March 12

So when you set your alarm clock for 7:00 a.m. in Pacific Time and switch to Mountain Time overnight, it will go off at 8:00 a.m. Not to worry; I woke up at 7:00 naturally this morning. Sleeping until 8:00 would not have been a big whoop, but we wanted to see Glacier National Park in the morning this time, which we did, while eating breakfast. We sat with an Amtrak employee who we believe was a quality assurance or customer service person. Not sure. Either way, she was nice. She likes grits and lives in Seattle and has a little dog who doesn’t like the snow. Seattle had a hard winter, as did Portland we hear.

Between breakfast and lunch I got a lot of work done. We got out to walk in Shelby, Montana, mostly to say we had been in Shelby, Montana. This is where our breakfast mate was getting off and hoping her shoes were appropriate. We went to lunch late and so ended up eating without company. So we had to talk to each other. Yes, our day today is a bit focused on meals, but it is what gets us away from our room (and reading). Luckily it’s seven cars away, which makes us walk and get off our butts. They let me have the macaroni and cheese off of the kids menu for lunch. It came with potato chips. It was awesome.

At 3:00 today we had another wine and cheese tasting. It was the same wine and cheese as offered on the way west, but still great nonetheless. (Minnesota cheese and Washington wine.) However, during this particular tasting, trivia was played for which we could win bottles of wine. Tim and I each won one. Luckily we shared a bottle at dinner tonight, and are now working on the other. At the wine tasting we sat with a community organizer originally from Ithaca (!) and a man who lives in Washington going to North Dakota to visit his parents, his mother suffering from dementia; he and his five brothers were taking turns visiting. At dinner we sat with a woman from New Zealand. She lives in Oregon now with her American husband. She’s meeting him in Chicago. She likes Oregon. She had some of our shiraz.

We’re now in Central Time again, and will be until Chicago. I’m looking forward to seeing Wrigley, but not really looking forward to sitting in coach again. Hopefully we can sit together.

Montana farm.




Montana mountains.

Sunset on the snow.




Sunset on the tracks.