Iraqi WMDs found!

I've always said New York City has it all. Here's proof! Where else can you find Saddam Hussein's stockpile of phosgene?

Head-first at 60 miles per hour?

One small quirk about our recent trip on the Auto Train: the porter made up our beds with the pillows at the forward end. On every train trip I've taken in the past (excluding the ones in coach of course, and in bedrooms with beds across the width of the train), the pillow was at the rear end of the bed. I was under the impression that there were safety reasons for this--basically you wanted your feet forward so if there was an emergency braking or wreck, you'd be less likely to hit your head travelling and sleeping feet-forward.

Has there been a new study suggesting the old way was wrong? Did our porter make a mistake? Is there something else going on here? I'll be interested in seeing if we return to Florida head-first.

Riding the parallel universe's Amtrak?

My dad and I took the Auto Train north for our trip to New York.

That the service was good wasn't too surprising--sometimes, the service is good on Amtrak. That the food in the dining car was good was a bit more surprising, since dining car service on Amtrak has been recently hit with budget cuts--but the salmon was excellent last night. The really astonishing thing was that the Auto Train--an Amtrak train running on CSX rails--got in to Lorton almost an hour early.

I love train travel, however, this train trip was a pleasant surprise, with things going well that recent news and prior train trips would have suggested wouldn't be the case.