Railroading 4

June 2, 2012

I received great advice from two readers who are following our train schedule. David Natalizia told me that there was a long stop in Albuquerque when I could probably shave in a stopped train, and Kim Wilkerson pointed out that Fort Madison, our stop in Iowa, is where she was raised.

I shaved and showered in the ingenious system in the room, and felt like I had been reborn. Changed my clothes, got the Chicago club out of my system, and we headed for dinner. The tilapia was quite good though not as good as the salmon, had the same Kendall Jackson, and we dined with a couple from Mississippi heading for such a minor stop in Colorado this morning that she said her family would drive alongside the train waiving until the station! They were married for 25 years, and their relatives were married for 25, 30, and 35 years; Maria and I for 43 years. How many conversations like that can take place these days?

I told him I thought he was either military or police, and he admitted he had been both! The waitress said, “You’re military, right?” I told him not to consider undercover work.

Slept from 10 to 4 exactly, another 90 minutes in bed, then I went for breakfast while Maria slept. I met a woman from Switzerland taking her sixth trip around the US by train, and a retired property appraiser from Wisconsin who had traveled back from a European trip to see his daughter (who teaches art history in Prague) by cargo ship—five passenger cabins, 25 crew.

I accompanied Maria for her breakfast and we met two women getting off at a very small stop in Arizona to take a bus to Las Vegas! They’re from Connecticut, and they gamble in Atlantic City, Foxwoods, and generally wherever they can. Then they blew us away when one told us she was 77 and the other said she was a great-grandmother.

We’re now in the observation car which, surprisingly, is never packed, where I’m writing and TLM (The Lovely Maria) is knitting. There is nothing in site except flat grazing land broken up by small bushes and mysterious crumbled structures that look like droppings left by aliens. In the distance, some monadnocks. (I minored in geology.)

There are no antelope here, apparently because it’s too boring even for vegetarians.