From New Orleans through El Paso, the Sunset Limited winds its way through the American south.
During our 28 hour journey, we met fellow wanderers, fellow artists, and fellow eye-mask-wearing, tossing-turning, exhausted coach passengers. First the Louisiana swamps and then into the flat of Texas, we finally fell asleep near San Antonio and woke along the Mexico border in Big Bend country.
In the morning, the sun rose as we ate breakfast in the dining car at a family-style table, chatting with a traveler about her days protesting Vietnam and her fear for the future.
By the time we disembarked we’d heard the stories of Maggie, a former schoolteacher from Arkansas who had “gypsy in [her] blood” and was on her way to spread her brother's ashes in a new state, a large format photographer from Prescott, Arizona, a bartender from Austin who had escaped the SXSW scene for the tourism of NOLA, and a father sharing his love of train travel and national parks with his son.
