We had booked the evening train from Boston South Station to NJ Penn Station – there are Acela trains, which are the faster ones but slightly more expensive; we had opted for the normal Amtrak, which was an hour after the Acela – but in the afternoon we discovered that the Acela was cancelled due to some power issue in the New York station.
Today was the day when the Boston Celtics, a basketball team that won the NBA finals just earlier this week, was doing a victory parade through the city. There were huge crowds in Boston, and from our office, we could get a peek at the train station, which also seemed crowded.
Our colleagues and friends were surprised that we were going to vacation in Alaska and even more surprised when we told them that we hadn’t yet planned/booked anything. A couple of folks who had been there in the past did ask us to book for the main events because otherwise, we may not get seats – but in the last few days, we hadn’t managed to get to do the research or the bookings. We did hear a few interesting and scary stories – everything involving bears.
Bear encounters
“If it’s brown, lay down dead; if it’s black, then fight back,” they said. We learnt there are brown bears and black bears, and grizzly bears are a type of brown bear.
“There was this time when we had a group of tourists go hiking. We told everyone what to do on seeing a bear, and everyone had bear spray cans. There was this trio of young Indians in the group, and along the path they took, they happened to encounter a black bear – they were frightened and ran. Two of them made it back, but the 3rd one was missing; we retraced their path and found that the 3rd person was killed by the bear.”
Since bears are large, you think you can outrun them. But seems like there is no chance of outrunning a bear – they apparently run faster than us!
“If it’s a black bear, just band up together and make yourselves look large. Hold your hands together, stand on your toes, raise your arms wide, and make sounds and faces. It should feel that you are big, and then it will go away without wanting to mess with you.”
We heard another story later from the same colleague, “I was out with my friends in the woods. We all had guns. And there at a distance of about 10 meters, we spotted a black bear. Just the distance from here to that pillar there.”
“We crouched behind some logs lying around to avoid being spotted. But we noticed that a small black bear was coming towards us. The mother was keeping an eye on the cub. As it came closer, we kept whispering to the bear to go away, go away. After taking a few steps towards us, it turned away. We were ready with our guns in case of an encounter.”
Well, we definitely weren’t going to be armed with guns – so that wasn’t a fallback option for us.
“Recently, there was a news story about a guy in the forest who didn’t manage to use the bear spray can in the panic. He turned around, holding the can in the air near his shoulder. The bear came to bite him but bit on the can, which exploded. This saved the guy. Miraculous escape.”
Bear spray cans are like cockroach or pesticide spray cans that are supposed to be effective in deterring a bear from advancing towards you.
“As soon as you land in Anchorage, there’s a Walmart nearby where you can pick a bear spray can,” he advised us.
Another person asked us, “What bear would you like to see?”
And Rakesh replied, “A teddy bear!”
We had to drag our large suitcases (the ones you check-in at the airport) to the station. We got in through the back entrance, bringing you straight to the train tracks. Moorthy came in from Merrimack and entered through the main station entrance. We met just outside our train – it had arrived and was on time.
The Amtrak train had seats that were like flight seats but were much more comfortable and had more legroom. The train also had plenty of space above for luggage – we could easily stow our suitcases on top. There was no assigned seat on the ticket, and we took an empty row – each row had 2 seats on either side of the walkway. The train had wifi, and Moorthy logged in to do some work; Raghav and I started researching Alaska – we still didn’t have any plan in place, and the plan was to plan in the train. The net wasn’t great, but it was ok.
As the train moved, the announcer made repeated announcements saying the train was fully booked, and so, if something doesn’t move then stow it on top! Basically, she didn’t want luggage taking up seat space.
The conductor came around to check the tickets and placed a little stub above the seats where she had verified the tickets. After an hour or so, Raghav was hungry, and so we walked past coaches to get to the end, where there was a cafeteria – the setup was nice in that there was a small canteen and one coach with tables set up like a restaurant. These were all occupied – was a comfortable place to sit and work since you had large tables, unlike the small ones attached to the back of seats in the other coaches.
A railway staff was handling billing and delivery – not too many items, but if you are looking for a quick snack, you can manage with what they had. The best option, like in India, is to buy something before boarding the train.
Midway through the journey, the train had a long halt in a station – the announcer said they were waiting for connecting passengers coming in from another train that was delayed. This led to our train getting more delayed, but since the train was comfortable, you didn’t feel too bad.
We reached NJ Penn Station past 11 pm – lugged our suitcases up the escalator, and dragged them to the station exit. As we stepped out, a couple of cranky folks came uncomfortably close to us. But there were plenty of cops nearby, so we felt safe. The cops were animatedly chit-chatting like it was daytime – not sure if so many cops at night in the station was a common occurrence here. We hopped into an Uber and reached Rakesh’s place at midnight, where we had dinner. We also had to do some packing to just carry the essentials needed for the Alaska trip and leave behind everything else. And we also had to book a place to stay in Anchorage – that was one thing that we knew for sure because the day we reached Alaska by flight, we didn’t want to make any other travel plans. Rakesh and Moorthy searched for places and finally agreed on one that looked nice.
On TV, we streamed videos of Alaska and bears! The bears look cuddly and cute even though they are large – would be nice to pat them like we patted Maggie (one of our colleague’s Alaskan Malamute)!