we got a long drive home. I'm
pretty sure we're going to be playing it all over
all right, I'm down, I'm down.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Let's turn this out and let's go turn on and
it starts with my name is Jones.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
All right.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
So that was the Blue album, The Voyage to the Planet,
all right. So our first part of a trip we
went to the Southwest and we ended up in Albertquerque, Jasmine.
What's a highlight from Albuquerque?

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Well, let me just put a quick little out there.
If you are traveling in October like we were, and
you're leaving LA on the train on the Southwest Chief,
you leave right at sunset, and man, it was beautiful
coming out of LA. Is just the skyline because you're
coming right out of like downtown Chinatown and it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
And what was super cool was the Dodgers are playing
the Mets and the NLCS and we're coming out of
Union Station and we're looking up and we are seeing.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
There's the Dodge lights of Blue Heaven.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
And I gotta say we didn't miss one Dodger game.
We were able to watch it on my phone, which
we didn't mention service many things like Wi Fi, So
most trains do not have Wi.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Fi, correct and if it if they do, it's not
like fully reliable because it's working basically off of cell service.
So if you don't have cell service, the train isn't
going to have Wi Fi. And when you're going on
these long trips a to spots where that's not the case.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
So but more than I thought we would, I will
say that service or Wi Fi service. True, we didn't
have any Wi Fi right, So the service, Yeah, I
was expecting not to have as much service, but we did.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
There was hardly any times where I was like, oh
the service deb Maybe going through the desert, which we're
going to talk about, but we were asleep most of
the time when we were going through desert. So we
were in Albuquerque. What was cool about Albuquerque? Have you
ever been in Albuquerque?

Speaker 1 (30:28):
I have never been to Albuquerque, And we did a
few things. So when we were there, it actually was
Indigenous People's Day and so we got to go to
an observance a celebration of that at one of the
local museums, and it was really incredible because this is
a place where so many Native Americans live, and they

(30:51):
were expressing themselves through dance but also public speaking advocacy
for civil rights and recognition and just really incredible to
see the art of course also like artifacts, but it
was beautiful. It was a beautiful day.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
And then we were in Old Town, which was probably
like my favorite part. It's kind of like this art
district now and there's a lot of local artists that
have shops, so that was the coolest place. You see
a lot of just kind of newer artists culture but
kind of influenced by how Albuquerque or New Mexico used

(31:32):
to be. So of course you see a lot of
jade and what's cool. And in Albuquerque's there's always like
this decorative peppers.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
That are yeah the chili peppers, yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Red peppers, so that's everywhere, so yeah, cool, we went
to lots of turquoise and jade. We went to this
place called Duran's Pharmacy and it was.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Really good food.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
We had typical New Mexican food, which which is like
Mexican food, but it's it's different than what we can
get here in La. They have like mashed potatoes kind
of in it, and it's just i would say, it's
like really wet. There's just a lot of just liquid and.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Well it does, but you got to get it Christmas
style because they'll ask you do you want red salsa
or green salsa? And the new Mexican thing to do
is to get it Christmas style with both.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, and not that we didn't enjoy our time in Albuquerque,
but that was probably our least favorite city, not that
we're right, just.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
To say how many other awesome places we went so.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Right, Yeah, and shout out to Jessica.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Who hosted us. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I don't know if you're listening to probably not, but
shout out thanks for allows to crash and that was
fun and yeah, good stuff. So then we come out
of the Southwest and then we start to head into
the Midwest and this was like open plains and corn
fields and just the middle of America.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Well, and we did. We caught like the bottom corner
of Colorado. So we also went through some beautiful mountains
and like pine trees under some tunnels and I don't know,
it just was really cool.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Part of the trip was this the longest distance of
Aukirrique to Kansas City, I think, so, yeah, eighteen hours correct, Yeah, yeah,
so it sounds like a lot, but it goes by
pretty quickly. So we arrived in Kansas City really early
in the morning. I think we arrived.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
We arrived at six am.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Six am, so the sun wasn't even up yet, No,
still dark. And we get there in the station, and
I'll just mention every station in America is pretty much
called Union Station.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
That's true. But also I will throw this out there
that train stations are beautiful, Like just to go and
come out in the train station is an experience in itself.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, so was a highlight for you in Kansas City?

Speaker 1 (34:03):
You know, I think I really knew very little about
Kansas City before going there, and because it was so
early in the morning, not a lot was open. So
we decided to leave our bags at our hotel can
check in yet and walk to coffee and walking through
these neighborhoods where I mean it was like it was
also so cold out, so it's like this, well, yeah,

(34:26):
we're from California, but it was it was I think
the coldest city we were in at that point, and
it's just chilly. So we're all bundled up and we're
walking through these old neighborhoods with these beautiful homes to
a really cool coffee shop and it just I don't know,
that experience was a highlight for me. Yeah, and it
was also maybe like our like it felt the most

(34:49):
different that we'd experienced so far, so it was like, oh,
now we're really far. Now we're really out of town. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
For me, we visited two me Mum's incredible museums Like
these are fantastic museums. I would recommend anybody going to
if you're in the area, or I would almost say
they're worth.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Going to Kansas City for the food.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
And for that. But if you're in Kansas City, definitely
check out these two museums. The first one is the
Negro League's Baseball Museum, And not to get into the
whole history, but this was a league before sports was integrated,
and it talks about the history a lot of the

(35:32):
players and also talks about just the racism and the
segregation that our nation experienced not that long ago. So
it's a really well curated there's a lot of just
jerseys and stories. We couldn't go through everything. It could
probably take you more than half a day just to

(35:53):
go through this museum.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
If you were to read every card. And yeah, I
mean also if you're a baseball fan, which we both are,
it really is a look at the sport and the
way that it shaped American culture at the time and
the way American culture shaped it, and so it was
a really great museum. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
And you know, if you don't know, you should know
Satchel Page. So Satchel Page, like I knew of him,
and I knew he was like an incredible baseball player,
but when you go to this museum, you realize, oh, man, like,
if he had the same opportunities as white players, he'd
be considered like Bay Bruce status.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Like well, and they recently integrated baseball stats, right, so
uh both. Yeah, you'll see Satchel Page holds a lot
of records now, yeah, so super cool.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
And then right across this like the museum, there's like
kind of like a lobby there is the American Jazz Museum.
So this is not just for Kansas City, like this
is the American Jazz Museum, so it just doesn't highlight
only Kansas City players. But like Louis Armstrong, there was

(37:06):
also Ella Fitzgerald, there was Thelonious Monk, and there was
hometown hero Charlie Parker.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
So this was cool.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
This is an interactive museum. Would you think of the
Jazz Museum?

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, I thought, you know, it's not very big. There's
a lot more to say about American jazz than you
could fit in this conditioner. But it was interactive. You
could listen to a bunch of the music, and that
is just that's always inspiring, no matter what the setting is.
So between the two like just a really solid day
of American history and Kansas City history. And it's a

(37:49):
perfect setup to go get some barbecue after.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
So looking at my pictures from that day, and I
used the public bathroom, okay, And there's something about the
mid Wes and I don't know why this is, but
I've been there a couple of times now. And I
talked to my buddy Joey from Ninja Toytles, who lives
in the Chicago area. Forever reason Midwest doesn't have toilet
seat covers in public bathrooms.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Okay, really, California is like the only place that does
that in the whole world. No, there's no way, We've
traveled all over the world where else do they have?

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Those toilet seat covers are essential? They're just essential, like putting, like.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
You know what, just add it to your packing list
next time, bring your own.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Anyways, So that was Kansas City. Of course, we have
to mention the barbecue. So there's so many places to go.
We went with Bryant's Barbecue, which is kind of the
one that they say.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
They claim they started it in Kansas City.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
So there is a tip for eating Kansas City barbecue.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
What do you need to order? Oh, you got to
get the burnt ends.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Burnt ends?

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Oh my god, so good.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I'm making that picture.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Really talk about it because if I'm not eating it
right now, why should I talk about it? Good stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
There are a lot of people that say that there's
been other places that's better now than Arthur Bryant's. But
it was just around the corner from the museums, and
we didn't mention that that particular area used to be
like a happening black community, thriving businesses. It seems like
it kind of fizzled, but they're trying to revamp it now,

(39:29):
so I'm hoping that happens. So that was Kansas City.
Then from Kansas City, you.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Know, Max, maybe I just want to interject one thing. Yeah,
there is so much more to see in all of
these cities. Yeah, but with the way the train schedules
work and this particular trip for us, we were just
trying to get a little taste. So in Kansas City,
I know there's some like really beautiful areas along the river,
there's great jazz scene still, and there's so much more

(39:56):
that we didn't get to see. We definitely thought we'd
come back though.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, I was surprised how much I like the Kansas
City to be, especially being a Raider fan and you know,
Chiefs are so dominant. But anyways, so from there we
go to Chicago. And here's one thing about train traveling
that we experienced. Sometimes you'll experience delays. So we had
a delay what was it three or four hours?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, yeah, it was I think by the time we
actually left us about four hours. The good thing is
they do their best to notify you in advance. So
because these trains are leaving from cities, like if you're
not at the beginning of the route and it's delayed,
they've known it's been delayed since it like left LA.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
So we had noticed and delay noticed eight hours before
train came.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
So we actually slept in that day or was it, Yeah,
we did. We slept in because we knew the train
was late, so.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
We would have had it been there, I think like
four to five in the morning. We were able to
sleep in a little bit and we walked.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yes, we did, and we walked. Look, okay, maybe well
we'll talk about this a little later, Yeah, a little later. Okay.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
So then from Kansas City to Chicago, we saw the
Mississippi River, Yeah, which we've never seen before. Well that's
not I actually have, but I have never seen Mississippi
River before.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, So I don't know if it's just me, but
like learning about American history centers so much around these rivers,
and like specifically the Mississippi of course, but you also
have like the Missouri River. In Albuquerque, we were on
the Rio Grande River, which forms a lot of our
southern borders, so it's got you know, connections to Yeah,

(41:42):
just all kinds of events, historical events, commerce, things like that. So, yeah,
we crossed a few rivers. And this trip from Kansas
City to Chicago is all during the day, so you
just get to see so much going across the country here.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yep. We ended up in Chicago a little later than
we thought. We thought we were gonna have more time
in Chicago, but somebody special was waiting for us there
and having dinner. So I mentioned before, but shout out
to Joy from Ninja Toytles him and his family. We
went to the best food we had, I.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Would say, so it might be up, Yeah, you might
be right.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
We went to Professor Pizza. Shout out to Professor Pizza.
It is New York style pizza. So it's not the
deep dish that Chicago's known for. It's this thing called
the Grandma style.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
They do have deep dish, though. Yeah, we just we
had Grandma style. I don't even know how.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
I don't whispered, but they had this like honey glaze.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Oh, let me start over.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
So it's a big pizza and the sauce is just
it's dumped on there.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
There's a lot of sauce, a lot of pepperona actually
piped on there in little and then there's like ricotta cheese,
a ricotta yea, it whipped ricotta cheese.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
And it's like it looks almost like whipped cream on there,
and then it's grizzled with hot honey.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Yeah, and pepperoni. That's the one, I mean, that's what
we had. I don't know that every flavor is that way,
but it was so good.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, and it was fun just to see Joey again.
This is my second time actually this year seeing him
in person, being in Chicago. So it was fun. It's
it's fun that you finally got to meet him in person.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
It was a lot of So it was fun just
to hang out with friends and it seemed like, you know,
we were just being them for dinner if it was
any other like Tuesday, you.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Know what I mean. Yeah, absolutely, we had a great time.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
So the next day we woke up and we explored Chicago.
Was I was I was basically, I mean the highlight
was kind of just hanging out with Joey.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Well that's because we've been to Chicago before. It was
one of the only cities on our trip that we'd
been to that York New York. Yeah, And I mean
Chicago is a great city though. All you have to
do is just walk around and it's amazing. The architecture
is amazing. You're right on the lake. Wow. I mean

(44:18):
in California, we just don't have anything like the Great Lakes.
And it is it's beautiful. It is windy, it was cold,
but actually when we were there, the sun was out
and beautiful. It was like a perfect day, like.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
The gusting yeah winds. I was there in April and
it was like I couldn't we couldn't talk to each
other because the wind was so strong.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
It was beautiful. It's awesome. I mean, we've been to
some Cubs games. Again. We love baseball, so the Great
Baseball City, there's great shopping. Look a highlight for me.
And this is so silly, but this is a retro podcast.
And I know you guys cater to you know Ninja
Turtles and Power Rangers a lot. But let me put
a shout out there for those of us who grew

(45:03):
up with American Girl dolls, because Chicago has the first.
There's now a few others, but the first American Girl
Doll or American Girl Place. And this store. Oh man,
it was so fun for me to be in this store.
I just have like grew up with all the stories
of the books. They even not just like the historical stories,

(45:24):
but they did these little series that are like how
to Plan a slumber party and the Karen Keeping of you,
you know, hygiene when you're a preteen growing up, it's
like good stuff. And I found out that now they
have Harry Potter costumes for your American Girl Doll, which
was just mind blowing. I had to not spend any

(45:46):
money or I would have spent all the money.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
And I posted, you know you're getting old when American
Girl Dolls doesn't line on your era. Yeah, so they
have like a Y two K era.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Yeah, I just felt fun.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
They had the eighties, they had early nineties, but like
the Y two K. I was like, oh man, all right,
we're getting old tire, all right. So then we went
to Portillo's hot Dogs.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Of course we had to get a Chicago dog.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
And then we were sitting there and we were realizing, hey,
we're in Chicago. We've been watching The Bear on Who
we Are? Yeah, we gotta go to Mister Beef where
the Bear was filmed.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yes, we did. We had to go, but we definitely
weren't the only people. No. No, As happens with film locations,
they blow up and get very popular. So there's a
long line, and you know, we're not natives, so I'm
sure people from Chicago will say, oh, well, it's not
the best beef sandwich. I don't know. It was pretty
dang good. We enjoyed ourselves.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
And it was fun just to be like eating at
the same location where the crew would eat, you know,
and yeah, totally, yeah, on that side room. Like I
thought that that was a studio or something. But then
I'm looking around and I was looking at pictures online.
I'm like, oh, the things match up perfectly. It's the

(47:08):
same room. So that was mister Beef. And from Chicago
we headed for another eighteen hour trip.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Yeah, I don't remember exactly, but this one actually may
have been longer. It may have been the longest one,
but yeah, it's an overnight ride. And I think we
were on the Capitol Limited line. Now, so all the
way from LA to Chicago, we were on what's called
the Southwest Chief, and next we were on the Capitol Limited.
There's a few ways to get to DC. You can
also take the Lake Shore Limited. Anyway, I got kind

(47:44):
of nerdy about all this stuff, as I do. But yeah,
we took the train to Washington, DC's overnight. But but
the highlight of this was waking up in I think
we were in Pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah, in the mountains or hills.
I don't know how it compares, but and just fall

(48:07):
colors everywhere as far as the eye could see in
these amazing hills and the morning sun coming up. I
just I don't know, it was a af formative experience.
It's just like this very reflective moment to wake up
to first light and then be looking out the window
and see fog coming off of streams that the train

(48:28):
is running alongside, and then these beautiful forests of orange
and yellow and red trees.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah, it was beautiful. And this is where I wanted
to mention. You know, for us living in southern California
born and raised, we don't interact with many Amish people
from that community. So especially in Pennsylvania where there's a
larger population, we were around Amish people and they had
this unique dialect that is like German, but it's its

(49:00):
almost like Spanglish, so it's like English Dutch German.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Anyways.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
So but I just remember, like in the middle of
the night we stopped by like Pittsburgh and just it
was all this commotional A lot of people were getting
off the chain and it was you know, I guess
there's a big population of of Amish people in Pittsburgh,
So I just want to mention that, like it was
a cultural experience in.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
America on the train. Yeah, so that was cool.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
But yeah, definitely just waking up and like seeing the
river alongside and seeing the yellows and the greens and
the oranges.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Picturesque houses, farmhouses, and and then you know, like when
you're on the train, you got to listen to the
right music for the moment. So we also caught a
little bit of West Virginia. So I'm playing John Denver
and I don't know, it's just like it was such
a beautiful ride. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
So then we arrived in Washington about midday, and it
was my first time in DC. I know you went
there on your eighth grade trip, but you were fourteen
or whatever and you didn't have the freedom to go
around the city. So this is the part of the
trip where we walked a lot. I will say we

(50:13):
did the calculations after on this whole trip, we walked
ninety one miles. It was like ninety one or ninety three,
just under one hundred miles.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, and that.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Doesn't include us being on a train for most of
the time. So we walked a lot.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Yeah, if you think about how many hours we were
on the train and then how much we've walked when
we weren't on the train. It's pretty wild. So we
were in DC. Love DC.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
It was kind of an interesting experience being here weeks
before the election, not knowing what was going to happen,
but just experiencing and enjoying, you know, the nation's capital.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
And I didn't.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Realize how big and spread out everything was. I think
that was my biggest surprise, which is like the monument,
the monuments, how big and it's not just like this
little thing. It's like huge and land and there's nothing
around it.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
It's just this open space. Yeah. So we were we
spent two nights in DC, one of the only places
we did that. And the first night we just walked
the monuments and you I mean it was ours. We
were there from afternoon till late at night, and I mean,
but you got to do it. It's just you just

(51:25):
have to do it. It's something that I really feel
strongly that every you know, every American should do, go
to our capital, learn about our history. It's it's important.
It's important.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
And I'm just looking at pictures again and it was
that super moon that oh that's right, and we were
right by the monument and we just got these like
amazing pictures. You know, your phone never can really give
justice to what you're seeing, especially when it comes to
the moon. But I just remember like seeing the it was.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
I forget did they call it the lagoon where the
Jefferson is. I'm not sure, but it's like a branch
they've dammed off some water from the Potomac River and
it creates this lake in the middle of the monuments
and it's beautiful, incredible.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
We also saw Jim Gaffigan.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Yeah we did.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
I'm I'm like almost positive.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
No, it was for sure, it was for sure.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah. Yeah, So randomly, and this is what nine o'clock
at night, nine thirty, yeah, late, He's walking up to
the Abraham Lincoln Memorial with his two youngest kids, two boys,
And I'm like, that's Jim Gaffkin, you know. And this
was during the time he was being a regular on SNL,
being Tim Waltz. So but he wasn't, but that we

(52:40):
were there on a Saturday night, I believe, so he wasn't. Yeah,
they weren't, right, Yeah. So, and then we went to
a lot of museums. The next day, we went to
the African American History Museum. Incredible, Yeah, do it. It's
you can spend an entire day there.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
At least, Yeah, the whole day, give yourself.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Amount of time. But an incredible museum, an important museum
to go to. And then we did the.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
National Air and Space Museum, which is really cool.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
We saw the documents.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Oh yeah. We went to the National Archives. Saw again
more things that everyone should see. Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I saw the portraits.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
We did. We saw the presidential portraits.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
All rushed in there.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
This is already seven of them or whatever it is now.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, and then we went to this place that every
elected president has gone is called Ben's Chili except for two.
One was Barack Obama because he.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Went as president elect.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
And then Donald Trump never went. But that's Ben's Chili Bowl.
It's really good. It's just chili dogs. We had a
lot of hot dogs and junk there, but it was
so good. We wanted to experience the best of the best.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Well maybe not the like Michelin Star best of the best,
but the real people.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Will say that. On Saturday. That Saturday, we try to
go out to Ben's Chili and it was insane. There
were so many people out on the street just partying
and it was like it felt a little.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
Well, you know where. We were right by Howard University, which.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
It's around the Halloween, so everything's getting turned up, right yeah, yeah,
like and everyone's like in.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
The streets, and it was just like, you know what
I was like, it was like, I'm not young anymore.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
We should probably just you know, head in, and we
head in and watch the Dodgers.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
So yeah, it's college town exactly. But again, these neighborhoods
just beautiful.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Yeah, beautiful. And you just watched the West Wing, so
you liked it too, I mean yeah. So then the
next day we were gonna go to the Capitol Building,
but they had a drill so that got canceled, like.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
An emergency evacuation drill, which wow, okay, definitely didn't want
to be in the building for that.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
So we were on the high of like, you know,
American history. And it continued because we headed to Philadelphia
and this was our first commuter train.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Right, yeah, a little quick trip an hour or two.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
We went to Philadelphia, which was both of our first
times being there. You've been in Philadelphia, sorry, it was
my first time being there. You've been to a lot
of these places. So our first stop was wear jass.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Our first stop was Independence Hall, so hopefully you know this,
but the first meetings of Congress and all of that
happened in Philadelphia, not in Washington, d C. First capital
of the States.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
So locals, well, I think everybody calls it the Philadelphia
Place of America.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah. Yeah, so I mean this is what's technically a
national park. So they have a docent that tells you
the story of the beginning of the revolution, of the
development of the Declaration of Independence, and then the Constitution
and the foundations of American government, and they were It
was a great tour, definitely recommend.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
It was hard to fathom, like this is how a country,
not just a country, but one of the most powerful
countries in human history was created in the small room,
Like it just yeah, it gets blown away totally totally.
It makes things seem so much smaller. Yeah, And I
think that's what like going to these places, it helped

(56:24):
me like humanize, like these incredible figures. Well and you
kind of incredible figure.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
But you really understand the kind of parallel history of
the US, which is that we have these really high ideals,
but we just haven't always gotten it right. Yeah, And
we're constantly sort of fighting this battle between what we
want to be and what we aspire to be and
what we believe is right, and then getting caught up

(56:51):
in other issues that are oppressive and all kinds of
bad stuff. But yeah, it amazing to learn about and
kind of humbling and makes you want to do better. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
And you were in the old town part of Philadelphia,
which is really cool. I really enjoyed that the downtown part.
Like we stopped at a pub and had a beer
and a cider and just like hung out and just chilled.
And then I really wanted to go to the Steps,
the Steps of Rocky So it's at this museum. I

(57:29):
don't think people I think, like for me, I always
thought it was maybe that building was like something.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Or something.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
No, it's just a museum. We didn't go into the museum.
But what was amazing was it was right as the
sun was setting, so it was like picturesque, you know.
I ran up the steps and there is a plaque
there where Sylvester Saloone had So I knew I would
always go to Philadelphia to see that. I just didn't
know when. So so that was like my like I

(58:02):
was geeking out completely and there's you know, the Rocky
Statue and things like that. And then after that we
had a cheese steak at Sunnies. And what I'll say
is similar to like maybe New York, where there's a
pizza place, you know, New York style pizza, like on
every corner. It's the same kind of In Philadelphia, there's

(58:24):
a lot of cheese steak places and they're good, so
I don't think you could really go wrong with certain ones.
But we went to Sonny's and what do you think
of it?

Speaker 1 (58:34):
It was so good. I mean, even just talking about
the food that we ate on this trip is really
problematic because I can't get any of it, so I.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Mean we can't.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
It is not as good.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah, yeah, we're foodies by the way.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
All right.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
So then I was just saying we had duncan. We
don't have a lot of duncans out here in LA
I don't think we have.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
It's something you have to do when you're other country.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah, it's funny, So duncans, is that?

Speaker 1 (58:59):
All right?

Speaker 2 (58:59):
So then we went to one of our favorite cities
in the United States.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
We're in New York, New York. Yeah, we love it.
I mean, what's not to love. It's amazing. So we
get in. We've got this great hotel just south of
Central Park, but above all the craziness of Midtown kind
of in like a really high end shopping area. I
don't know, but I don't know.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
We should say shout out to jazz AND's mom because
she was like our booking agent.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
She yes, tried. It was hard for us to thank you.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
We didn't have all of our lodging planned out a
sum but not all, so we just had your mom
do it because she offered, and she's really good at that.
That's kind of what she does for a living. So
she was just on there looking at great prices. So
shout out to Georgia. Thank you Georgia.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Yes, it was awesome, Thanks mom. We are capable of
doing it.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
We're not incompetent, I just want to say. But she
wanted to do it, so we allowed her to do it.
But we stayed in the at the Manhattan Club. It's
like time shares, but it was real nice.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Is a great location too, because one of the things
we were going to be doing, besides just walking around
New York, which there's nothing like that, was going to
see a Broadway show.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Yes, which the last time Jasmine and I were in
New York was twenty twenty one and it was still
kind of covid e.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
East Broadway was still closed.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Yeah, it was covid ish and it was funny because
we were there the summer of twenty twenty one and
like New York just decided, hey, we're done with the pandemic,
like things are kind of open, and you know, the
numbers are down, and it went up a little later.
But we went and this time where they were accepting tourism,
and I think they just wanted to kind of open up.

(01:00:50):
So we took advantage because it was so cheap and
we found like killer deals on Airbnb. But like you said,
Broada is not open. So this is my first Broadway show.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
So good, So what do we see? Max?

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
We saw the Churs Child, Yes, so Harry Potter, Jasmine
and I we don't, at least I don't. I think
you feel the same. We don't really consider this cannon
to the story, but it is technically yeah, but we're like, eh,
you know, but the story is great, it's awesome, but
I just don't consider cannon but an amazing experience it's

(01:01:28):
considered to be one of the like best special effects
visual effects in Broadway. Uh, you have charms that go off,
you have levitation things, and it's just got.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Like major story reveals that are incorporated into the visuals
of the performance. And yeah, should we get no spoilers,
go see it. It's coming to LA, so that's why
we definitely shouldn't spoil it. I don't know how it's
going to be in LA either. If they're going to
be able to do all of.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
These, there's no way, but I think so. Yeah, but
super cool and it's interactive, so the like, like you said,
it probably won't happen in LA, But I would say
if you want to see it, go to New York
and see it because the lobby is interactive. You can
have like a QR code and it's kind of like

(01:02:20):
the Great Hall where there's floating candles and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
It's it's really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
We kind of skipped over going to probably our second
best meal.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Yeah, down in the West Village, this new Italian homemade
pasta place so good. I can't remember the name of it,
but it was awesome next to a little jazz club
where we saw some music and I love that area
of New York too, down by n y U. And yeah,

(01:02:53):
just a very cool scene. Oh in that house with
the Ghostbusters Halloween.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
I posted that. That's on our Instagram.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
And I should say that we were there in between
when the Dodgers played the Mets and when the World
Series started, so everybody was super excited about there. Was like,
you know, hey, Yankees are back. You know, Yankees, Dodgers.
There's all this buzz. So being around there, you know,
everyone's got their Yankee hats, everyone wears their Yankee cats
in general. I did wear my Dodger hat though. It's true,

(01:03:23):
and you know, some of my friends thought I was
crazy for doing that, but I didn't get you know what.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
You actually got a lot of is Mets fans saying yeah,
go Dodgers. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
And while we were in Boston too, Yeah true, so
but that was fun. I went to the MLB store
in Times Square hoping to get some Dodger gear.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
It was all.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Yankees, just very small World Series Dodgers. So I was
kind of pissed, but could be expected. Uh, So that's
New York. Any other things about New York.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
I mean the Harry Potter Store is always a fun highlight.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Fiel Schwartz, Yeah, I always.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Yeah, all the different squares and parks, Central Park, there's
so much to see if Central Park. Have been to
New York multiple times, and I'm always discovering new little
corners that I've never been to.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Of course, I think that's the same if you live there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Yeah, it's probably true. So and then also the the
train station for Amtrak was really nice. So it's it's
in Pennsylvania Station or penn Station. Sorry, and there's like
a really nice Amtrak waiting room and right, yeah that's like, yeah,
it's brand new. And so it's a tip if you're

(01:04:36):
traveling by train, go up. They've got you know, outlets
at every seat and real comfortable bathrooms like all that
kind of stuff. It's a good spot, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
So from New York we went to New Haven. So
first time, this is your first time in New England.
Yeah yeah, okay, so got that one right. So we're
in New Haven. We were there because Jasmine really wanted
to visit Yale and you know, we're in New England
the Falls. So went to this little restaurant right next

(01:05:09):
to our our hotel room.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
We got in super late, remember that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Yeah, our train was a little delayed on that one too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
So it was funny because I like just was looking
up breakfast places and it just so happened that the
place was next to our.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yeah, cute little diner. I think it's called Patty's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Yeah, Patricia's, yeah, Patricius Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
So we went to Yale Jasmine. Was it everything that
you hoped for?

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
It totally was. We like scheduled a campus tour, not
a prospective student tour, but they do tours for the
public and led by a student, so it was really great.
You know, it's so funny because these buildings they look
they were designed to look like they're really really old,
but actually a lot of them were built in the

(01:06:00):
twentieth century, so not as old as they look. But
still this architecture is gorgeous and the fall leaves and
I'm a Gilmore Girls fan, so more retro stuff now crazy.
But of course Rory goes to Yale and that was
the lens for most of my experience with Yale. Other
than you know, Ivy League College. I'm you know, love

(01:06:24):
being on like old college campuses Oxford and England Cambridge,
like all these It's just something I like to do
when I'm in a city that has one, and so
I would have gone anyway. But of course the Gilmore
Girl lens was there, and I went back right after
that watched an episode and saw all the places where
Rory lived.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Well, we went to a small, you know college, so
to go on a big campus like that, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
It was awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
And what I learned about Yale was that it has
the most restaurants per capita of any school United States,
which I thought it was hard to believe, but that's
what they said.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Did they tell us that on the tour? Yeah, I
did not remember here.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
I remember that because I was thinking, oh dude, they
got like all this food, and I was like, well,
where are we going to go eat later on? But
we did have lunch in the cafeteria, which was amazing.
It felt like a cathedral slash like maybe a European
train station.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
Yeah, like it was a big hall. Yeah it was.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
It was cool to eat and the food was pretty
decent as well. It was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
They also have the Binicky Rare book collections, so you
can't like see all.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Of the they had Dead Sea scrolls.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Yeah, they do, so I think you could request to
see certain manuscripts or books, but you can at least
go in the building. And they have these stacks of
books in this glass i don't know room in the
middle of the building.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
It's almost like an apocalyptic future where they put all
the remaining books ever in existence.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Because my gosh, let's hope that happens, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
And then last thing I want to talk about New
Haven was they're known for a style of pizza, Sally's pizza.
So it how do you explain it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
It's just it's just like pizza with sauce. Though. That
was what. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, I think I'm hungry.
I keep talking. I'm super hungry.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
And then we went to a cool barcade called Barcade,
and that was the only other city besides New York
that we stayed I'm sorry, not New York, Washington that
we stayed two nights in. So I just remember going
into the second hotel in New Haven and opening the
door and there was just the trees and we even

(01:08:42):
took a picture because all the lights in our hotel
was off and the sun was just like setting and
it was illuminating all the red and orange and the
yellows of the trees. It was beautiful. It really is beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Just go just to walk around. That's the best part,
all right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Last, but not last, Boston.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
I have now been to Boston in the fall.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Boston in the fall, all right, So that'stails it is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Anybody who gets that, it's pretty obscure, but it's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
So for me, you know, I am in La Native
and Boston sports, you know, Celtics, the Patriots, the Red Sox,
you know, just no bueno. But I'll admit Boston. I
really enjoyed Boston.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Boston on the list.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
If there was any city to revisit, it would probably
be Boston for me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
M you know, it's funny. We just kept feeling like
that the whole trip though. I remember we said that
about Philly too.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
So Philly too, well, we weren't in phil Philly for
that long.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
It was very short, Yeah, because.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Our train got to something happened.

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
I think. No, we just that was just just planned
to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Yeah, so we felt like we did. Don't really see
much of Philly. We saw the highlights, you know, Liberty Bell,
all that stuff. But in Boston, We had clam chowder.
That was the first thing we did.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
We got there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
We had clam chowder and like Sam Adams, because you're
in Boston, and we went to Bulker Hill.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Yes, that was a very cool neighborhood and that's where
the chowder was. And then you've got the historical monument
and just these again like old houses and streets and
I loved seeing that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Yeah, and incredible because we were by the the sea
and we saw these boats and just you were I
don't know how to describe it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
We were like on.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
The west side the east side of of like where
downtown is.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
I don't remember remember, I think it's actually I think
it's actually North North Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
But like essentially we were like in this isolated area.
It was like, I believe, a Friday night, and it
was beautiful because again the sun was setting and we're
in this unfamiliar city and incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
Well, and what's really cool about Boston, and this is
how we spent a lot of our like day and
a half there is they they're of course way more
like revolutionary American history in this city, and they've kind
of compiled all of the sites into something that they
call the Freedom Trail, and they do tours of all

(01:11:37):
these sites and they're from various points in US history,
but a lot of them revolutionary wartime. And if you
take a guided tour, the tour guides are usually in
historical right, what is the word reenactment costumes? Like, they're
not just oh I bought it at party city costumes.
You know, they're like detailed and historical on They're top

(01:12:00):
fucking in that language a lot of times too, So
it is not unusual, even though we were there at Halloween.
I think no matter what time of year you are there,
you're gonna see people in like, I don't know whatever,
that period revolutionary period costumes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
And then the last night, that was our last night
on the trip, essentially, yeah, it was Game one of
the World Series.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
So true. Wait, okay, oh so more more history in
the making, right, just say that? Yeah, because I was
still talking about the history.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Well, I the next day, I feel like we could
talk more about that. So I just want to mention
real quick that it was you know, Dodgers Yankees. I
was wearing my Dodger gear the whole time because I
knew that all of Boston was rooting for the Dodgers
and I had all these you know, Red Sox fans,
Go Go Dodgers, Go Dodgers. It was it was fun.

(01:12:52):
So anyways, we went to this bar. We thought our
hotel bar was going to have it, but then they
were having some kind of it was crazy. We were
kind of like a we were at the Moxie if
you know, you know. So anyways, so we were like
scrambling right before the game started to find a bar,
right and you know, if this was La, it'd be

(01:13:15):
every corner would be having this game on. But it
being Dodgers and Yankees, most of Boston wasn't going to
be watching the World Series. So we went into this
like pub and it was so funny because the game
audio wasn't even on, and most people weren't even watching
the game. It was just you me, the bartenders, and

(01:13:36):
maybe the other guy who was at the like the
actual bar.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
Yeah, but even the bartenders didn't really care that much.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
They just were like, oh my god, Alex Rodugo's horrible,
and oh my god, I can't believe we give away
mooky bats and like.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
All that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
But we didn't watch the historic Grand Slam. We actually
walked back right before that, and we watched you fell
asleep because at that it was like midnight, past midnight.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
It was late, and you we did see it, though,
I think, but you're just saying we didn't see it
at the bar. We saw it back at our hotel
and and it went into what that was like the.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Something like that. Yeah, you know, hits grand Slam. I
woke you up from my reaction.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Yep. Yeah, well actually you were anticipating it, so I was.
I was already awake. I did. I did see it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
I said, it's it's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
You're like, it's extra innings, as you know, you're telling
me the situation, and I'm awake and I'm watching. So
I did see it all right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
Our last day the next day, which was probably one
of my favorite days to be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Yeah, I mean it was just a more beautiful city
to see, more historical sites to see. We finished our
walk of the Freedom Trail, so we split it up
because we knew we had some other things that we
wanted to do. So we ended up just getting like
a an audio guide on your phone for the Freedom Trail.
So depending on where we were, yeah, exactly, anyone where

(01:15:00):
we were, we listened to those spots and so it
was it was also really great that way too. And
then we also did the Boston Tea Party Museum, which
was very cool because you're in Boston Harbor at the
site where the tea was dumped into the harbor.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
I threw some tea into the harbor, I for sure did.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
It's another like it's not a very it's not really
a museum, but it's a re enactment. So they have
a couple ships built out and like actor tour guides
that take you through the story and the events kind
of immerse you. You become characters in the action. And
then yeah, you get to dump a tea box into

(01:15:40):
the river and then of course pull it back up
with rope.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
And what's crazy is seeing like how old these cemeteries
are and like, yeah, Boston died in seventeen seventy three.
It really reminded me of like the Beetlejuice era.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Or maybe the Beetlejuice era should remind you of.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
This, right right, But that was just like my reference
the tombstone, so Tim Burton know what he was doing.
So yeah, that was pretty much our trip. I know,
we went a little longer than we thought, but.

Speaker 1 (01:16:15):
I feel like there's still so much more we could
talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
But we did want to give a few tips.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Right, yes, oh that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
Let's take a quick break and when we come back
we'll do some tips.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
Sounds good. All right, we're back here on Radio Retro.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
We just gave a full rundown of our trip, our
train trip from LA to Boston, so we wanted to
just highlight a few tips. We got five tips if
you're thinking about doing something similar in Amtrak long distance trip.
So first one we said, plant ahead, but be flexible.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
Yeah, this is really important because the long distance trains
often only go once a day, so you do need
to plan ahead so you make sure you get seats.
But the flexibility comes in when you get to well,
of course when you have delays, like you just got
to be flexible, but also when you get into places

(01:17:13):
where you have more options for travel time. The great
thing about the rail pass is you can book and
cancel your legs really easily, which I forgot my pass.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
Like, yeah, you had like a got harder to like
delete things and reschedule. I always had to, like it
took like twenty minutes to do that. But luckily that
was just towards the.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
End of our trip, right, And that's not I think
a typical experience you had, like a weird think. I
was like, oh yeah, my past like glitched out, right. Yeah.
So barring that, you do get some flexibility when you
get to places that have multiple travel times, and so
it's just a great thing to kind of, uh, you know,
stay a little bit flexible with your plans so that

(01:17:57):
if you see something or you find a city that
you really love and you want to stay, you can
or you know. The other thing is, once you start
your trip, you kind of get locked in on the
days you're going to be certain places, and you have
to consider things like closures of the sites you want
to see depending on the day of the week weekend travel,

(01:18:18):
weekday travel. So you got to be a little bit
flexible this way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
And also like in the route, like there was an
opportunity for us to be in Cleveland, but we would
have had to leave at like one point fifteen am
and we wouldn't have slept or anything like that. So
I would say, like, if you want to do something,
first look at the Amtrak routes and see where it
goes through and like look at the cities, because not

(01:18:44):
every major city, like for instance, we probably would have
preferred to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, rather than Albuquerque,
but there's no Amtrac that goes through there. Most of
the time the major cities will go through. There's only
like what a handful of states were Amtrak to and
go through.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
But for the most time you can.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
There's also an option where you can take a bus,
and that also counts for the real past as well.
So if you wanted to go maybe Upstate New York,
you could take a bus or something.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
You can, although the train does go there lots of
places in right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Right, yea something maybe an example. You know, also just
plan ahead, like you could save money if you plan ahead,
like for us bringing food and things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Also, you know, you also kind of have to be flexible.
So I am thankful in certain aspects that we were
kind of booking our travel as we were going our
nights because if for whatever reason you lost a night
due to delays, you don't get that night back as

(01:19:50):
far as hotels, you know, right, it usually the twenty
four hour window closes or something like that. So yeah,
just be flexible. Number two was pack enough but not
too much.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
This is a good one. So I mentioned the luggage
limits are really there's hardly any limit at all. But
keep in mind you are gonna have to be carrying
all that stuff through train stations.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
You look like we were like on the Mayflowers.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Well, when we left LA I just kept saying out
loud in public to Max, well, this is quite a
way to move across the country, because I was embarrassed
of how much stuff we had. So I wanted people
to think that we had all of our belongings with us.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
About a lot of entertainment with us.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
And that's one thing that we will say is being
on the train at least if you're like us, a
you have almost every entertainment you need on your phone,
so you're pretty good there. You can download movies, music, ebooks,
audio books, games to play, bring a Nintendo switch, and
you're pretty much good.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
I would say we were trying to pack with options.
I wouldn't do that if we were do that to
so like, for instance, I brought four books, probably just
could have brought one. Yeah, we brought four or five
different kind of card games or little board games. Probably
just needed to bring one. But like as far as
clothes too, you don't have to overpack with for clothes,

(01:21:16):
like you don't need to have every situational clothing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Yeah, I mean, I guess we're probably a little different
in that regard. I felt like I packed in terms
of clothes just right. I had just the right thing
for every situation, including rain, wind, lots of walking. Yeah,
I brought like in Albuquerque it was eighty five ninety
degrees out and then by the time we got to
Kansas City, which was the very next city, it was

(01:21:43):
like forty degrees out, so and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Philly was eighty degrees We were there during the hottest
day in October and October in their history, so it
was it was different. We wanted colder weather and.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
We did eventually get it, but we also had great
weathers because we didn't get rained out or anything like that.
So there's that. The other thing that I will say
that is essential to pack is your sleeping gear. So I,
at least for me, I can't just like lay in
a chair in my jeans and tennis shoes and fall asleep.

(01:22:18):
I brought like blankets, just little like fleece small blankets
that rolled up real easy in my bag. We I
also use those as pillows, bring an eye shade for
sleeping on the train. Definitely would recommend plug, but definitely

(01:22:39):
also headphones.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Yeah, just because there's a lot of ambient noises, like
in the background, like whether it's the train, Like train's
not super loud, I should say that, sure, but you
know there's just.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
There's people who have to go to the bathrooms.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
You know, there's just there's background noise. It's not dead quiet.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
So yeah, Well, and just to go back to like
the entertainment thing for me, at least, I found that
I almost didn't need any of that stuff because I
was just loving looking out the window. All I really
wanted was maybe some music, and then I just wanted
to see the scenery. We were talking.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
Yeah, I had my laptop, so I was doing a
few editing, but I didn't even get through all of it.
You know, I had a lot of hours to edit,
and I had the time, but I felt like, you know,
we talked, you know, and we were just.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
Yeah for hour. Well, and the other thing is once
it does get dark, and we were in the Falses
a little darker earlier, so once it's dark, they turn
the lights off and you kind of just want to
go to sleep, But yeah, you're not really staying up
late on the train too much.

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
No. Number three, there's a lot to see and experience
prioritized beforehand.

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
We talked a little bit about this. Yeah, I think
for us, the way we designed this trip was to
get a little taste of everywhere we went. But there's
so much more to see. So it helps to know
what you want to see beforehand. Do research, because especially
if you're going to places you've never been before, like us,
you might not know what to see right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Like if you wanted a tour the capital, that takes
what usually about a month or two months beforehand.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Like yeah, I mean especially a city like DC with
a lot of museums and things like that, they're gonna
take reservations. So that is one one thing to do
when you're planning your travel is like set some anchor
cities or some places where you know you want to
do a lot that requires a reservation.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Yeah, and it will say what DC like all the
museums are free?

Speaker 1 (01:24:36):
Yeah, so much is free. Yeah, a lot of what
we did on this trip was free.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
And it's not like outside of the lodging and we're
not ballers, like we have regular jobs and stuff. It's
not like we spent a lot of money on this.
We just did things that were inexpensive, even like you know,
the Kurse Child. We got lottery tickets and only paid
like forty dollars rather than one hundred and twenty that

(01:25:03):
there normally are. So some of it's luck. Some of
it you just you know, be on the lookout and
what's free. You know. There was things we didn't do
because it just it costs too much. But uh, there's
a lot to see an experience prioritized beforehand and try
to expand your horizons. Right, Like what we wanted to

(01:25:23):
do was go to every food we ate was pretty
much like what is the known thing there? Right, right,
So that's why we had burnt ends in Kansas City
or having Christmas salsa.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
And you know exactly in New Mexico.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
And New Mexico. You know, so you just got to
have that Citi's cuisine because it's part of their culture
and we were big on that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
Well and I'll just like last thing here, it kind
of goes back to the plane ahead. But be flexible
is just I don't know for me when I travel,
I like to just leave myself time. I'm to just
wander and see the cool coffee shop that's there. Or oh, listen,
I'm hearing something. Oh is that music, Let's go follow
it and see what's going on. So just give yourself

(01:26:11):
some margins so that you can do things like that too.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
So number one is plan ahead but be flexible. Number two,
pack enough but not too much. Number three, there's a
lot to see an experience prioritized beforehand before. Public transportation
is your friend.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
Yeah, I mean this is also just part of us
being on a budget on this trip. We did not
want to uber and lyft any everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
Let's just say that, and we kind of learned that
in Alburquerque. It adds up fast.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
And the great thing about train travel is train stations
are almost always in the heart of the city, so
it's not like an airplane where you're landing on the
outskirts and you have to get in somehow. You're pretty
much ending up almost right where you want to be
most of the time. So find a hotel that's reasonably
close and then take the bus, take the subway, walk.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
The only times we lifted was when we were going
to our hotel or to the station, because especially in
certain cities, it would be hard to have your Again,
we kind of overpacked, but having all o our suitcase
and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
But there were times we also did that too. Those
we did do that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
In New York we had all of our you know,
suitcases and stuff. We didn't do that in Boston, like Buston,
I had no idea had a subway system and are
older than the New York system. So and it takes
you all over the city and that was like awesome. So, yeah,
we took the bus in Kansas City, we took the
bus in Boston, In DC.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
We took the bus and the subway.

Speaker 2 (01:27:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
Yeah, we took the bus. In Philadelphia. We took the bus,
and we took a bus in every city.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
And we didn't feel unsafe. No, no, there was just
that one night in Washington. But it wasn't that we
were felt unsafe. It was just like, hey, this it's
like a party atmosphere, right, It's just we weren't we
didn't want to be in that environment. But I didn't
feel like, oh, our lives are endangered or anything like that.
And we weren't in a lot of the big cities.

Speaker 1 (01:28:09):
So yeah, yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
So avoided place. I mean we went again. Planning ahead
is where you stay in you know, just do a
quick check and not that you have to be paranoise
or anything, but if you're going to book a hotel,
like know what area.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):
It's in, you know. Yeah, I mean the information is
out there. The Internet is a vast resource. But the
last plug I'll put in for public transportation is most
of the time it's free. Like a lot of cities
it's free. And now that there's things like Apple Pay,
it's so much you don't even have to go anywhere
to buy a ticket. You can a lot of places

(01:28:45):
just pay with your phone. Yeah, and you don't even
have to get an app.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
Nope, no Kiosk that you have to buy a ticket from.
Like that was the biggest difference, even from twenty twenty
one being in New York to now we just hap
and that was it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
And the other thing that is real great is Google
Maps will guide you on public transportation. It's really reliable
in our experience, like it it will find the route,
it will even time the next train and be watching it.
So you don't even have to engage too much with
all of the different systems. You can just use things
you already have.

Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
Public transportation is your friend, last one. So we had
plan ahead, be flexible, pack enough but not too much.
There's a lot to see an experience. Prioritize beforehand. Number four,
we just talked about public transportation is your friend, last one.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
Just do it, Just do it, Just do it. Make
your dreams come true. It's worth it. I mean we
sat here and talked about it for I don't know
how long, and we could keep an hour and a half. Yeah,
And I mean I'm sure Max will share some photos
on Ready to Retro. But it's like the best way

(01:29:57):
to see our country and it's a beautiful place. I mean,
I just kept singing cold plays. Don't panic in my head,
like we live in a beautiful world. Train travel is
a great way to see it. Yeah we do, Yeah,
we do. So yeah, just do it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
I mean, if you're hesitant, you know, if there if
you have restrictions, I understand. But if you're like, hey,
I wonder if.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
This would work out.

Speaker 2 (01:30:22):
That's why we kind of want to put this out there,
is because I know that there's people out there who
have thought about it. But saying I don't know anyone
who's actually done it. So also, there's a lot of
resources on YouTube. Oh yeah, that's what helped us.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
I wish I would have planned that ahead of time.
Maybe I could put that in the notes too, Just
some of the YouTube channels that we were that helped
us actually solidify this.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
Shout out to a couple of them and maybe we
can link them in.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
Yeah, I'll put in your post.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
But there were a few really helpful resources out there
and we just wanted to add to that list with this.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
Yeah awesome, Well, Jazz, thank you for being on this
bonus episode. Did not expect it to go this long,
but I had a lot of fun I usually recorded
in the R two R studios, but we are in
our living room and our beautiful tree, and our beautiful
is Christmas. That's what you said. We needed to have
a different vibe for this. So if you were to

(01:31:19):
do it again, what's our next trip?

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
I have heard that the trip to Seattle from la
is amazing, so I would I would like to do that,
and maybe if we have lots of time, you can
go from it's called the Empire Builder line from Seattle
to Chicago. That would also be amazing, and the real
northern parts of our country too.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
I would love to do the perimeter.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):
Ooh, the whole thing. Yeah, like southeast coast, north.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
Yep, down, straight up, across down around back in La.

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
All right, well from us, you know where to find us.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
That would be like four days on a train, easily.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
Four Only it would be so much more than four days.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
I'm talking one leg would be like fu yeah, yeah
h yeah, because if you have if you use the
real pass, it'd be ted.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Yeah, let's see that when we're retired.

Speaker 1 (01:32:14):
Yeah, you got it. It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
All right, Well that is our episode. Join us for
the next episode. As we finally are talking about our
holiday movies. We're gonna have first time guests on the show,
Limestone Picker. He claims he has the world's largest Adam
Sandler collection, and we're gonna do a review of two
thousand and two's.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
Eight Crazy Nights.

Speaker 2 (01:32:39):
And then Home Alone two. We're finally doing this. It
is way overdue here. I'm ready to retro. But we
cannot have a Home Alone two conversation without our buddy
Joey from Ninja Toytles, the Duchess of Horror Chelsea will
also be a part of that. So so much great
stuff to be released before the end of twenty twenty four.

(01:33:00):
And then we'll see you in twenty twenty five, which
honestly sounds like the future.

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
Where's my huver board? All right, we'll see you. Then
we're ready to retro.

Speaker 3 (01:33:09):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
Are you? Are you? Are you? Yes? Okay, cool,

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