Coast-to-coast by Amtrak ... and Back!

I will be leaving around noon today for a three-week trip that will take me across the country and back again ... all by Amtrak. (Those of you who know about my love of train travel will not be surprised.)

A high point will be introducing an almost-nine-year-old granddaughter to her first overnight train ride ... aboard Amtrak's Coast Starlight, from Los Angeles to Seattle.

From there, I'll be traveling solo to Washington, DC, for an annual meeting of the National Association of Railroad Passengers. As an elected member of NARP's Council of Representatives, I'll be visiting a number of our representatives and senators banging the drum for more and better trains for the U.S.

After Washington, it's up to Boston to see several Red Sox games at venerable Fenway Park, then back to the West Coast, again by Amtrak: Boston to Chicago to Seattle to Los Angeles. I'll be joined on the Boston-LA portion of the trip by my brother-in-law who has heard me carry on so much over the years about both train travel and the Red Sox that he's decided to find out for himself what it's all about. By the time we get to LA, he will know for sure, one way or the other, if I'm really on to something, or am just a bit nuts.

I will do what I can to post here from time to time, but if you're interested in hearing more about all these train travels, stop in at my other blog where I'll be doing my best to provide regular posts as I go.

I'll be back home on Maui around the middle of May. Aloooo-ha!

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One More Perspective on Health Care

A couple of weeks ago, as I was returning home from a two-week trip to the mainland, I found myself sitting next to an attractive 30ish woman on the Hawaiian Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Maui.

Just before we took off, this attractive lady made a cell phone call and I noted she was speaking a foreign language. It was Portuguese, leading me to guess correctly that she was Brazilian because, as it happens, there is quite a little enclave of Brazilians here on Maui.

Maria has been living on Maui for almost 20 years and now holds both a U.S. and a Brazilian passport. She was returning to Maui after visiting her mother in Rio de Janeiro and remarked that she makes the grueling trip – something like 20 hours in the air each way – twice a year.

I remarked that it was nice that she could see her family that often. “Yes,” Maria said, “but I also go so I can see my doctors.”

At first I was concerned that she had some kind of serious medical problem. “Not at all,” she said, “In Brazil the focus is on preventative medicine. Health care there is much more thorough that it is here, the doctors are excellent, and it is much less expensive … even with the cost of travel.”

How’s that for a commentary on the state of health care in the U.S.?
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