Can last-minute and low stress really go hand in hand? In Guatemala, it certainly can. Hopping on a lancha to zip across Lake Atitalan for a day of hiking and hot-springs soaking – last minute, low stress. Making a game-day decision to rent mountain bikes and do a cycling safari in the savannah at the base of Mount Kenya – last minute, low stress (even when a mother elephant and her calf cross your path). But last-minute and low stress don’t often find their place together when it comes to travel in the US – particularly essential (non-vacation) travel.

I needed to get to Santa Fe from Santa Monica to pick up my dog, who had been wintering at my mother and stepfather’s house since Thanksgiving. I’d spent about 48 hours on planes over the holidays, and the thought of getting on another one was giving me agita. I was also in need of a good chunk of alone time – just me, my iPod, the mesas and canyons of the Southwest, and the fabulous new velvety eyeshade I’d recently invested in.

The train trip from Southern California to Northern New Mexico is 18 hours long, and about half of those take place at night. If I hadn’t just flown all the way to Southeast Asia and back, I might’ve balked – and in the past, I have. I’ve considered making this trip by train many times, but it’s always been too hard to justify taking the 18-hour route when a two-hour flight exists. This is the first time the train has won out – the first time I let myself believe in the concept of last-minute, low stress for this type of trip.

I started my journey taking the bus from Santa Monica to downtown LA’s Union Station during rush hour, a portion of the trip I expected would be definitively not-low stress. But somehow, there was no traffic – and by that I really do mean zero traffic. It had rained earlier that day, and as the bus chugged east on the freeway, pockets of fluffy white clouds hovered between the folds of the mountains and valleys most people forget exist in Los Angeles. The sky was a steely grey, the mountains a deep green, and these cotton-ball clouds were like a pair of arms waving in the distance – “Remember us, the wilderness of LA?” Point number one for low stress.

Even less stressful was that the bus arrived at the train station 45 minutes early, giving me plenty of time to grab a sandwich. I walked to the tracks to board the train about 30 minutes before departure. I braced myself to find the train doors still closed or to get hassled by a ticket agent. The poking, prodding, man-handling that now defines the pre-boarding experience at airports had put me on edge, along with the fact that I haven’t had a particularly relaxing boarding experiences on other trains (notably Amtrak from Penn Station, where gate number is posted minutes before the train departs and it’s a mad dash, New York –style, to get to the track). But this wasn’t that. A helpful ticket guy guided me onto the train, and I took my very large reclining seat with an NBA-players’ amount of leg room.

A couple of hours into the journey, and no stress. My plan was working. So far.

And then, I noticed that a shifty-looking guy I’d seen earlier in the station was seated behind mine. “If you could keep me in your prayers the next couple of days, I’d really appreciate it,” he said (not quietly) into the phone. Then he giggled a manic staccato laugh and launched into a detailed, emotional description of the child-custody battle he was involved in. I felt empathetic – but I was also concerned for my own peace of mind. Would this go on for 18 hours? My seatmate and I glanced at each other, eyebrows raised, as Shifty continued his conversation. The stress-free bubble had burst.

I flagged down the conductor and asked I if might be able to switch seats. “Soon,” he told me. Not soon enough, I thought. “Mom. Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom,” Shifty cried, the tenor of his voice growing more urgent, panicky, emotional. This 40-something-year-old guy was clearly having a crisis. He talked of being proud of his sobriety – then disappeared momentarily and returned with a half-drunk bottle of Corona. If it hadn’t been for references to being hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, getting frisked because he holds a medical marijuana card, and my own instincts that this guy was unstable, I would’ve politely asked him to keep his voice down and reminded him there were 30 other people in the train car trying to do something other than listen to his weepy, increasingly slurred pleas to his mother.

Then a competing soundtrack started up: A couple of guys wearing puffy hooded jackets turned on their MP3 player, without bothering with headphones. The combination of rap music and nervous breakdown was anything but relaxing. It was confirmed: Low-stress travel was not possible when I wasn’t in an exotic land. Shooting across the Southwest, being lulled in by the motion of the train and the stark desert scenery. A bit of quiet time. Not going to happen.

But as the night went on, the MP3 guys de-trained, and I switched to a seat across the aisle from Shifty. It was getting late, so I popped in my earplugs and covered my eyes with the eyeshade. The one benefit to Shifty’s loquaciousness was that I knew exactly when he’d be getting off the train – he had a court date in Flagstaff, and we were scheduled to stop in Flagstaff at about 5am.

Sure enough, by the time I woke up in the morning, Shifty’s seat was empty. And the relaxing portion of the trip began. Big time.

The soothing baritone voice of Chris, the guy who runs the Snack Car, beckoned to me over the intercom system. He extended an invitation to us passengers to come down for breakfast. I bought a hot egg, ham, and cheese and a coffee, and took a seat in the lounge car in a chair that’s essentially Amtrak’s version of a Lazy Boy. This car had floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights. I sipped my coffee and looked out at the scenery, watching snow-covered mesas, buttes, mountains, and plains go by. The snow left exposed patches of ochre dirt, swatches of golden scrub grass, the orange sides of sandstone spires. Sitting in this glass bubble was like being inside an oil painting of the Southwest. The only distraction – and it wasn’t an unwelcome one – came from two older guys talking about environmental issues. Hearing about sandhill crane habitat beats custody-dispute talk any day.

I had awoken in eastern Arizona, but soon we passed a sandstone monolith and a big yellow sign welcoming us to New Mexico. After that we made a stop in Gallup, home to the Southwestern jewelry trade. That was the last real patch of civilization for hours. West of Gallup, a mechanical problem waylaid us for almost an hour in the middle of what continued to feel like living art — I watched tendrils of snow blow across a vast plain dotted with chamisa, juniper, and other tumbleweed-waiting-to-happen.

When we continued, I lounged with my feet up, the gigantic sky and gently contoured landscape lulling me into a state of complete calm. Even the occasional scrap-metal yard or pile of garbage looked picturesque from this vantage point and with a dusting of snow.

As we chugged east, the landscape morphed into that of East Africa – golden dirt and shrubs, piles of black volcanic rock, green bushes, hills rising up from the valley floor. Sparse vegetation, a lone bush here, a cluster of shrubs there, small gulleys and washouts. There was no snow, and the sun shone bright and harsh. Electricity lines, modern engineering feats like bridges, and the occasional frost-crusted stream were the only giveaways that we were actually in central New Mexico. Maybe it was the feeling of being transported to another country, maybe it was the relief I felt from Shifty’s departure, or maybe this Amtrak train ride from Los Angeles to Santa Fe was actually in itself fulfilling the traveler’s holy grail. Last minute. No security pat-downs. No stress. Sweet.

But then, I thought of Bali. The chance of contracting swine flu during my 10-hour flight to China or my five-hour flight from there to Indonesia, and languishing in a Jakarta hospital with swine flu ravaging my delicate immune system scared the crap out of me. I realized that I could pull a Spencer and Heidi and wear a facemask throughout my trip. Or I could have some self-respect and get the vaccine.

I went on the Los Angeles Department of Public Health website to find the vaccine locations nearest me. There was one about a mile away at Santa Monica College in a few days. Perfect. I’d heard about the long vaccine lines — lines reminiscent of Communist Russia. I wanted to mitigate my chances of ending up on one of those, so I called the helpline to confirm the time and get some advice on how early I might need to arrive. “It’s one of the only places on the west side of LA where they’re giving vaccines,” the woman on the other end of the line told me. “I’d get there early.” In other words, Communist Russia.

I was only willing to go an hour in advance, which put me in the vicinity of the college at about 8 am on the appointed day. I circled for 15 minutes searching unsuccessfully for non-permit parking, until finally, I decided I would risk getting a parking ticket. If it cost me $61 to avoid the Indonesian healthcare system, it would be worth it.

When I took my place at the end of the line, there were about 300 people ahead of me, including parents with kids in strollers and solo adults who presumably had health issues. This is LA, so you’d think it might be nice to spend the morning on a college campus, gazing up at palm trees and reading a book while you slowly inched forward in your quest for a medical prophylactic. But on this particular day, it was cold, damp, and gray. Think Seattle.

After about 15 minutes, a woman shivering on line behind me decided to search out the college bookstore – she needed a sweatshirt. Did I want one? Nah, I’d wait to see if it warmed up. I wasn’t feeling desperate enough yet to invest in a community college sweatshirt. I offered to save her spot in line, and when she returned 20 minutes later wearing a not-half-bad-looking black sweatshirt, I hadn’t moved more than a few feet.

At around this time, I received a text message from a friend who filled me in on the Canadian method of distributing swine flu vaccines: through doctors who call their at-risk patients and have them come in for Saturday clinics. No lines. Totally sane. The furthest thing from Communist Russia. I spread this news to my neighbors on the line, and the couple ahead of me revealed that their son, who didn’t fall into any of the risk groups, had been offered a vaccine by his physician. Just like that. We shook our heads, bewildered.

Meanwhile, several hundred more people had joined the line, and all around us, kids were becoming separated from their parents, strollers were abandoned, and a college-aged guy fell asleep on the side of a fountain with his ukulele on his stomach. A communal vibe began to develop amid the chaos – like what happens during a blackout or a natural disaster. The sweatshirt woman, the couple, and I shared pens for the paperwork we needed to fill out, took turns going in search of Red Cross nurses bearing information, and eavesdropped on other conversations.

And we waited. An hour. Two hours. In Seattle-like weather.

I finally decided it was time for a sweatshirt and a bathroom break. Off I went while my immuno-compromised friends held my spot for me. I picked the same black sweatshirt, dodged into the cafeteria to use the bathroom, and maybe 15 minutes later, emerged to find that the line had barely moved. Now it was two-and-a-half hours into the wait. Sweatshirt friend was getting hungry. She would scout out the cafeteria for us, she said. When she came back with a handful of menus, she was elated. They would be serving lunch in about 15 minutes and they had Kung Pao chicken. Kung Pao chicken! A social worker at UCLA medical center, she knew from college cafeterias. Kung Pao was a score. Forget that it was 10:45 am.

And then a surprising thing happened: The line moved. Giddy with the momentum and the promise of actually getting stabbed in the arm today, we finally formally introduced ourselves to each other: Sweatshirt/Kung Pao-enthusiast was Joanne, and the couple were Cynthia and Paul.

At this point, we’d been waiting nearly three hours. Joanne proposed that we make bets on when we’d finally get to the front of the line. Gambling! Fun! 1:30, Joanne guessed. 2:00, said Cynthia. Noon, a shockingly optimistic Paul said. I knew that I could only stay until around 3:30, and I was prepared to do just that.

Paul had adopted a small stroller whose owner and occupant had gone AWOL, and he was pushing it along as we inched forward. Cynthia went and got herself a sweatshirt, and now the three of us women matched. I joked that depending on how things went today, we might walk away saying: “I went for a swine flu vaccine and all I got was this lousy sweatshirt.” We laughed, convinced that it wouldn’t actually come to that.

And then suddenly, we hit the swine-flu-vaccine jackpot. “Adults without children, follow me,” beckoned a Red Cross worker. Paul and Cynthia were so stunned they didn’t immediately join the adults-only line. But within a few minutes, the four of us were reassembled very close to the entrance of the school gym, where the vaccines were being administered.

At around this time, we noticed another line, for pregnant women, snaking along the far side of the gym. The actress Rebecca Gayheart was ushered past us with a small group of other pregnant women over to that much-shorter line. I confided to my friends that for a split-second I’d contemplated making a break for the pregnant-women line. Who would know the difference? But my conscience and a feeling of optimism that surely I would be able to get a vaccine the legit way helped set me straight.

Here’s the point in the story where I reveal that I did not get the vaccine the legit way or any other way. At noon, right after an unfortunate trip to the vending machine that resulted in the ingestion of bacon and cheddar potato skins – perhaps the low point of the entire day – a nurse came out of the gym and spread the news along the line that the only remaining vaccines were the ones they squirt up your nose. Live vaccines, they’re called.

I had been forbidden by my doctor to accept one of these vaccines, and my friends couldn’t get them either. Live vaccines are too dangerous for the immuno-suppressed.

We were stunned. Had the unthinkable just happened? Would we really be leaving without puncture wounds after spending nearly four hours on line? Would I have the stamina to stand on another such line on another day? Would I eventually end up on a hospital gurney in Jakarta with a 106 fever? Could I have caught swine flu just by having spent so much time with so many people on this damn line in cold weather?

Even though I knew I couldn’t take the live vaccine, I was reluctant to give up my spot in line. It seemed wrong to quit when we’d come so close. But finally, a wave of acceptance swept over me. Maybe those facemasks wouldn’t be so bad after all? The four of us said our goodbyes and disbanded. We walked away with just our lousy sweatshirts.

From left, Cynthia, Joanne, and me.

In the grand scheme of celebrities behaving badly in hotels, actor Randy Quaid’s arrest for skipping out on a $10,000 bill at San Ysidro Ranch, near Santa Barbara, seems tame. Or at least less messy.

But that’s not to say less illegal. He and his wife Evi face charges of conspiracy, burglary and (the strangely specific count of) defrauding an innkeeper. And, according to law enforcement officials, they weren’t first-time offenders. The duo has knocked over some of Southern California’s best hotels.

Here’s where and how the Great Quaid Hotel Scam went down:

San Ysidro Ranch, Santa Barbara: The Quaids, who got married at San Ysidro Ranch 20 years ago, return this year for a $10,546.96 vacation. They allegedly charge their bill on a bunk credit card, and then months later, pay half of it by check.

Marfa, Texas: Randy and Evi are arrested in Marfa, where they have a home, but Evi doesn’t go down without a fight. She reportedly verbally and physically assaults Presidio County Sherriff’s Deputies, who wrestle her onto the hood of their car in order to make the arrest. Sherriff’s deputy James Davis tells the Daily Beast: “It was a psychotic episode with her. Evi was slapping at and pulling at officers, not really assaulting but resisting full on … fussing and fuming. I finally got a hold of her, put her down on the hood of the car and put the cuffs on behind her back.” The duo post $20,000 bail each before releasing a statement to the website TMZ that says: “I promise the state of California, Texas does not bother people over hamburgers ordered by room service, supposedly burglarized.”

Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles: Santa Barbara County Detective Rod Forney alleges that a year ago the Quaids skipped out on a $17,000 bill at Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.

Avalon Hotel, Los Angeles: A private investigator hired by the Quaids to look into restraining orders filed against them by employees of Actors’ Equity (in the wake of Randy being banned from the union and fined $81,572 for harrassing castmates in a production of Lone Star Love) alleges that she met with the couple at the Avalon Hotel, where they plunked down a bogus credit card to cover their room charges and a meal with her.

Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel, Santa Barbara: Randy and Evi skip out on a night’s lodging (approximately $500).

Nob Hill Hotel, San Francisco: After their Mercedes disappears from the hotel’s parking lot in July 2008, the Quaids decide not to pay their $55,243 bill. Much belatedly, they settle up.

Santa Barbara Airport: The Quaids’ former private investigator says the couple was so delinquent in returning a Hertz rental car they’d picked up at the Santa Barbara Airport that the company considered declaring it stolen. They eventually returned it in El Paso, Texas.

View

Great Quaid Hotel Scam in a larger map

“It’s ridiculous because we have to go through much more of a security check to become pilots than anyone who works for TSA does.

And the funny thing is that we don’t need anything in our bags to take down a plane. Just a flip of the lever.”

Overhead compartments that roll-on bags actually fit into There’s no cramming or slamming. The bags just fit. Such a simple concept, and yet so rare.

Free headphones Okay, technically they aren’t free. They’re $2 a pop.  And like all crappy airline headphones, they make you long for a Bose setup. But if you’re flying out of SFO, you’re in a pinch, and you don’t have change for a $20, a really nice desk agent (that’s right, nice desk agents — another reason why Virgin America rocks) might just let you have one for free.

The Black and Blue Steak Sandwich The menu promises this: “Basil and cheese focaccia loaded with blackened flat iron steak, gorgonzola cheese spread, balsamic glazed onions, arugula, sliced Roma tomatoes and fresh red and yellow roasted tomatoes. Served with a Toblerone chocolate for dessert.” Sounds like something you’d see on the menu at, say, Witchcraft. Turns out, Virgin America doesn’t need Tom Colicchio to turn out an excellent ‘wich.

Extra leg room I interviewed David Cush, Virgin America’s president and CEO, in Outside magazine last year, and he let me in on the secret to Virgin’s leg-room advantage: they hired the company that designs seats for Porsche. “We have these new Recaro seats that are much thinner than standard industry seats,” Cush told me. “They’re thinner but they’re still more comfortable. So even with the same amount of space, you get more legroom.” An airline that considers the comfort of the customer. As if.

The ordering, obviously This is a well-known perk, but in case you haven’t heard, the food service is like table service at a restaurant. You’re hungry, you place an order on the seat-back screen in front of you, and things like hummus and veggies, Pringles, bloody Marys, and steak sandwiches appear. Magical.

The entertainment system actually works Other airlines that I won’t mention (but that my colleague Adam Baer has been hilariously forthcoming about) have entertainment systems (by which I mean live TV, on-demand movies and TV, music) that are spotty at best, and often useless. Virgin America’s is totally reliable – it helps that everything’s brand new, for sure.

Jasmine tea So civilized.

Wireless I paid $9.95 for the five-and-a-half hours worth of in-flight wireless that’s allowing me to write this article right now — with a connection as fast as any I’ve used on terra firma recently. LAX wanted almost as much for the 45 minutes of wireless I would’ve used if I’d shelled out before my flight. No thank you, LAX.

Even if you’re in the back row, your seat reclines This is a major pet peeve. I’m unlucky enough to be seated virtually in the bathroom, and my seat doesn’t go back?! Cruel and unusual customer service. But Virgin’s Porsche-like seats make it possible for everyone to get comfy, regardless of their luck in the seat-selection process.

True Blood and other HBO fabulousness The selection of on-demand TV programming is better than what I have at home.

Power outlets WHY WHY WHY are these so hard to come by? Airports are intent on denying us access to power outlets – hiding them on the far side of the column in the far corner of the boarding area, or behind a row of seats you’d have to lie down on the floor to reach. Most airlines don’t have outlets on their flights because retro-fitting is either prohibitively expensive or just not possible. But Virgin’s got ‘em. And not just in First Class. Coach passengers are created equal in this respect.

[Image courtesy of Virgin America]

Or did it? Here’s an annotated Google Map of what you may have missed in the coverage of Obamacation ‘09 (click on our marked spots for the annotations or the link to the larger map):

Obamacation ‘09 in a larger map

MAYA

The Bahamas: She stayed at the Sheraton in Nassau - she used points. Took a side trip to the Exumas for hiking and snorkeling.

Palm Springs: Three times! Parker Palm Springs is her spot. It’s a Le Meridien hotel, and in the 1960s it was a private estate where movie stars hung out. You must go, she says. I wish.

Encinitas, California: She stayed in a hotel room where she had to put a chair under the door handle at night. Sketchy. But she got a good story out of it.

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico: She did whatever people do there. I didn’t ask.

Italy: She’s spending ten days in Tuscany in October for $3,400, including the add-on for a cooking class in Lucca. Going with Colette Tours. JEALOUS!

ME

Kenya: Okay, so this is a big one. I went on safari. For work. It was amazing, and at some point you’ll be able to read all about it.

Santa Fe: Two times. My mom got married! Twice! To the same person!

Ohio: What would bring a person to Ohio other than a funeral?

Wisconsin: What would bring a person to Wisconsin other than cheese? And their boyfriend’s family.

MAYA THE DENTAL HYGIENIST: 6 (I’m not giving her Encinitas)

CLAIRE THE TRAVEL WRITER: 4

These were among the more banal of the photos posted on the Facebook page called The Lying Down Game, a sensation that started as an in-joke between a group of British pals who decided they’d had it with the traditional way of posing for photos (that is, standing up). Instead, they decided to play dead in public places, have their pictures taken, and then post the images on a Facebook page dedicated to their new hobby. It’s sort of a funny idea. Sort of. But it’s taken off in a major way — the last time I looked, 43,109 members had posted 9,933 photos and 15 videos (including the Escalator Challenge series).

The concept first titillated the Brits, then Europeans at large, and eventually, all of Facebookdom. As it spread, the photos began skewing exotic –  face plants in front of the Tower of Pisa, the Taj Mahal, the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest, and the Egyptian Pyramids. There’s even a sector of extremists — people who recline on the railings of boats, the tops of chimneys, and mountains. “9,000 feet up Dachstein Mountain Austria playing lying down game lol,” wrote Naomi Claire Boyne in one photo caption. It seems  a world-traveler-smackdown of sorts is under way among participants.

When you see how basic a premise the “game” is, you assume that there are no rules. Not so fast.

Rule Number One is that you must lie down in the most public place possible (Times Square, presumably, would be the New York City ideal; a street in Shenzhen, China, or a rickshaw in Delhi would be best if you’re gonna get really hardcore about it). Rule Number Two, which channels the flash mob phenomena that peaked circa 2003, is that as many people as possible should lie down with you (this rule usually goes ignored; the vast majority of players are for some reason lone rangers).

The more preposterous the setting, obviously, the funnier the effect: On the roof of a Fed Ex truck, in a tree. Two of the best are a woman lying down on the luggage rack inside a moving train and an airport employee embedded in the well of a jet engine.

But many of the photos have a strong whiff of the macabre — a trio lying down in the street in a crosswalk on what looks like Abbey Road at first appears nostalgic, and then the bodies start to look like corpses. The liers-down who are only partially captured by the photographer, too, resemble dead bodies, as do some of the ones perched partly on their heads. (The ones in cemeteries, ironically, are among the least morbid.)

The overall effect of skimming the Facebook gallery is that of traveling the globe and flipping through exotic crime scene photos — and the best of the bunch, as far as I’m concerned, accomplish both at once, allowing for both a laugh and a cringe.

Photos by Now Taken Out and David Vizek