EDITOR’S NOTE: Jon Frosch is a guest columnist not regularly appearing in the Daily Reveille.Flying is pretty much the worst experience possible. Quite frankly, I cannot understand why people enjoy it. I guess the actual soaring through the air isn’t so bad, but the accompanying hassle far outweighs any joy that could result from a far-off view of the earth below. Having to get to the airport hours early and waiting in inefficiently organized queues just is not something I go for.So, this summer I faced a dilemma — how to combine a week in the wilderness of northern Minnesota (which is fun) with getting there (which, at least by plane, is not so). Pondering this scenario for a bit, I arrived at the solution. With apologies to Dustin Hoffman, I want to say one word to you: Amtrak.That’s right, I took a ride on the City of New Orleans, the stuff of legends and Arlo Guthrie songs. While taking an airplane might get one to Chicago faster, a 20 hour trek on the train offers a great deal more entertainment and a lot less hassle. It’s a pretty simple procedure, really: go to New Orleans at 1:41, get on the train at 1:42, sit down at 1:43, get a little card with your destination for over your seat at 1:44, depart 1:45. No two-hour lead time required. The 20 hours passes pretty well, too. There’s plenty of space to walk around, decent food, and decent conversation — all of which are scarce commodities on a plane. Did I mention that baggage is, for all intents and purposes, unlimited? Yeah, there’s that too.Now, Arlo mentions card games with the old men in the club car, but, sad to say, I missed out on that activity. I did, however, meet an old hippie named Eli who turned out to be a stunning conversationalist who held forth at length about everything from jam bands to classic cars to the plight of youth in America. I met another guy who tried to recruit me into the Navy. And I loved every minute of speeding through the Tennessee darkness with an irreplaceable cast of characters. Maybe one could meet that kind of interesting person at the airport back when people went out just to watch the planes land, but good luck today now that every last person in that terminal dreads the very idea of being there. Being on the train and seeing the country close up just inspires that sort of zest for life.Returning from this voyage of discovery, I was disappointed to discover that Governor Jindal had decided not to pursue federal funding for a rail project linking Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Such a rail is necessary because, alas, the City of New Orleans forsakes Baton Rouge for the fair locale of Hammond. A commuter rail system with the Baton Rouge-New Orleans corridor at the core would be a great economic boon to southeast Louisiana, especially now that ties between the two communities are closer than ever before. Plus, and perhaps more importantly, trains attract people that are fun to talk to. Why should anyone have to stop the party to travel — on the train you can bring it with you. That money is going to be spent somewhere, why not in Louisiana?So give the train a shot — head up the City of New Orleans to Jackson or Memphis, or even Chicago; roll up through Atlanta and Washington, D.C. to New York City on the Crescent; or, heck, go to Los Angeles on the Sunset Limited and see the beautiful southwest. It may take a while, but you’ll have fun getting there.John Frosch is a library and information sciences graduate student._____Contact The Daily Reveille’s opinion staff at [email protected]