Thanks to LSU, Penske, and my old roommate, we have moved from the 500,000-population Baton Rouge to join the 15,000 residents of Alamosa County, Colorado. And while you people fight and jaw over a loop around Baton Rouge, I am living across from the light rail system in town. No bus line, no Waffle House, no humidity, no interstate, and only 12 traffic lights, but we have a train station with three different light rail lines.

The San Luis Express leaves Alamosa every morning to travel to the La Veta Pass with a stop in La Veta for antiquing and lunch. If you want a trip across a beautiful mountain range in order to visit the equivalent of downtown Denham Springs, come on over, because I’m saving you a seat. And if you come on the weekend, you get the treat of a steam engine.

I think there were Chinamen maintaining the train lines on the weekends as we passed. The whole trip of two hours was only a half-hour longer than it took to drive and 10 hours shorter than me hiking it.

The Toltec Gorge Limited, also leaving out of Alamosa and waking me up every morning, travels in a straight line due south for 25 miles to the narrow-gauge railroad over the Toltec Gorge to New Mexico. It’s like taking Amtrak and trading down to the train in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.

But the kicker is the end of the line: Chama, New Mexico. If you thought that the train line to La Veta sounded dull, Chama has a flashing yellow light and a gas station with a deli. What a way to end a four-hour trip through the mountains, mountains so inaccessible that, when a plane went down there last winter, they just waited until the spring thaw to go out and recover the bodies. What a place to take a 100-year-old steam engine with old folks and limited food supplies. I think that is how the Donner party started out.

And last but not least, the third light rail line is, and I am not kidding here, the Potato Valley Explorer. I’m sorry to say that no one with a sense of marketing could come up with a better name, but it sums up the train.

For a scant $12, you can take a 13-mile trip in a caboose that stops and picks up freight along the way. It’s like taking a train from Tiger Stadium to Denham Springs and stopping every five minutes to pick up the mail along the way.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s fun to ride in a caboose, considering there are almost no cabooses left on the rails anymore, but taking an hour to go 13 miles is kinda lame, even for a train. Besides, Monte Vista is only known for one thing: MountainKing Potatoes. Look at the potatoes you just bought. Chances are, you bought your potatoes from them.

That’s right, I moved 1,200 miles away to a small city that has more light rail options than Baton Rouge. If you can do better than Alamosa, lose the humidity, gain mountain peaks, and cool your temperatures; I’ll move back. Otherwise, I’m riding the rails around here to the nearest grocery store. I think the train will stop for me, or I can tuck and roll…