I live near Tampa, Florida. My dad lives about an hour from Raleigh, North Carolina, closest stop being Wilson.

This is a two-hour flight.

Two.

Hours.

If I left Tampa, Florida in the morning, I could be in North Carolina before lunch, comfortably seated across from my father while he explains why the Braves “just need consistency.”

Instead, I leave at 4:49 p.m., board a train, sleep on it, wake up in another state, change trains in Raleigh, North Carolina at 10:36 a.m., wait an hour and 37 minutes like a 19th-century diplomat, then ride another hour to Wilson, North Carolina, arriving at 1:14 p.m. the next day.

And — this is important — I sometimes book a sleeper car.

Because if you’re going to make irrational decisions, you should commit to them.

Flying is efficient. Flying is practical. Flying is a highly organized system of public shoelessness and overhead bin aggression. You show up early. You surrender your dignity in a plastic tray. You are assigned a boarding group that feels like a personality test. You sit in a seat engineered by someone who hates knees.

Two hours later, you land.

Done.

The train, on the other hand, is not done in two hours. The train is an experience. And if you get a sleeper car, it becomes what I can only describe as Civil War general cosplay.

You close the little sliding door.

You have your own tiny compartment.

You look around and think, “Yes. This is necessary for a journey from Florida to North Carolina.”

At some point around Georgia, an attendant converts your seat into a bed with the calm confidence of someone who has seen things. You lie down while the train moves. You wake up somewhere in the Carolinas feeling like you crossed terrain instead of altitude.

And here’s the thing that makes this objectively ridiculous: I am paying extra to sleep on a train to avoid a two-hour flight.

This is the transportation equivalent of driving to the next neighborhood but insisting on taking a covered wagon.

But the sleeper changes everything.

You’re not wedged into a seat wondering whose elbow is legally whose. You’re in your tiny rolling room, drinking coffee while the South scrolls past your window. You walk to the dining car like you’re in a documentary about a bygone era of American optimism.

Meanwhile, the person who flew is already there.

They left Tampa, Florida after breakfast and arrived in North Carolina before their second cup of coffee cooled.

I, on the other hand, have had dinner, slept somewhere near Georgia, woken up in North Carolina, transferred trains in Raleigh, North Carolina like I’m connecting to another continent, and finally arrived in Wilson, North Carolina the following afternoon.

When my dad says, “How was the trip?” I cannot answer briefly.

Because the trip was not brief.

Flying makes the distance vanish. You disappear over Tampa, Florida and reappear near Raleigh, North Carolina like you’ve been digitally transmitted.

The train makes you occupy it.

All 20 hours and change of it.

And if you’ve sprung for the sleeper, you don’t just occupy it — you inhabit it.

By the time I step off in Wilson, North Carolina at 1:14 p.m., I don’t feel like I was delivered. I feel like I completed something. Slightly rumpled. Mildly over-caffeinated. But accomplished.

Could I save an entire calendar day by flying? Absolutely.

Would it make more sense? Completely.

But sometimes I don’t want sense. Sometimes I want to leave Florida in the afternoon, sleep while crossing state lines, wake up to pine trees, and arrive having physically traveled the distance instead of skipping over it.

Flying gets me there faster.

The sleeper car lets me say, with absolute seriousness, “I left yesterday.”

And if I’m going to debate lawn care, baseball, and thermostat settings with my father, I prefer to arrive like a man who crossed territory to get there — not like an email attachment.