Forty Hours Rockin' America

Long distance travel by train is a unique experience. For those who have not spent several days traveling across the country on a train, it's hard to explain the disorientation that occurs as the train moves from one station to the next, often not stopping for hours on end.

The front half of the Empire Builder and the entry to my sleeper car

There are no signposts, no way of telling exactly where you are or when the time zones change. The thin aisles and rocking motion of the train become your only constants, that and your surrounding accommodations. I had a roomette on the north side of the train, with a wide comfortable seat and (since I was the only person in the cabin) room to stow my luggage and spread out. 

One of the advantages of having sleeper car accommodations is a porter who is on call to take care of your needs and answer your questions. Another is the fact that all your meals in the dining car are included in the cost of your ticket. There was a lounge car on the train but it was filled with folks from the coach cars, so the roomette was much quieter, more relaxing and comfortable than spending my time in the common areas of the train.

A more "populated" stretch of track

The train (No. 11, the Empire Builder) departed La Crosse about 7:20 in the evening, so it was soon dark. Outside the windows, very little was observable except perhaps a few lights in the distance and an occasional warehouse or factory located by the tracks; everything else was open land hidden in the black of night.

Dragging my laptop computer through all those security checkpoints at the airports I'd visited paid off on the train. I sat back, popped in a DVD and watched a movie my first evening on the train. Around 10:30, I rang for the porter and had him make up my bed (created by folding the two facing seats flat and placing a thin mattress and bedding over them).

I find sleeping on a train a restful thing, especially when you're on the upper level of the car. The train rocks gently as it courses down the rails, and even rough tracks are reduced to mild bouncing. Oddly enough, it's only when the train stops moving that I would wake up. Again, nothing to see out the window except the immediate ground glowing from the lights emanating from the windows of the train.

Sunrise somwhere in the Dakotas

I left the curtains open on my window that evening, and the first lights of dawn awoke me. I grabbed my iPhone and took a shot of the sun rising over an empty landscape somewhere on the plains, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

That morning, I headed to the dining car and had breakfast with a woman and her two young sons (both with their noses buried in their iPads). Far be it for me to chide their mother about table manners and electronic devices, so I engaged her in conversation about their destination, which was White Fish, Montana. They were going there for a final ski trip of the season. I had a cheese omelet with home fries and a croissant, orange juice and coffee.

Long-frozen ground by the tracks

The rest of the morning was spent reclining in my cabin, staring out the window at the ever moving landscape. Winter still had ahold of the land here, and the white, cold world outside was beautiful in a bleak sort of way, leaving me to imagine what it must look like when warm and verdant once spring arrived.

My lunch companions were a woman who photographed for NASCAR (her French nails were edged with a checkered rally flag motif rather than the standard porcelain white) and a gentleman from Atlanta who was traveling to work in the oil fields in Montana.

I cannot explain the Canadian flag, but the locomotive was stunning.

My meal consisted of a garden salad and a large bowl of New England clam chowder, suitable for the weather outside. As if to reinforce the appropriateness of my meal choice, when we stopped in a town that had an old steam locomotive on display, it began to snow. Suddenly the world was filled with big fat flakes dancing and whirling in a gentle breeze.

I started watching Armistad Maupin's "Tales of the City" on DVD after lunch as the world outside became rolling hills leading into the Rockies. The porter came by to take my dinner reservations (I chose the 6:45 p.m. seating) and I reported to the dining car on time for a meal of herbed chicken with chocolate mousse for dessert. By the time I returned to the sleeper car, dusk was turning to dark.

Running water portends warmer climes at the coast.

I finished watching the miniseries, had my bed made and turned in by midnight, again with my curtain open. (In the middle of nowhere, there's no one outside to peer in). I remember waking up around 3 a.m. and looking out at dark outlines of coniferous trees silhouetted against a profusion of stars that one rarely sees in populated areas. It reminded me of the time Steve and I took a honeymoon trip to Baywood Park, walked by the bay and look up at the clear night.

"What's that?" Steve asked. "What's what?" I replied. "That streak in the sky," he said. A little stunned, I said, "The Milky Way." Having lived in the city all his life, he'd never really seen it.

I smiled at the memory, wept a little for missing Steve, hoped that he was somehow with me on this long trip and drifted off to sleep.

Our train snakes through Steven's Pass.

The train was scheduled to arrive in Everett, Washington around 9 a.m. the next morning, but conflicts with freight trains had sidetracked the Empire Builder for several hours over the last day, and we weren't due in until 11:30, so there would be time to pack after breakfast that morning.

I was greeted by an almost-empty dining car and actually had a table all to myself. The server came over (she had a clipped delivery for the diners but had softened to me over the trip) and I had scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, croissant and orange juice. She didn't ask if I wanted coffee, but just came by and poured it. When I was finished, I left a $10 tip. She came over as I was getting up, so I handed it to her, and she was flabbergasted.

"Oh," she said, looking astonished at the bill in her hand, "Thank you." I replied, "Well, I didn't leave a tip after the meals, so I thought I'd give them to you at the end of the trip." The smile she gave me said I was her favorite customer on the train. I assume that people no longer tip on the trains, especially if the meals are included in the price of the ticket.

The snow here will not return anytime soon.

The rest of the morning was spent descending the mountains into the western side of Washington. The snow slowly started parting, the air obviously warmer outside, and soon we were in green passes and coming into town after town, though we did not stop. I started sending my brother Jim texts (he was to retrieve me from the station) about my arrival, making reference to things that passed outside my window.

One other thing about train travel is guessing at the names of the towns you pass by. At some point or another, you'll see a business that has the town's name incorporated into its own; hence the text, "Just passing Sultan Dental Center." I spotted a sign for the Evergreen Fairgrounds and texted: "Pygmy goat show today at the fairgrounds!" Jim's reply: "No, you can't have a pygmy goat."

My final text was: "I am here."