Driving and flying can get tedious so for a recent trip to California, I took the train. I crashed in the dressing room after the late Saturday night show and walked over to the King Street station Sunday morning to catch the Coast Starlighter at 9:45 a.m.

At lunch in the dining car, I was seated with a comely Canadian, Dana, and her teenage daughter, Sophie. After the usual subtle feeling out of each other to make sure we’d be able to get through a meal together without hurling, I revealed my unusual profession.

That got them going. It turned out Dana had once been with the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling troupe (“I was the one they juggled.”) and Sophie was an aspiring comedienne with an arsenal of blond jokes (“What do you call a brunette who’s standing between two blondes? An interpreter!”)

We ended up talking so long the staff had to kick us out to make way for other hungry travelers.

And that’s really the thing about train travel. For better or worse, you’re almost certain to end up in long conversation with complete strangers as Amtrak makes its God Damned slow and easy way down the tracks. In fact as this was being written, a lady across the aisle returning from visiting her two sailor sons in Everett, kept pestering me to look up what man-made things other than the Wall of China can be seen from outer space.

Later in the afternoon, I sat down in the observation car next to a woman who seemed a bit nervous. Finally, she blurted out, “Are you the comedian from Seattle?”

“No, “ I said, “I’m not a comedian but I do run a comedy club.”

Turned out she had been eaves dropping in the dining car.

“Oh, I just love comedy. I listen to ‘Bob and Tom’ every day.”

“Really? Well, I work with Dwight Slade (a regular on the radio show) quite a lot.”

“He’s great but what about Greg Hahn?”

“I’m sorry but I don’t know him.”

“Oh, you just have to check him out. He plays the drums in his act.” And she wrote down his name (along with her own, Linda) so I wouldn’t forget.

“Where do you live where you hear ‘Bob and Tom,’” I asked, “They don’t air in Seattle.”

“Oh, I know. That’s one thing I like about Boise.”

“Boise, eh? I tried to open a comedy club there and I had found the perfect spot but they wanted $175,000 for a liquor license. I couldn’t afford that.”

“That’s too bad because I used to go to Funny Bones all the time..”

“Yeah, some of their old employees opened up a new place called Hijinx but I just heard it’s closed.”

“You should get something going.”

I’d love to but being the Comedy Underground, we’d need a downstairs location.”

“Oh, you should check out . . . at … and ….. They have music upstairs and downstairs at the same time.”

“They must have good sound proofing,” I commented as I pulled out my Droid to do an internet search. Fortunately, we were near Eugene, OR, which has good wireless service.

And there it was, music on weekends, sports broadcasts on Sunday and Monday.

“Hmm. Maybe we could convince them to do Sunday night comedy to get a beachhead established in Boise.”

“That would be great.”

“Want to be my scout, my Kit Carson,” I asked in my best (imagined) John. C. Fremont tone of voice.

“I sure would.”

We shook hands. We’ll see.