March 8

It’s 10:15 Central now (including Daylight Savings) in Minot, North Dakota. It’s going to Mountain Time soon, a time zone I have heard about only in stories and some television listings. Mountain time will be a brand new experience for us.

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.

March 7

Well, riding coach was an interesting experience. The Syracuse Amtrak station was full of Syracuse University students going wherever they were going, and our train car was full of a group of them, the group who dropped and broke their vodka bottle on the way to board the train. They weren’t too bad though, considering my expectations were based on the liquor. It was clear that one of the college girls liked one of the boys because she was laughing very loudly at things he said that were not funny. It was slightly amusing, and they were for the most part respectful, ending their typicalness at around 1:00 a.m. The perils of coach. However, we were lucky enough to sit behind a woman who loved Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston and listened to them all night long loudly on her headphones. I could sing along. And her daughter had a DVD player, and no headphones. This seven-year-old girl watched The Hills Have Eyes at 1:00 a.m. on the loudest setting possible. Needless to say I wasn’t happy when I woke up to slashes and screams at 2:00 a.m. Luckily I finally got my earplugs to work right and slept when the train was moving. Everyone else was using headphones on the train and were respectful. This woman and her daughter were not, and this was probably the most frustrating. Did it not occur to them that this would bother people? I use to assume that people knew they were wrong and just didn’t care, but I’m beginning to realize some people just don’t get it. I’m guessing Whitney lover and movie lover fell into the latter category. Luckily, I did sleep. Coach really wasn’t that bad, and would have been practically delightful if we had ended up in different seats. I am glad we got seats next to each other, so I suppose it balanced out.

We got off the train at Union Station, threw our bags in a locker, and went out to eat. We found Lou Mitchell’s diner, and if the rest of this trip is a disaster we’ll always have Lou’s. Breakfast was great. All meals include an orange and prune—perfect with diner food—and a little cup of vanilla soft serve at the end. The food in between was good too. I recommend it if you are ever in Chicago. It’s on Jackson Street a block or so from the station. Go on your birthday if possible; they’ll give you a huge slab of chocolate cake. You’ll see the flashing lights on the sign. Then we walked around a bit after it stopped pouring. We walked around the Sears Tower but didn’t go up it because it’s overcast. Maybe we’ll squeeze it in Friday after Wrigley. We bought a fancy postcard in the Sears Tower gift shop for our dance teacher Shari who is collecting them.

Right now we are sitting in a fancy lounge at Chicago’s Union Station, a lounge reserved for sleeper car riders. It’s nice. I feel elite. Again, balance. Well, maybe “elite” isn’t the right word because my pleasure at being in this lounge isn’t based on the fact that other people aren’t in this lounge. It’s the sweet leather chair I’m sitting in and free coffee and snacks, and the news on the television. I wish we had came here first because you can store your luggage here for free, with a redcap watching it! Now we know. We aren’t accustomed to expecting extra service and perks. In here they escort us to the train as well; it isn’t a cluster$#%& to board the train. I’m so excited for this leg of the trip! We board in an hour.


Some of what you can see when you travel through America's backyard. This is a business/bizniz vehicle in Indiana.


When walking in the vicinity of Union Station in Chicago you see a lot of people coming and going. We saw this lady arriving in full tie dye.


Lou Mitchell's exterior.


View of Chicago as we leave the city on the Empire Builder.

Internet!

So we thought our hotel had wifi, but it didn't. So we walked to Staples to get an ethernet cable so we could hook up to the Internet. Now, finally, I can update the blog! So, the following entries I wrote on the days labeled, but couldn't post until now. Enjoy.

Wrigley it is

Robert Ford convinced me. From Union Station it's a six or seven block walk to the red line train, which will take us to Wrigley Field (Addison). We have a four-hour layover Saturday the 6th, and six hour layover Friday the 13th - all subject to change of course. We will go to Wrigley on one of these days. Maybe I'll save it for the way back as something to look forward to . . . .

Rain

Shocking forecast for the Pacific Northwest I know, but rain is back in the forecast for our Newport days. High 40s. Maybe it will change again? Regardless, we have decided to purchase two little travel umbrellas, especially since rain is forecast for Chicago and Portland for our layovers there (but not for the way back - fingers crossed). We'll still be taking pictures.

Amtrak provides "walking tour" maps for some cities on their Web site. Luckily for us, both Chicago and Portland are two of those cities. Chicago for me immediately conjures images of Wrigley Field, but I may have to resist a visit I think because (1) it's not within walking distance of Union Station and (2) tours of Wrigley don't start until April. I want a tour. Maybe even go to a game there before I die. We will likely hit up Grant Park and the Sears Tower in Chicago instead. Portland I don't know that much about, so we'll probably just wing it there. We'll of course let you know!

Sunshine

As of today, the weather forecast for Newport, Oregon, for the days we will be there is sunny and 50s. I'll take it!

Update: Diane Sansone, co-owner of the Ale House, said her husband always has a good time when he calls Rogue Brewery for orders. The word "high" may have been used as a description. We will of course report back.

Spring forward

Daylight Savings Time occurs this year on Sunday March 8. We'll be in the western half of the country traveling west when we "spring forward." Luckily, our cell phones should automatically change the time for us. I'm not sure if this affects our scheduled arrival times or if Amtrak has already worked this out, but I guess we'll find out. This really affects only what bus we take out of Portland to get to Newport.

We need to catch a bus at 5:45 a.m. in Newport on the 11th to make it back to Portland in time to catch our train, and we've been telling ourselves that it's not a big deal because it's an east coast 8:45, but now it's an east coast 7:45. I have a feeling it's still going to feel like 5:45. Luckily, I can sleep on a bus.