Last night at dinner we met a writer from New York City named Tim and a teacher/outreach worker from rural Kentucky (no, not near Henderson Settlement but similar) whose name I can’t remember. She had burgundy hair and glasses and is going to move to Scotland. We had a good conversation about punctuation and the English language. No, I didn’t start the conversation.
I got a little claustrophobic last night in our roomette sleeping on the top bunk. It was warm and the door and curtains were closed and the top has no window. I opened the door a crack and it staved off a freak out. It was comfortable and I slept, it just seemed really small in the middle of the night. Still better than coach, although on this train it looks like most people in coach got two seats to themselves and are sleeping across them.
Joel our attendant brought us complementary wine last night, which turned into two complementary wine bottles and sparkling apple juice. They are cute little travel wines, cabernet sauvignon, about the amount to fill a big red-wine glass. They are kind of awesome.
The lady we take hip hop dance class with (pop and lock, yo) is going to set up a U.S. map on one of her walls at the studio and put postcards in the states for the little kids to learn a little geography while they are dancing. We’ve got off at every stop to try to buy a postcard but the only place we’ve managed to get one is Chicago. However, in North Dakota we got a bunch of brochures, which are at least better than nothing. We’ll keep trying. Is has made us get off the train in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, so we’ve officially been in those states as well, not just driven through them.
It’s all snow here, and flat with scatterings of thin trees. When you see a hill it’s a true hill, bulbous and surrounded by prairie. It’s foggy now. I hope it dissipates a little before we reach the Rockies. We’ll see. (Which has become my favorite saying in the past few days.)
At 3:00 today we had a complementary wine and cheese tasting. Minnesota cheese and Washington State wine. Wisconsin, Minnesota cheese was really good. Not as good as New York of course, but what is? Good job Minnesota. Washington shiraz/syrah was good, made from grapes near the Columbia River where Lewis and Clark paddled and where we’ll be scooting by on our train. Buttes and mesas are weird, by the way.
Assessing the validity of “Home, Home on the Range.”
The lyrics (as best I can remember them):
Home, home on the range,
where the deer and the antelope play,
where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
and the skies are not cloudy all day.
Or does it start, “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam”?
1. We have seen deer.
2. We have seen antelope.
3. We have not heard a discouraging word.
4. However, the skies have been cloudy all day.
5. Nor have we seen buffalo, but we saw a rock formation that looked like one.
North Dakota hay field.
North Dakota sky.
Buffalo-shaped rock in Montana.
Montana truck.
Montana farm.
Big sky.
Montana field.
Montana town.
You take hip hop dance class?
ReplyDeleteThat is cool. Really cool. :)