The Best American Travel Writing 2012

by Jason Wilson

  [background noise]

  ME: . . . buckin’ shots.

  READ: You guys all got fuckin’ hella shook!

  ME: That was the loudest thing I’ve heard in months, man!

  [Read laughs]

  READ: Was that shit pretty loud?

  ME: It was so loud! It was echoing all across the bay . . . echoing all across the Sound.

  [background noise]

  READ: Fuck. Isn’t it crazy someone just . . . threw that fuckin’ shit through the window?

  ME: Ya. While you were buckin’ shots, right? Coincidence? Who knows . . .

  DRUNKEN BROAD: Definitely obnoxious coincidence.

  [Read looking for his phone charger]

  READ: Is this my charger?

  ME: You’re not gonna find that thing in this mess.

  READ: All right. Fuck it . . . find that shit tomorrow.

  [door shuts]

  DRUNKEN BROAD: What are you doing? Don’t you know what you’re doing?

  [inaudible talking]

  DRUNKEN BROAD to ME: You get it, right?

  READ: Let’s go! Call Jamie. See if Jamie still wants to hang out.

  ME to DRUNKEN BROAD: Halfway . . .

  DRUNKEN BROAD: What the fuck are you doing with a gun you have to shoot into a bush at the same time this weird random coincidence at the same time happens that you don’t know anything about?

  ME: What hath Fortuna spun my way?

  READ: I didn’t shoot that shit in the bush. I shot it in the air . . .

  4.9.11

  Tacoma, WA—I preyed on trains from the Amtrak station, which conveniently borders a small BNSF yard just down the street from the Greyhound station on Puyallup Ave., where there are also two gas stations to acquire food and beer while waiting. The tracks are fairly busy considering both UP and BNSF share trackage rights, as well as Amtrak, which runs at least six trains a day. Just south of the Amtrak station was a loading dock with several boxcars backed up to it, across from which the yard sat fairly full. However, no trains were on the outer five main lines, which meant that everything was either being received or classified which was about the way it looked to me, as there were no units in sight. Since it’s Saturday and the business with the loading dock was closed, I sat there writing and watching. Directly across from me sat an old green BN caboose made into the middle of a string of miscellaneous cars that I had my eye on from minute one. After several patient moments of looking out, I crossed the tracks to find the caboose wide open and accepting of me. Actually, it was the perfect place to wait. It had a bed, desk, table and chairs, two second-level seats that looked out over the top the trains, and several compartments to hide stuff in. I could’ve stayed there for days!

  The main line quickly proved to be extremely active, as I thought, with three northbounds (two BNSF and one UP) moving through, one of which stopped for about an hour to work. I made a beer run across the street and found an obscure beer called Schmidt, with one of the most atrocious labels I have ever seen—a sepia-toned buck standing in the woods as if it were being viewed through the scope of a gun. That’s what I got a six-pack of and drank while sitting in the upper level of the caboose looking out across the yard. It soon became apparent that, at least on this day, southbounds are not as frequent as northbounds. Trains destined for Seattle, Everett-and-beyond, and British Columbia–bound coal cars almost never stopped coming through, and most of them I could have caught on the fly (I think), if I needed to. I actually contemplated catching out north and reestablishing myself back up in Seattle for a clean catch south, out of Argo. But then again, I really didn’t have any idea how these southbounds behaved, and I didn’t want to give up on Tacoma so soon. Besides, I was pretty comfortable in the caboose.

  It was a nice day in Tacoma, which doesn’t necessarily mean warm or sunny—just not raining. Derived from the native Tahoma, a name given to the great mountain looming over the city, Tacoma sits south of the yard on a jut of land in the Commencement Bay part of Puget Sound. A railroad town founded in 187? by Northern Pacific, Tacoma very much has the feeling of a port city with an array of bridges linking to nearby islands. There are docks galore, seafood restaurants, a waterfront conducive to people traffic that stretches the length of the city’s shoreline, and boats—in harbors, at ports, docking and undocking—surround the city at bay. Tacoma is not a sprawling expanse, but rather a town stacked on steep hills that provide an upper-handed view across the Sound of Vashon Island (the second longest [behind Long] island in the continental U.S., which stretches all the way to Seattle), and of monumental, glaciated, fine-beer-inspiring Mt. Rainier dominating the eastern horizon. Unfortunately, I did not get to spend much time in Tacoma, but perhaps another day . . .

  By evening’s onset seven northbound trains had come through, four of which were catchable on the fly. The seventh northbound was a damn fast line of BNSF maroon hoppers and after that the first southbound of the day pulled into the yard, a short line of doublestacks that did not seem too promising, so I made another six-pack-of-Schmidt run.

  The eighth northbound of the day, a loaded BNSF coal train doing a good 35–40 mph, was no doubt headed to Vancouver, B.C., to be exported. There were very, very few markings on the line of silver bullets, and it had two DPUs pushing. The ninth northbound was another line of BNSF maroons . . . Whistle Blower, 7/09—Low Expectations; Joins; DCH Bend Over, Oregon; Texican Gothic; and several Ewoks . . . A DPU pushed this line as well, which suggests it too is going a longer distance than just Seattle.

  I finally lost track of how many northbounds came through—ten or eleven or twelve—but another southbound did finally pull into the yard after sunset and it was not a stock of cars that I had seen occupying the yard thus far, which made me think it was not going to stay. After cutting its air, the units broke off, carrying with them the first half of the train. In the cover of darkness I left the caboose and walked the line back. It consisted of a lot of Canadian grainers, old BN hoppers, and some obscure boxcars that I quickly determined were loaded. After walking both sides of the line I found only a big-belly Canadian hopper with a filthy porch facing into the wind. But since it’s spring in the rainy Northwe(s)t, I needed to find something more suitable to ride. Most of the boxcars had seals on their doors so I didn’t try to open them, but I came upon a NOKL boxcar without a seal and managed to open its door, and it was indeed empty (however, there was still a seal on the other side’s door). I placed my bags inside the boxcar and rested my feet by dangling my legs out the door. A unit passed behind me on the main line and I climbed over and saw it to be a southbound, but I didn’t get to see if the units were UP or BNSF. The train was short too, anyhow, and though it stopped briefly, I let it go and went back to the boxcar.

  Trains clanked on the shove, my boxcar lurched, and the train eventually departed south on a steady curve about the dark shimmering bay, passing under cathedral-like bridges, through multiple industries, grain mills, sidings stocked with a plethora of BNSF maroon hoppers stretching for miles, cut through a short tunnel beneath an overpass, and then delved into a longer tunnel that stretched for about a mile—the Nelson-Bennet Tunnel. Curving eastward underneath Point Defiance and submerging me in as great a pitch black as I have known, the tunnel then spit the train out along the eastern shore of the Puget Sound . . . The tunnel was a good mile long and I could not see my hand passing over my face . . . just pitch black for a good two or three minutes and the train came out right along the Sound . . . now just barreling along its shore . . . it’s wide open and there’s an arch bridge ahead—a big Golden Gate–like bridge arching over the Sound . . . there’s an island in the middle and the Sound looks like the Willamette up in Oregon City if the Willamette were three or four times as wide, wider than the Columbia . . . it’s beautiful and wide and dark and milky and also reminds me of the Gorge as the train rounds along banks of huge boulders, occasionally passing slender sand beaches . . . I can see why the early explorers once mistook this for the mouth of the No
rthwest Passage . . . barreling along . . . a train approaches in the distance with bright headlights . . . now diverging readily from the Sound and going over a sort of dried-up area where the water has receded like at low tide . . . crossing I-5 into a woodsy area . . . still barreling along at 45–50 miles per hour, toward Olympia, I suppose . . . the only problem with this boxcar is the door keeps—every time the train shunts the boxcar’s door closes a little bit more and I have to push it back open . . . I know that it’s a pressure-release door that can’t just lock me inside . . . (I don’t think I’m going to get stuck in here, but I don’t want to take any chances . . .) I wedged my water bottle, which fit pretty generously, into the crease, and also a beer can, but I don’t think that’s really going to do any good. (Hopefully I won’t be locked in this boxcar by morning. If I am, it will be a slow painful death in which dehydration will be the key factor . . .) I have only one bottle of water, so if I die, I’ll die doing what I love—a noble cause . . .

  I’m somewhere in Washington—not sure where. I slept all night in that boxcar on a siding somewhere, and it rained the whole night, but I was comfortable . . . now in a yard somewhere in Washington and the train just started moving again . . . wet and gray . . . old BN cars and lumber . . . headed south without any signs telling me where I am (I’ll have to figure that out by deduction) . . . moving steady . . . a small lake of some sort to the west of the train car . . . hills across that with fog clinging to the tops of them . . . very low cloud cover . . . lots of empty and abandoned docks, and posts sticking out of the water . . . moving steadily at 30–35–40 miles per hour through a kind of marshland . . . everything is wet and gray yet still pretty—milepost 1048—and there’s lots of lumber and industry around . . . the lake widens and shows its true character as a bay or marina with boats out—not as wide as the Sound, but still a wide bay (this could be Longview, or around there) . . . a whole line of trains that was in Tacoma last night is now down here in Washington—Ridgefield—they must’ve passed me in the night, and now I’m passing them . . . Fidel siding . . . now pulling into Fruit Valley, wherever the fuck that is (a lot of familiar cars hanging out in this yard, though, that I can already tell). There’s a light, spitting rain and I’m on a jeep path in between two lines. The line I just got off, it’s probably going to stay here for a while. However, a line across from it is getting air-hose-checked by a guy on an ATV, and taking that to be the line that’s going to move first, I climb over to it . . . rain picking up, almost becoming sleet . . . a train horn in the distance sounds like a crossing horn, not a start-up horn . . . I hear this train ticking air and even sense it nudge a little bit . . . workers on ATVs always unnerve me and one looks to be coming down on each side of the train . . . (I’ve got to get off this porch when the worker comes because I don’t know if the cubbyhole’s going to cut it . . .) shit! [sound of ATV revving] Dude’s right across from me on an ATV . . . he just rolled straight past as I hid behind a wheel axle . . . a light rain in Vancouver—I’m just going to go ahead and say this is Vancouver. I’ve been here for about an hour and no trains have left. That same line of boxcars from last night in Tacoma that passed me and that I then passed at Ridgefield this morning just pulled into the yard and is now sitting on the line next to me. I’m waiting for a move, anything to get me closer to downtown Vancouver so I can just take a bus to Portland . . . (there’s something coming in between these two trains . . .) BNSF coal cars, loaded, just went north, and there’s definitely a guy on an ATV down there working on this line . . . (sounds like an Amtrak coming through . . .) [Amtrak approaches] . . . it’s the Cascades . . . [Amtrak roars by] . . . (kind of seems like strange timing . . .) a guy is coming down my line on an ATV doing something or another—I have to keep an eye on him . . . just left the north end of that Vancouver yard, or Fruit Valley, or whatever it’s called, by jumping on a line when it started to move, then getting off when that line stalled and another line started to move and catching on to that other line on the fly . . . it’s spitting rain and I’m on the move again, trying to just get back across the river to Portland. Time will tell where this train will take me, but hopefully it’s not headed east. (I didn’t really think about that. Hopefully I’ll be able to get off before then if it is) . . . lots of whistles . . .

  Contributors’ Notes

  Bryan Curtis is a staff writer at Grantland and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine and Texas Monthly. He travels frequently with the photographer Eric Roberts.

  Aaron Dacytl is a photographer, writer, adventurer, and train enthusiast. A 2010 graduate of Portland State University, he prefers to travel by freight train as well as to work seasonally. In his spare time he makes Railroad Semantics, a zine devoted to independent travel, railroad culture, and history. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

  Luke Dittrich is a contributing editor at Esquire, where he writes on subjects ranging from lost atomic bombs to teenage hit men. His forthcoming book, The Brain That Changed Everything, is about Henry Molaison, who in 1958 underwent an experimental operation at the hands of Dittrich’s grandfather. The operation obliterated Molaison’s ability to create new memories, and Molaison went on to become the most important human test subject in the history of science, revolutionizing our understanding of how memory works. An Esquire article Dittrich wrote about Molaison is featured in the 2011 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing.

  Lynn Freed’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Southwest Review, Georgia Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, and Narrative Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/O. Henry Award, fellowships, grants, and support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Born in South Africa, she now lives in northern California.

  J. Malcolm Garcia is the author of Khaarijee: A Chronicle of Friendship and War in Kabul (2009) and Riding through Katrina with the Red Baron’s Ghost (2012). His articles have been featured in The Best American Travel Writing and The Best American Nonrequired Reading.

  Michael Gorra is the author of Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece (2012). Winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award for his work as a reviewer, he has taught English at Smith College since 1985. Earlier books include The Bells in Their Silence: Travels through Germany, After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie, and, as editor, The Portable Conrad. An earlier essay appeared in The Best American Travel Writing 2004. Gorra lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his wife and daughter.

  Peter Gwin is a staff writer at National Geographic. His assignments have led him to the Sahara’s largest Stone Age graveyard, the oldest known tyrannosaur, and Nazi U-boats sunk in the Gulf of Mexico. A native of Fayette County, Georgia, he is based in Washington, D.C.

  Pico Iyer is the author of two novels and eight works of nonfiction, including many found on the travel literature shelves—Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, Falling Off the Map, and The Global Soul. His most recent book, The Man Within My Head, which came out in early 2012, is about Graham Greene, hauntedness, and the moral and emotional conundrums that travel quite wonderfully throws up.

  Mark Jenkins is a seasoned climber, contributing writer for National Geographic, and former monthly columnist for Outside magazine. His books include A Man’s Life: Dispatches from Dangerous Places; The Hard Way: Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure; To Timbuktu: A Journey Down the Niger; and Off the Map: Bicycling Across Siberia. He has written for Men’s Health, Backpacker, Time, The Atlantic, and other media.

  Dimiter Kenarov is a freelance journalist and contributing editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has appeared in Esquire, Outside, The Nation, the International Herald Tribune, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and Boston Review, among others. He currently lives in Istanbul, Turkey.


  Robin Kirk is the author of three books, including More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War on Colombia (2004) and The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru (1997). She is the coeditor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (2005) and coedits Duke University Press’s World Readers series. Kirk’s essay “Best Ever Dog” was featured in the summer 2010 Oxford American’s “Best of the South” issue. An award-winning poet, Kirk also won the 2005 Glamour magazine nonfiction contest with her essay on the death penalty. For twelve years she was a researcher with Human Rights Watch and covered Colombia and Peru. She teaches at Duke University.