Read the passage below. Then, answer the questions that follow.
A Trip to Remember
My mother has crazy ideas sometimes. Now and then, she gets like a song bird that needs to fly around the room once or twice before she can settle in to the abundance and protection of the cage again. One year after having moved to Savannah, she decided it was time to visit Seattle again. We couldn’t get a plane ticket to Seattle for the weekend, but that didn’t stop her. She just bought tickets to San Francisco instead. “We’ll wing it from there,” she said. “Winging it” meant landing in San Francisco, taking a cab, and waiting in the Amtrak station until 2 a.m. for a train. Then, for twelve hours, the sleek, silver train took us north. But since we had left home, we were not able to get in touch with anyone!
In those days, we didn’t have cell phones; nobody did. The station had no phone, there was no time at the airport, and the train never stopped long enough for us to find a phone booth, call home, and dash back to the train before it departed. My dad didn’t know where we were for a whole day, but I knew. I remember sleeping in the passenger car and eating soup in the restaurant car. I vividly recall watching the rising sun outside the window, the passing mountains, and glimpses of the ocean. And I especially remember the feeling of secret adventure, of being aware that no one knew where I was. It was the best trip I’ve ever had.