The Communal Nature of Travel

I traveled quite a bit in 2014. Between 2 trips to Washington, moving to Washington and dashing back to Colorado for the holiday season I’ve spent quite a bit of time in airports, train stations, and (in one case) standing with an instant acquaintance in the middle of I-90 waiting for a blasting operation to complete.

Here is what I’ve learned: the communal nature of travel is quite fascinating. There are three instances where I really observed this:

1) Being stuck for 3 hours in the desert

During my train trip back from writing in Washington the Amtrak train I was on a train whose baggage car lost all power. In order for us to proceed we had to reorganize the train so that the rest of the cars could have power. The baggage car was moved to the back. This whole process took about 3 hours and we sat in the desert with no A/C and no food. However, we as travelers banded together, shared water and food, and helped each other pass the time.

2) Meeting a new person an airliner

On my way home from Denver I accidently sat in the wrong row and then moved to the correct row. The couple in that row were both students traveling home to Seattle like me. We had excellent conversation which helped pass the flight time. It was fun to have a travel friend. Travel often causes us to speak with people we ordinarily would not speak to in ordinary circumstances.

3) Standing in the middle of an Interstate talking to a trucker

On my move to Tacoma I missed the window to cross over Snoqualmie pass before they closed it for blasting. With no other ways around the mountains I was forced, like many others, to wait for them to blast and removed the material and then let traffic through again. I made friends again with a friendly grocery trucker in the middle of the highway. We talked about various small talk topics and quickly passed the hour and a half delay.