It had been decades since I’d traveled by train for pleasure. All those Illinois years (on and off from 1980 to 2014) riding the Metra to jobs from my homes in the northwest suburbs to Chicago’s Loop don’t count.

But for four hours on July 6, 2022–our sixty-fifth birthday–Tom and I rode the rails for fun on the Verde Canyon Railroad in central Arizona.

Close your eyes and imagine twenty miles of track, trestles, curves, Cottonwood trees, Verde River bends, one tunnel, and a stretch of close quarters near jagged cliffs between two small towns: Clarkdale and Perkinsville.

Along the way, we moved back and forth from the cool comfort of our coach (featuring a champagne toast in a plastic cup and nifty snack pack of fruits, meats, cheese and crackers) to an open-air car.

The amenities were a nice touch, but not enough to keep us contained. We spent most of our ride outside. That’s where we welcomed unfiltered access to stunning views and stimulating conversation.

Dianne, our assigned interpreter, and Austin, an operations coordinator, provided color commentary as Tom and I guzzled small bottles of water to forestall dehydration in the ninety-plus-degree heat.

With Dianne’s direction, I managed to snap a photo of a Mastodon footprint in the rocks below on my Sony digital camera.

It is evidence of prehistoric life in the old, old west … many centuries before copper smelting and mining, and even longer before one smooth glide through nature carved its initials on the memory of our milestone birthday.