We get into Wilmington at around noon. The snow has just about stopped. The train leaves you on an outdoor platform—and there the city is. Colder than hell. Everybody thinks we’re crazy to not take a cab or, saints deliver us, a BUS to the hotel, but I googled the thing, it’s like a mile, I do that with the dog. Besides, I just traveled 300 miles without puking or experiencing acute anxiety—why push it? As agreed before we left, we were walking to the hotel. Of course, walking the dog generally does not involve lugging a heavy backpack round your shoulders while hauling a large wheeled suitcase behind you. What a pair we were, me and my wife, dragging our belongings up Market Street hill, breathing heavy in the nor’easter air.

      “At least no one will rob us,” I said. “They’ll think we’re homeless.”

But we made it. And our room at the Sheraton was everything a room should be. And we slept in it for like the next ten hours.