By Denise McCluggage

It is nostalgia resonating from past to present building new memories for the future. It is an elegant, pleasant and provocative way to get up close and personal with the marvels of the continent, both natural and historic.

Aboard the AOE photo: courtesy of AOE

The vehicle for this experience is a quarter mile of vintage private train, lovingly (and expensively) renovated. The trains (there are now two full sets on separate journeys) ply rail routes carefully chosen to make the most of astounding scenery with schedules laid out to take advantage of daylight hours and peak seasons. For instance on the "Antebellum South" itinerary which I took in early April from New Orleans to Washington D.C. fragile dogwood caught the sun in the brown-limbed woods. Azaleas were still bright. Spring hazed the hills with its fragile new green and in the nation's capital the cherry blossoms were at their delicate best. Talk about timing.

Another AOE route makes an autumn leaf-peaking pilgrimage through the maple brightness of New England, upstate New York and Quebec. With AOE it's not the getting there that counts it's the being there at the right time. (See "Itineraries" below.)

The AOE tours are train-based, but scarcely confined to the train. The train is parked on sidings or at stations with passengers disembarking to widen the tour via motorcoach, van, horse-drawn carriage or shanks mare, whichever is appropriate for closer encounters with national parks, cities, mansions, public buildings, plantations, cemeteries and/or shopping streets. Oh yes, boats are an option on the itineraries including Glacier National Park.

On my Antebellum South trip I found the provided guides informative and entertaining. In New Orleans, Anne Lenhard, a retired kindergarten teacher, explained in a voice as sonorous as a church bell why she is called "Queen of the Cemeteries."

Savannah Cemetery photo: Denise McCluggage

To anyone mildly acquainted with southern writers it was no surprise to find cemeteries twining throughout the itinerary. Besides New Orleans's unique aboveground mausoleums there was the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah featured in the book (and movie) "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." One can say with confidence that death is alive and well in the Southland. (CONTINUE...)