8/19/09 Train Trip Day 2

Basically, this is how cross country train travel shakes out: each morning you wake up earlier than you want because there is always some time change in the middle of the night, you eat three meals a day in which you are seated with people you don’t know, and at any and all long stops you get out and walk the platform in an attempt to re-invigorate your legs. Otherwise you sit and read, talk to people, or stare out the window.

Today we toured Montana and North Dakota. In the morning we were going through beautiful mountain areas, and for the rest of the day it was pretty much farmland. One thing I like about train travel is the chance to really see the country. Before I end up in the big city, it is an interesting contrast to remember all the parts of the country that are still very rural. In the morning I was given a free copy of a local Montana newspaper. The two lead stories were Troublesome Griz Killed and Quilt Judge Illuminates Art of the Stitch. The third item down was actually a kind of interesting story about a 63-year old woman who was lost during a fishing trip, and was presumed dead. She had gotten stuck in some brush and was found sunburned, dehydrated, covered in insect bites, but alive. Her son was quoted as saying, “She’s always out doing something that she probably shouldn’t have been doing…Like this.” Brutal.

In the late morning I decided to walk the full length of the train and see what there was to see. What there was to see was several sleeper cars, more coach cars, the dining car, and the observation/lounge car. The best part of the lounge car was the Amish people. I sat down to read right next to this older Amish man and his daughter. He and another woman on the other side of me (not Amish) actually talked to me briefly and I told them I was going to New York. Part of me wanted to tell him that I was raised Mennonite, but I was too afraid that he would give me the once over, roll his eyes, and call me a brazen hussy. Later, the Amish father left and went to talk to some other people from his group, and his daughter stretched out on the two chairs next to me. There was some pretty visible Amish ankle and calf in view, so I guess I wasn’t the only Anabaptist hussie on board.