Riding the Sunset Limited with a girl named Elizabeth

  “I’m a thousand miles away from home

Waiting on a train.”  -Jimmie Rodgers

If you’ve been following my social media this week,  you know I’ve been on a adventure.

Monday afternoon I caught Amtrak’s Sunset Limited in Lake Charles and rode it to Los Angeles (arriving on Wednesday morning).

Then I boarded the Coast Starlight which snaked along the Pacific Coast to San Francisco. After that twelve hour ride (arriving on the Bay at midnight) I rode the street cars all night studying the city.  More on that later!

After an airport “tongue bath” I’m boarding a plane for my return to Louisiana.

This trip was about research.  (I can hear y’all laughing.)

 

In my current work in progress, the historical novel,  As You Were,   Elizabeth Reed Miller makes an impulsive flying plane trip to see her husband Harry as his division ships out from SF to war in the Pacific.  (As You Were is the sequel to A Spent Bullet.)

One of my fellow historians, Fennell Guillot, told of making this same trip during the war.  This lit a fire in me to make the trip and see it myself.

To see it through the eyes of a 21 year old Louisiana schoolteacher stubborn enough to ride a train 2000 miles to see her husband for a few hours.  A girl who’s never been past Shreveport or Lake Charles.

It’s May 2, 1941. Join us on this trip.

Since you’re part of this book,  I’d like your input:  what in the world would make a young sensible woman make such a trip?

Here is the dialogue where Elizabeth breaks the news of the trip to her mother:

“Elizabeth, why in the world would you do a crazy thing like that?”

“I’ve got to see Harry one more time, and there’s something I need to give him.”

“What is it?”

“I had a dream. I have to go.”