Another reason to be annoyed by America

Our complete lack of transportation. We have cars in America. Big, ugly, crappy, inefficient cars. And highways to go with them. And then, we have...nothing else.

My spring break is 10 Mar - 25 Mar. I'm looking at flights, which will get me from Albuquerque to Philadelphia in about six or seven hours. But I hate flying; let's look at other options. Maybe I can find something cheaper than $270 or so round-trip.

There's Amtrak. If I take Amtrak, it'll take me about 41 hours to get from Lamy, NM (inexplicably the only town in New Mexico that Amtrak goes to). It'll take me 23 hours on the train from Lamy to Chicago. Mapquest says that if I drive that, it takes me about 20 hours. (Hint: most places, trains are in fact faster than driving). Cost for round-trip? $344.

Okay, I don't really want to spend upwards of $300 to go cross-country very very slowly. Let's check out our nation's fine bus service, Greyhound. They do have a station in Santa Fe. They say it'll take me two days and a couple hours to get from Santa Fe to Mt. Laurel, New Jersey (the closest Greyhound station to home). Looks like I could pay $240 if I got the ticket seven days in advance. I'd get to see exciting places such as Denver (30 minutes), Kansas City (1 hour), St. Louis (2:35), and Pittsburgh (1 hour).

*sigh*