Planes, Trains, And Automobiles.

When making travel plans, the official Villa RSR rule-of-thumb in the Era of Janet Napolitano is this: If you can get there in 12 hours drive time or less, then we drive. Not only does driving provide the utmost in freedom and flexibility (and is therefore quintessentially American), it is often cheaper and faster than flying today. By driving, you get to actually see 'flyover-country', and you avoid all of the hell that goes along with getting in the air - potential gate rapes by the TSA, endless delays and cancellations, multi-hour layovers, $5.00 sodas, yadda, yadda.

Also, every state within a 12-hour drive from Villa RSR will honor a Louisiana Concealed Carry Permit, so a loaded .45 or 9mm (or, both) is no problem if we feel so disposed.

Unfortunately, several of us at will be traveling outside of our 12-hour range in 2011, and therefore we will by forced to fly - a few more then once. There is, alas, no viable alternative anymore to get where you need to go without putting your lives (and liberties) in the hands of the TSA Luftgestapo.

Yes, there is AMTRAK, and we would take a train in a heartbeat - if one went where we needed to go. Some are close, but...

Which brings me to the point of this post - Eugene Garfield died last Sunday at 74.

And who is Eugene Garfield? The man who had the answer to our dilemma; the man who's idea could well revive train travel in the Obama Era; the man who could give millions of us an option to surrendering our Rights in order to travel. You see, Eugene Garfield invented the American Auto-Train. With an auto-train, your car goes on the train with you and you travel in comfort (well, a helluva lot more comfort than crammed into a coach seat on a 757, and you can have a pee within 30 minutes of your destination). When you get where you're going (or nearby), you have your own car to get around. It's a win-win. AMTRAK already runs one auto-train route along the I-95 corridor from Virginia to Florida, and, in your humble blogger's opinion, more auto-trains could increase ridership if they added them to other AMTRAK routes.

If they had an auto-train going out West, we would book AMTRAK to get to Nevada, and again to California later in the year. Is it more expensive? Yes. About 50% more for a family of 4. Is the difference worth not having your wife, or daughter, or son felt-up by some government-sanctioned perv just to get on a plane? Damn right. Freedom isn't free.