All Aboard, Pt. 2
Even with difficulties, trains are my new favorite way to travel.
The train ended up being an hour & a half late getting into Erie, which I’m learning that trains frequently run late. So do planes, so that’s not too big a deal to me. According to the guy at the Erie ticket office, one of the problems is that the AmTrak trains run on the freight rails & the freight trains get priority. (According to another traveler, AmTrak actually pays to have right-of-way on the rails but in reality it doesn’t work out that way because they lose it if they’re running more than an hour late) Then there’s the weather-related hold-up or unfortunate crash or the annoyingly vague “technical difficulties”. All sorts of weather holds up a train, from storms to tornadoes to flooding, (all of which I’ve encountered on this trip). Storms knock trees & powerlines onto the rails, tornadoes do the same with the added bonus of having enough power to rip up the tracks as well. The delay in Erie was technical difficulties getting out of Buffalo. Mom had thought that I’d want her to wait until I actually left when she dropped me off. I felt bad enough making her stay up until 1 am to drive me down that I certainly wasn’t going to make her stick around any longer than she had to. While waiting, I contemplated the display that showed the carry-on luggage size limit. I really wish I’d measured my bags. When I’d read on the website that I was limited to carry-on size, I’d assumed it meant the same size as airplane carry-on. It turns out that no, train carry-on is the same size as my larger suitcase so I could have fit just about everything into one & made my life much easier. Well, now I know for next time.
While being a bit late doesn’t bother me so much, I have discovered something that does-seat hogs. They assigned seats at Erie & I shared a seat with a guy. He gave me a weird vibe to begin with, partially because he tried to cut ahead of a bunch of us in line (the conductor caught him & sent him back) & partially because he was just kinda creepy-weird. Well, he decided to sleep curled up in a fetal position on his side on the seat. Which meant that his ass was about 4 inches into my seat. Being my stubborn self, I immediately pushed back & every time he shifted, made sure to push him back closer to his own seat. This meant that I spent the night in an extremely uncomfortable position so I didn’t sleep well-- plus being forced to butt-nuzzle a stranger with an obvious lack of understanding of personal space does not lead one to a relaxed sleep state. By the time I got to Chicago, my back was extremely sore.
I did get to see an old friend from undergrad there, though. She now lives & works right outside of Chicago so she came to meet me for brunch. We discovered that Downtown Chicago is closed on Sundays. Seriously-all of it. Not even the Panera’s or the Caribou Coffee were open & they were right by Union Station. Alas, between finding a place to eat & the train being late, we did not get to do the river architecture tour. We have vowed that it will happen next time. Instead, we sat in the shade by the river & chatted about the many changes in our lives since we’d last seen each other roughly 15 or so years ago. Kinda seems like yesterday & forever ago all at the same time.
We got delayed again between Chicago & Minnesota & again outside of the Twins- this time major weather-related. I tried to catch up on sleep, mostly, & wrote some letters. I managed to sleep through dinner (both the part where they took our reservations & the part where the kitchen was actually open). They also had a café, though, so I got an overpriced microwave dinner & chatted with some fellow travelers. I think chatting with other people is one of my favorite parts of traveling. Trains sort of force you to, unless you’re traveling in a group, at least at mealtimes. They only have so many tables in the dinning car & the café/lounge car, so they seat people together & thus, you end up chatting about where you’re going & what you’re doing. Two of the guys in the café with me were cousins traveling to Portland for a wedding & it turned out the one’s father is a metalsmith, mostly in silver. We all agreed that North Dakota is one of the coldest places on Earth.
I slept much better the next night, although I still managed to keep myself up too late reading Pillars of Earth (which I’m quite enjoying). We caught up the time we lost earlier in the day but because of the tornado-related hold-up outside the Twins, we didn’t get back into Grand Forks until after 6:30 am-over 2 hours late. It was still painful to have to wake up, though. I safely staggered into my apartment & collapsed into bed. Fun as trains & traveling can be, I still like to sleep in my own bed once in a while. Or at least *a* bed.
The train ended up being an hour & a half late getting into Erie, which I’m learning that trains frequently run late. So do planes, so that’s not too big a deal to me. According to the guy at the Erie ticket office, one of the problems is that the AmTrak trains run on the freight rails & the freight trains get priority. (According to another traveler, AmTrak actually pays to have right-of-way on the rails but in reality it doesn’t work out that way because they lose it if they’re running more than an hour late) Then there’s the weather-related hold-up or unfortunate crash or the annoyingly vague “technical difficulties”. All sorts of weather holds up a train, from storms to tornadoes to flooding, (all of which I’ve encountered on this trip). Storms knock trees & powerlines onto the rails, tornadoes do the same with the added bonus of having enough power to rip up the tracks as well. The delay in Erie was technical difficulties getting out of Buffalo. Mom had thought that I’d want her to wait until I actually left when she dropped me off. I felt bad enough making her stay up until 1 am to drive me down that I certainly wasn’t going to make her stick around any longer than she had to. While waiting, I contemplated the display that showed the carry-on luggage size limit. I really wish I’d measured my bags. When I’d read on the website that I was limited to carry-on size, I’d assumed it meant the same size as airplane carry-on. It turns out that no, train carry-on is the same size as my larger suitcase so I could have fit just about everything into one & made my life much easier. Well, now I know for next time.
While being a bit late doesn’t bother me so much, I have discovered something that does-seat hogs. They assigned seats at Erie & I shared a seat with a guy. He gave me a weird vibe to begin with, partially because he tried to cut ahead of a bunch of us in line (the conductor caught him & sent him back) & partially because he was just kinda creepy-weird. Well, he decided to sleep curled up in a fetal position on his side on the seat. Which meant that his ass was about 4 inches into my seat. Being my stubborn self, I immediately pushed back & every time he shifted, made sure to push him back closer to his own seat. This meant that I spent the night in an extremely uncomfortable position so I didn’t sleep well-- plus being forced to butt-nuzzle a stranger with an obvious lack of understanding of personal space does not lead one to a relaxed sleep state. By the time I got to Chicago, my back was extremely sore.
I did get to see an old friend from undergrad there, though. She now lives & works right outside of Chicago so she came to meet me for brunch. We discovered that Downtown Chicago is closed on Sundays. Seriously-all of it. Not even the Panera’s or the Caribou Coffee were open & they were right by Union Station. Alas, between finding a place to eat & the train being late, we did not get to do the river architecture tour. We have vowed that it will happen next time. Instead, we sat in the shade by the river & chatted about the many changes in our lives since we’d last seen each other roughly 15 or so years ago. Kinda seems like yesterday & forever ago all at the same time.
We got delayed again between Chicago & Minnesota & again outside of the Twins- this time major weather-related. I tried to catch up on sleep, mostly, & wrote some letters. I managed to sleep through dinner (both the part where they took our reservations & the part where the kitchen was actually open). They also had a café, though, so I got an overpriced microwave dinner & chatted with some fellow travelers. I think chatting with other people is one of my favorite parts of traveling. Trains sort of force you to, unless you’re traveling in a group, at least at mealtimes. They only have so many tables in the dinning car & the café/lounge car, so they seat people together & thus, you end up chatting about where you’re going & what you’re doing. Two of the guys in the café with me were cousins traveling to Portland for a wedding & it turned out the one’s father is a metalsmith, mostly in silver. We all agreed that North Dakota is one of the coldest places on Earth.
I slept much better the next night, although I still managed to keep myself up too late reading Pillars of Earth (which I’m quite enjoying). We caught up the time we lost earlier in the day but because of the tornado-related hold-up outside the Twins, we didn’t get back into Grand Forks until after 6:30 am-over 2 hours late. It was still painful to have to wake up, though. I safely staggered into my apartment & collapsed into bed. Fun as trains & traveling can be, I still like to sleep in my own bed once in a while. Or at least *a* bed.