Trekking? Amtraking!

Last week I had the opportunity to take the Amtrak from Washington, DC to Shelby, MT (the conductor told me it's nick name is Shelberia, oh train humor, you kill me!)
I got a variety of responses when I told people how I was getting back from DC. Everything from, "It's like you're going to Hogwarts!" (you know who you are...) to "The train? Who rides the train? That's so antiquated." I do obviously ... alright, I have now.
I didn't quite know what to expect from this experience, I assumed it'd be somewhat similar to taking the plane just a different view. I was delightfully surprised by so many aspects of my trip back to Canada. How un-plane like the whole experience was.
Don't get me wrong, I love flying. I'll take flying any day of the week over driving. However with all the safety measures they have in place now, it's taken a little of the joy out of it for me.
I met tons of new people on my trip, played games, napped repeatedly, saw a new city at my exchange point, ate some decent food, read a few books, saw the upper part of the U.S. from a different perspective, took endless pictures of random things/people/places ...People on trains seem to view travel differently; maybe cause no one is in a rush to get anywhere. Being on a rush while traveling by train would be ... ridiculous in the extreme. By the time we pulled into Shelby, MT we were nearly 7 (SEVEN) hours behind schedule because of various train maintenance issues. How many complaints did I hear the entire 56 hours in transit? One. By a lady simply concerned she'd miss her connection way further down the line. Everyone seemed to take it in stride.
The only down sides I found were:
1) The fumes. Every time we'd make a stop, I could almost taste the trains diesel fumes. Nasty.
2) I don't think the bathrooms got cleaned. Ever. Which forced this "slightly" neurotic person to have mild panic attacks every time I realized I'd drank too much water (again). Dude, the air on the train was dry there was no alternative!

I'd do it again without hesitation. I may even be willing to fork over the extra $$ to get a bedroom ... maybe. If only for the showers they have available to them.