When I was a young kid, my parents refused to fly. For several years, the family took the train from New York to Florida to vacation.
The train, which left in the early evening from Penn Station, looked like an enormous, smoking dragon to me. At the age of five, the gap between the platform and the train car seemed cavernous. Steam billowed up in giant puffs from the tracks and I was terrified of falling into the abyss.
Once inside though, “The Florida Special,” which was its real name, was a magical world that unfolded and changed shape like origami, all the while chugging to our destination.