Westward Ho!
They just called for people who’d signed up for the wine & cheese tasting. I wonder if I could sneak in… It’s apparently an event for those in the sleeper cars- I wonder how much those run. They’re fairly expensive, from what I understand, but meals are included (which, as good as train food is, it’s also kinda pricey, which is why I brought some snacks this time around. I also brought some beverages with me as $3 for a can of Pepsi is insane & Dr. Pepper isn’t an option).
I first went to the train station at 12:30 am, thinking for some reason that the pick-up time was the same no matter which way you were heading. I’m sure if I’d been more awake on Monday while I was home, I would have thought to check my itinerary but I slept pretty much all day (so much for all the things I was going to get done, like cleaning). As it was, I got my ticket & then realized that my train wasn’t scheduled until 4:30. So, I went back home, attempted to nap for a few hours, successfully read for a few hours & came back. When I came back, the waiting area had a lot of people, some of whom looked suspiciously like the people who’d been waiting for the 1 am train when I’d picked up my ticket the night before. It turned out that was because they were the people who’d been waiting & the 1 am train was seriously late. I guess all the storms coming through had led to more flooding. I felt a bit guilty that my train was only an hour late, but mostly just felt bad that they’d been stuck all night sitting on seats that weren’t exactly designed for napping comfort. (They ought to have reclining seats in train stations & airports.)
I fell asleep for real once I got settled in my seat & was very surprised to discover when I woke up around lunch time that we were still in North Dakota. (and by “around lunchtime”, I mean “just barely”. I woke up as they were announcing last call for lunch before they shut down the kitchen) There was an amazing amount of water around- very obviously in places it wasn’t supposed to be. Even more surprisingly (to me), it wasn’t completely flat. I’d heard rumors that the western end of the state had varying topography but I hadn’t seen it yet. But there they were- the buttes & plateaus in all their sedimentary-layered glory. They still didn’t look quite right, though-they had a lot of green but still didn’t have any trees. No matter what else is growing, I’m discovering that land looks really bare to me if there aren’t any trees around. I think it’s because I’ve always been so close to forests. Obviously, this means I need to travel more so I can adjust to other types of landscapes. Maybe I should take a weekend & go camping in the NoDak badlands. I wonder if we could organize an art grad camping trip or something because camping is always more fun with friends. (I’ve got a mental picture of grad students looking at me & saying, “You want us to go where? Outside? Where there’s weather?” Although I know at least one would be cool with it.)
Lunch was amusing. I was seated with another college student from Seattle who was also in coach & a rather talkative North Dakotan who was in a sleeping car. He was familiar with the area & so he told us about climbing around on the buttes & what the fishing was like. I had the sneaking suspicion he was a bit drunk, which he confirmed at one point during the conversation, when he mentioned getting tanked at a bar while waiting for the train. He was largely annoyed by both the male servers in the dining car although I wasn’t very clear as to why exactly. He asked me if I was a Sioux fan, to which I thought of at least half a dozen responses, none of which were related to hockey but at least one of which involved Banshees. (There is a *huge* debate about UND’s logo right now, which has actually been going on for a while.) I explained that being an art student, I didn’t go to games much because I was always in my studio. He asked, “Where’s your North Dakota pride?” to which I then explained that I was from Pennsylvania. He declared me to be “kind of a cool girl” even if I wasn’t into sports & wasn’t actually from North Dakota. Meanwhile, the Seattle College Guy was laughing into his napkin over the entire exchange. They both thought I was pretty bad-ass for making a trek from PA to Seattle, even if I did take a day off in the middle.
I’d hoped to take some pictures on this leg of the trip, especially after Oxford raved about the scenery in the mountains- I even brought along my fancy new camera- but today has been far too gloomy for photos. I’d hoped it would clear up by the time we got to Glacier Park but alas, t’was not to be. We got to East Glacier right about the time I had dinner. It really is very beautiful, even in dreary gray weather. I did manage to snap some shots out the window during dinner & a little while after until it got dark. The three older gentlemen that I was seated with for dinner were amused by my antics. The gentleman right next to me was a 90 year old who still goes kayaking. Every time I think I’m too old to do something, I’m going to think of that guy. All three of them understood my love of trees as they’re from the Seattle area. I’ve always thought the Pacific Northwest would be a cool place to live (although I admit that I don’t remember if I decided that before or after Seattle grunge took over the music scene. I do remember that I really wanted to visit if when I heard the PIL song). Also, they reassured me that SNAG did *not* pick the most expensive hotel in the entire city of Seattle, as I’d thought.
Glacier National Park has a theme song- or maybe the entire mountain range it’s a part of. (Cascades, I think? I really need to work on my geography skills). That song is Big Country’s “In a Big Country”, which I heard playing in my head-“In a big country, dreams stay with you like a lover’s voice on the mountainside…”. Not that I could imagine being able to hear anyone shouting on any of these mountains- there’s so much space involved, even if there’s no train noise involved.
I also crossed the Continental Divide. I missed getting a picture of the sign, but I did get a rather blurry picture of a telephone pole. :-D
I will say that I’m pretty well convinced that Montana is the largest state in the union. At the very least it seems like it since it goes for just about forever. I’m pretty sure we’re still in it over ten hours after we started into it. And the reason I’m sure we’re still in it because there’s absolutely no cell signal. It turns out all those old Unibomber jokes are true-- if you want to hide from the government, then Montana is the place to do it. Apparently, it’s even got some sort of cell-signal blocking EM shield. They told me that once we got past Whitefish, we’d get a signal back, which we did for a very brief while. Just long enough for me to post on Facebook that I was out of the Dead Zone, in fact, & then it vanished again. All in all, this trip has not proven helpful for getting caught up on e-mail. Oh, well. It’s probably good for me.
There was a weird looking building at one of the stops we made overnight. I couldn’t quite figure out right away why I thought it looked odd until I realized that the windows in all 5 stories were looking into salmon-colored hallways rather than into rooms of any sort. It somehow made it look as if the exterior of the building were just a sort of skin. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did. Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely awake when we stopped, so I didn’t think to snap a picture of it.
I first went to the train station at 12:30 am, thinking for some reason that the pick-up time was the same no matter which way you were heading. I’m sure if I’d been more awake on Monday while I was home, I would have thought to check my itinerary but I slept pretty much all day (so much for all the things I was going to get done, like cleaning). As it was, I got my ticket & then realized that my train wasn’t scheduled until 4:30. So, I went back home, attempted to nap for a few hours, successfully read for a few hours & came back. When I came back, the waiting area had a lot of people, some of whom looked suspiciously like the people who’d been waiting for the 1 am train when I’d picked up my ticket the night before. It turned out that was because they were the people who’d been waiting & the 1 am train was seriously late. I guess all the storms coming through had led to more flooding. I felt a bit guilty that my train was only an hour late, but mostly just felt bad that they’d been stuck all night sitting on seats that weren’t exactly designed for napping comfort. (They ought to have reclining seats in train stations & airports.)
I fell asleep for real once I got settled in my seat & was very surprised to discover when I woke up around lunch time that we were still in North Dakota. (and by “around lunchtime”, I mean “just barely”. I woke up as they were announcing last call for lunch before they shut down the kitchen) There was an amazing amount of water around- very obviously in places it wasn’t supposed to be. Even more surprisingly (to me), it wasn’t completely flat. I’d heard rumors that the western end of the state had varying topography but I hadn’t seen it yet. But there they were- the buttes & plateaus in all their sedimentary-layered glory. They still didn’t look quite right, though-they had a lot of green but still didn’t have any trees. No matter what else is growing, I’m discovering that land looks really bare to me if there aren’t any trees around. I think it’s because I’ve always been so close to forests. Obviously, this means I need to travel more so I can adjust to other types of landscapes. Maybe I should take a weekend & go camping in the NoDak badlands. I wonder if we could organize an art grad camping trip or something because camping is always more fun with friends. (I’ve got a mental picture of grad students looking at me & saying, “You want us to go where? Outside? Where there’s weather?” Although I know at least one would be cool with it.)
Lunch was amusing. I was seated with another college student from Seattle who was also in coach & a rather talkative North Dakotan who was in a sleeping car. He was familiar with the area & so he told us about climbing around on the buttes & what the fishing was like. I had the sneaking suspicion he was a bit drunk, which he confirmed at one point during the conversation, when he mentioned getting tanked at a bar while waiting for the train. He was largely annoyed by both the male servers in the dining car although I wasn’t very clear as to why exactly. He asked me if I was a Sioux fan, to which I thought of at least half a dozen responses, none of which were related to hockey but at least one of which involved Banshees. (There is a *huge* debate about UND’s logo right now, which has actually been going on for a while.) I explained that being an art student, I didn’t go to games much because I was always in my studio. He asked, “Where’s your North Dakota pride?” to which I then explained that I was from Pennsylvania. He declared me to be “kind of a cool girl” even if I wasn’t into sports & wasn’t actually from North Dakota. Meanwhile, the Seattle College Guy was laughing into his napkin over the entire exchange. They both thought I was pretty bad-ass for making a trek from PA to Seattle, even if I did take a day off in the middle.
I’d hoped to take some pictures on this leg of the trip, especially after Oxford raved about the scenery in the mountains- I even brought along my fancy new camera- but today has been far too gloomy for photos. I’d hoped it would clear up by the time we got to Glacier Park but alas, t’was not to be. We got to East Glacier right about the time I had dinner. It really is very beautiful, even in dreary gray weather. I did manage to snap some shots out the window during dinner & a little while after until it got dark. The three older gentlemen that I was seated with for dinner were amused by my antics. The gentleman right next to me was a 90 year old who still goes kayaking. Every time I think I’m too old to do something, I’m going to think of that guy. All three of them understood my love of trees as they’re from the Seattle area. I’ve always thought the Pacific Northwest would be a cool place to live (although I admit that I don’t remember if I decided that before or after Seattle grunge took over the music scene. I do remember that I really wanted to visit if when I heard the PIL song). Also, they reassured me that SNAG did *not* pick the most expensive hotel in the entire city of Seattle, as I’d thought.
Glacier National Park has a theme song- or maybe the entire mountain range it’s a part of. (Cascades, I think? I really need to work on my geography skills). That song is Big Country’s “In a Big Country”, which I heard playing in my head-“In a big country, dreams stay with you like a lover’s voice on the mountainside…”. Not that I could imagine being able to hear anyone shouting on any of these mountains- there’s so much space involved, even if there’s no train noise involved.
I also crossed the Continental Divide. I missed getting a picture of the sign, but I did get a rather blurry picture of a telephone pole. :-D
I will say that I’m pretty well convinced that Montana is the largest state in the union. At the very least it seems like it since it goes for just about forever. I’m pretty sure we’re still in it over ten hours after we started into it. And the reason I’m sure we’re still in it because there’s absolutely no cell signal. It turns out all those old Unibomber jokes are true-- if you want to hide from the government, then Montana is the place to do it. Apparently, it’s even got some sort of cell-signal blocking EM shield. They told me that once we got past Whitefish, we’d get a signal back, which we did for a very brief while. Just long enough for me to post on Facebook that I was out of the Dead Zone, in fact, & then it vanished again. All in all, this trip has not proven helpful for getting caught up on e-mail. Oh, well. It’s probably good for me.
There was a weird looking building at one of the stops we made overnight. I couldn’t quite figure out right away why I thought it looked odd until I realized that the windows in all 5 stories were looking into salmon-colored hallways rather than into rooms of any sort. It somehow made it look as if the exterior of the building were just a sort of skin. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did. Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely awake when we stopped, so I didn’t think to snap a picture of it.