"For Your Intellectual Entertainment"--paper airplane sculpture--Los Angeles green line
the famous HOLLYWOOD sign
the Los Angeles red line subway at a downtown station
the Redondo Beach pier
This summer I deserved a vacation. I wouldn't normally have such an attitude, but I really felt that way after working myself ragged all spring. In addition to my main job at Garrigan (teaching math, plus working with quiz bowl, speech, broadcasting, and student council, among other things), I was working three nights a week at Iowa Lakes Community College. ....... The good thing ....... was that ....... I was able to put together the money to do pretty much whatever I wanted to this summer. What I decided to do was to go somewhere I'd never been before-the major cities of America's largest state. ....... (My sister) Margaret decided to join me for a cross-country adventure.
In addition to Los Angeles and San Francisco, our trip would include train rides across the Rocky Mountains and up the California Coast. The fact that we would go by train was largely a bi-product of some unfortunate experiences we had on Amtrak a year ago. ....... After writing a polite, but pointed, letter to Amtrak, I was issued a travel voucher that covered nearly half of my fare to California. .......
So we set out to explore the Land of Smog without a car. We took the train to get there and then public transportation around the cities. I am pleased to inform you that it is actually very easy to be carless in California. Indeed, in many ways it was easier, since we didn't have to worry about negotiating the freeways, hunting for parking, or paying $2 a gallon for gas. .......
....... The main view as I drove south on US 169 was of flooding on the Des Moines River. We had a severe winter followed by an extremely wet spring, and the lowlands in the area have been flooded most of year. Most of the fields I passed were brown. Some had never been planted, and the crops in others were just far behind schedule in emerging. It looked more like April or May than mid-June. I really hate brown fields. In fact, I wonder about people who rave about how beautiful spring is. I think Iowa looks its ugliest in spring, with just miles of bare ground all over everywhere. Give me the green fields of summer, the golden fields at harvest time, or the white snow cover of winter anytime. I'll take every other season over spring.
I stopped briefly at Hardees in Humboldt for my traditional "good luck" breakfast-a ham, egg, and cheese biscuit. I think of it as "good luck", because I used to eat biscuits for breakfast before going to speech contests in high school. It wasn't really a superstition, so much as a pleasant way to start the day. Almost no Hardees serve ham, egg, and cheese biscuits anymore, but they've still got them in Humboldt., and I made a point of gobbling one down this morning.
I headed down back roads to Des Moines and ....... then made my way down highway 163 to Oskaloosa. They recently finished four-laning 163, and it goes much faster than the old road. When I used to visit my brother Paul, I would always hit the brakes at Des Moines and then crawl on from there. Now it's clear sailing all the way southward.
I bought gas and coffee at the Kwik Shop in Oskaloosa. Gas was $1.479 a gallon-20 cents cheaper than the price in Algona, and the lowest price I'd seen since Easter. Then I made my way through Osky to my brother Steve's home, where I had a lovely visit through the afternoon.
Steve works the night shift at the window factory in Pella (about 17 miles northwest of here), and he left for work at 4pm. At about 6:00, his wife Terry, their children Michelle and Josh, and I went up to Pella to join Steve during his dinner break. We had dinner at the Pizza Ranch in Pella. I don't think I've ever been inside a Pizza Ranch before; I just think of them as the people who supply the concession food at almost all the away games Garrigan plays. The pizza was not my favorite, but it was good and certainly filling, and we had a very pleasant dinner. Steve talked a lot about his job. He was unsure when he went into it how it would compare to teaching, but he's obviously liking it more and more-especially now that he's a supervisor. It also pays better than teaching-or at least a whole lot more than my Catholic school salary.
After dinner we went back to Oskaloosa. Michelle plays Little League softball, and she had a game tonight. Terry, Josh, and I joined the spectators in the crowd. I've seen a lot of high school baseball recently, but Little League softball is a very different game. I've never liked softball pitching; to me the underhand motion just looks awkward and jerky. There are also a bunch of odd rules, like not being able to take a lead off base. The smaller base paths change the nature of the game, as do the abilities of the young players who are just learning the game.
Middle school girls also act differently as players than high school boys do. Everything is a group thing to young girls. While boys will yell individual encouragement to the pitcher or the person batting, the girls did chants together as a group. Many of them were long and complicated-the sort of thing that our cheerleaders get upset about when the crowd doesn't join in at basketball games, and they were all accompanied by rhythmic hand claps. The opposing team even did one cheer (which dealt with "r-e-e-e-e-e-e-a-lly stroking" the bat) that I could certainly take as double entendre that was not exactly appropriate for Little Leaguers.
Also amusing was the opposing team's catcher. She was sweet and giggly before and after the game, and sometimes between innings. When she put her "game face" on, though, she was a real drill sergeant. Even when her team was way ahead, she still bellowed at her teammates for every play that was less than perfect. While she certainly was the team leader, I can't imagine that anyone would want to be her teammate.
It looked as if Michelle's team would be routed after a very bad first inning. They came back, though, and while they didn't pull it off, they did make it respectable. After the game we headed home, and before long I was asleep.
I was up at 7:00 this morning. Terry went out walking, and shortly afterwards I followed. I went back to the Kwik Shop, where I bought coffee.
Today was also a ballgame day. One year ago Garrigan was scheduled to play a game at Sec Taylor Stadium, the beautiful AAA park where the Iowa Cubs play. I had made bought tickets in 2000 to take Steve and his family to that game, which was unfortunately rained out. To make up for the rain out, Sec Taylor gave Garrigan another game this year-this time with free admission. Steve had to work today, so he couldn't come, but Terry and the kids joined me to see the Golden Bears take on the Carlisle Wildcats.
We stopped briefly at that same Kwik Shop, where I got more coffee and the kids bought gum. Then we made our way up to Des Moines to the stadium. .......I
I also had a long conversation with our head baseball coach, Gene Meister. Among other things we discussed Brad Nelson, the recent Garrigan graduate who was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers at the beginning of the month-the top pick from Iowa in the Major League Baseball draft. The big question on everyone's mind was whether Brad would actually sign to play professional ball. He had already accepted a full-ride scholarship at the University of Nebraska, so the Brewers would have to come up with a good offer to top that. Gene said his feeling was that Brad would sign with Milwaukee, once the details were worked out. I had talked with Brad himself earlier in the week, and while he talked like a politician--carefully not saying anything of real importance--that was more or less the feeling I got then, too. (Update: As of mid-July Brad had still not signed with Milwaukee, and Nebraska was looking more an more likely. College is certainly not a bad thing, though; and if he had what it took to be drafted out of high school, he should still have that ability after college. See additional update at the end of this travelogue.)
I've never been in the position before of knowing someone with the potential to become famous, and I must say it's really kind of cool to have that happen. While I don't claim to be Brad's friend nor presume any responsibility for his talent, I've certainly gotten to know him better than most of my students. In addition to teaching him and watching him play ball, I've worked closely with him on student council, in quiz bowl, and on our weekly "Bear Facts" radio show. Not only is he an gifted athlete, he's just a genuinely good person-the kind of person we need more of in sports. I'm confident that one day I'll be watching Brad play in the majors, and I can't think of a better person that dream could happen to. .......
Unfortunately Brad's chance at his dream was not especially good news for Garrigan. He spent most of May flying around the country and basically "auditioning" for pro teams, and after the draft, he was occupied with the negotiation process. That meant he was unavailable to play high school ball. Our team is good, but no one likes losing their best player--especially when that player holds literally every meaningful school record there is. .......
In addition to Brad, another of our top players ... was gone today, playing in an all star basketball game. For that reason, and since Carlisle was one of the top-rated teams in the state, it surprised me a little bit that we won-3 to 1. Even more surprising was that the game was basically a pitching duel. Our team is much more noted for offense than for pitching. (Our pitcher) had a commanding performance on the mound, though, and everyone played well behind him.
I felt a little awkward with Terry and the kids at the game. I like watching Garrigan baseball. I know all the guys (all of whom I've taught, most of them several times), and I really get into the games. I'll yell as loud as anyone there in cheering on the Bears. Terry, Josh, and Michelle, of course, didn't know anyone. They may well have felt as strange at this game as I did cheering for girls I didn't know at Michelle's softball game last night. If they did, though, they certainly didn't let on. They seemed to enjoy themselves nearly as much as I did, and I could tell that the Garrigan kids enjoyed seeing fresh faces in the crowd.
Steve wanted us to stop by Pella Corporation when we got back. We did, and Josh went up to the window of Steve's office. Unfortunately Steve wasn't there, so we left. We stopped for a treat at the Pella Dairy Queen and then went back to Oskaloosa. ......
....... Before long Steve came home. He thought we hadn't stopped in Pella, and was a bit upset. Apparently things were slow at work, and he could have taken off early if he had known we were already home.
For dinner tonight we went to the a Chinese restaurant, Ching Tao, where we gorged ourselves on an enormous and tasty buffet. Back at Steve's place, we watched America's Most Wanted on TV. I'm not sure it boded well for the trip, but it certainly was interesting that one of their main features was about "Jesse James Hollywood", a spoiled brat from the LA suburbs who went into drug dealing and progressed to murder.
....... Before long I was off to sleep.
I was up at 6:30, and before long I set off. I stopped yet again at the Oskaloosa Kwik Shop, where I got coffee and the Sunday Des Moines Register. Then I drove north on highway 63 and east on Interstate 80. I stopped briefly at a convenience store in Brooklyn, right next to a motel I stayed at before last year's vacation. There I mailed a bunch of bills that were due in the next few days. My check from Garrigan would be deposited in my absence, but I still needed to get the bills off in the mail. I was glad I had bought the paper in Osky. Here they were charging 75¢ more per copy.
I continued east to Exit 242 in Coralville, and then stopped for breakfast at the Country Kitchen. A lot of families were eating together on Sunday morning, and it was amusing to have the waitress wish me a "Happy Fathers' Day" when I was eating alone.
I stopped at my Aunt Alaire's apartment in Coralville, where I met Margaret. I left my car there, and we took Margaret's down to the station in Mt. Pleasant. Unlike my car, Margaret's has air conditioning. There was a problem, however. The switch for her air was broken, and one or the other of us had to hold it in manually to keep the cool air coming. We alternated, and just when one of our hands was becoming stiff, the other would take over.
The train was due to leave Mt. Pleasant at 11:03am. From our experience last year, we were certainly not expecting it to be anywhere close to on time. ....... We assumed ... we'd have time for a leisurely lunch before the train arrived. In fact, we had tentatively planned to go to the Iris Restaurant, where I had worked when I was in high school and college. To our surprise, though, the train was due in at 11:50. We changed plans, and decided instead to grab a quick bite at McDonalds.
We went out to the Mt. Pleasant McDonalds and were all set to order lunch. We got there at about a quarter to eleven, but they were serving breakfast. While most fast food places switch from breakfast to lunch at 10:30, Mt. P. apparently thinks of breakfast as "brunch" on Sunday, and extends it to 11:00. That would have been fine with me; I generally prefer breakfast to lunch at fast food places anyway. Margaret, however, is not a big fan of breakfast sandwiches, so we left for a while. I really don't understand why they can't serve both menus at the same time. When I was in Spain years ago, they had Egg McMuffins on the dinner menu, and I've always thought that would be a good idea here.
We filled time by buying and reading the Mt. Pleasant News and then came back to McDonalds when it was lunchtime. I tried one of their promotional items, a ham and cheese sandwich. I really like the ham and cheese at Hardees and Arby's, but this was nothing like those. It was two a slice of unmelted American cheese topping a circle of flavorless sandwich meat, then slathered in mayonnaise and topped with lettuce and tomato. I was expecting a hot sandwich, and this was barely warm. Indeed, the best thing about the meal was the fries--which themselves had been under the light too long.
We were not able to check our luggage this year because of making a connection at the Galesburg station, which does not handle luggage for coach passengers. In some ways that was good, though. Every train west of the Mississippi has a large luggage storage area on the bottom level. We just carried our luggage on board and left the larger suitcases downstairs. Then when we reached our destination, we were able to just take our bags and go, without having to wait for checked luggage to be sorted.
The train left Mt. Pleasant almost exactly at noon. The trip east to Galesburg was uneventful. We passed lots of unplanted fields, and the train passed through many pretty cuts lined with trees.
We arrived at "GBB" before 1:30, but our connecting train to Los Angeles wasn't scheduled to leave until after 6, so we had all afternoon to kill. The Galesburg station was pleasant, if a bit odd. Among other things, they had auto racing blaring on the TV in the waiting lounge. Since neither of us is remotely a NASCAR fan, we set out to explore beautiful downtown Galesburg.
Galesburg's railroad station is on Seminary Street, a recently gentrified area of restaurants and antique shops. Most were closed on Sunday afternoon, and we quickly made our way through those that were open. Nothing jumped up and screamed for us to buy it--especially when we would have had to lug any purchases two-thirds of the way across the country and back.
A couple blocks down the street from the station is Main Street, which in Galesburg literally has that name. This is a street of substantial mid-century buildings that obviously used to house impressive stores. While downtown Galesburg is still active, they've obviously traded down. Instead of fine department stores and specialty shops, the area is now anchored by a couple of dollar stores (to think we used to shop in "dime" stores that carried better merchandise), with a tobacconist, an antique furniture dealer, and lots and lots of office space. One of the most interesting shop windows was that of a party supplies shop. They were getting ready for the Fourth of July with a patriotic party fountain that spewed a never-ending geyser of red, white, and blue beads.
Surprisingly, we killed over an hour exploring downtown Galesburg. Then we killed some more time by having dessert at one of the nice restaurants on Seminary Street. The Landmark Creperie, as its name implies, specializes in airy French pancakes, and we spoiled ourselves with dessert crepes wrapped around French vanilla ice cream, topped with a praline liqueur and nuts, and then smothered with a mountain of fresh whipped cream, together with fresh-squeezed orange juice and cider. ....... The "dessert" made a more than filling meal.
Back at the station we learned that the train to L.A. was 45 minutes late leaving Chicago. The California Zephyr to San Francisco was also expected late-though only by 20 minutes. It was fascinating to hear the people in the station complain about these minor delays. Twenty or forty-five minutes really isn't all that much; you could easily be delayed by that much in traffic if you drove from downtown Chicago to Galesburg. Planes, too, suffer similar delays all the time. Having coped with eight-hour delays last summer, 45 minutes really was nothing to Margaret and me, but it was amusing to hear the other people whine about the inconvenience.
We filled the remainder of our time by reading newspapers. In addition to the Des Moines Register and Mt. Pleasant News I had bought from Iowa, I threw quarter after quarter in the downtown machines and picked up papers from Galesburg, Peoria, Springfield, and Chicago. Most of them weren't today's paper--which was fine with me, given that the Sunday paper always costs more and has less real news in it. The most interesting thing we found out was that one of the members of the royal family of Nepal had graduated from Knox College here in Galesburg. You may recall that the Nepalese crown prince rained gunfire around the royal palace a few weeks ago in a grisly murder-suicide with echoes of Romeo and Juliet.. The prince from Galesburg was seriously injured, but not killed in the gunfight, and the local paper had a lengthy second-hand interview on his condition.
Shortly before 7pm the Southwest Chief pulled into the station in Galesburg. It was a very long train that completely filled the platform. When the attendant checked our ticket, he asked us if we wanted "upstairs or downstairs" seating. Every Amtrak coach west of the Mississippi has seats on two levels, but last year I was not aware that the bottom level was actually used. It struck me that it was basically an overflow area where people went at night to stretch out and sleep, and that it also was where handicapped passengers were seated. We quickly selected "upstairs"-which has a much better view-and got on board the train.
It became clear fairly quickly that this would be no ordinary train ride. The bulk of our fellow passengers were not the typical tourists you see on a train, but rather Boy Scouts. The biggest Scout facility in the country is Philmont Ranch, which is located in the Cimarron Mountains of northeast New Mexico. The Southwest Chief cuts through a corner of the ranch and stops at the town of Raton, which is very close to the entrance. Factoring in the cost of motel rooms and gas, it is quite a bit cheaper for the Scouts to take the train to Philmont than it is to drive. (Similarly, it would almost certainly have cost more for us to drive to California than to take Amtrak.) The Southwest Chief apparently transports Scouts all summer long, and I remembered ... a recent Garrigan graduate and Eagle Scout saying that he had taken the train to Philmont a couple years back.
Our train included Scout troops from as far away as Pennsylvania and Connecticut, as well as most of the Midwestern states. Most of the Scouts had boarded in Chicago, but others joined at Ft. Madison, Kansas City, and even in eastern Colorado--which is just a few hours from Raton. Two entire coaches were full of nothing but Scouts, and nearly half of the seats in the remaining coaches were also filled with boys in khaki. We did the math and determined that there had to be a minimum of 200 Boy Scouts on the train; they were definitely the majority of the passengers.
Many of the other passengers were annoyed by all the Scouts. One snidely remarked that it was "a train full of teeny-boppers", and several complained that meal service in the diner was disrupted by the boys. (I don't think the Amtrak crew expected the Scouts to eat full meals in the diner, which almost all of them did; they were obviously not prepared to serve so many people and quickly ran out of almost everything.) I certainly couldn't complain about them, though. They were extremely well-behaved and relatively quiet through most of the trip. They were all in uniform, and I think they felt some responsibility to live up to the values the Scouting tradition stands for. Honestly, I'd have rather have had them for traveling companions all the way to L.A., instead of those who were left after the Boy Scouts departed.
Most noteworthy among the non-Scouting passengers on the train was a group of four passengers who were traveling across the country from New York. They had obviously gotten sick of train travel by the time they got to Chicago, and their opinion just kept going down as they headed westward from there. The most normal person in the group was a middle-aged woman named Colleen from Long Island. She had mousy blonde hair, and she spent the majority of her time reading a paperback novel. Colleen had a thick East Coast accent and seemed to have no concept of anything in the country (or the world, for that mater) outside of New York.
One of Colleen's traveling companions was a young man with numerous piercings and tattoos. We found out from an overhead discussion that he was gay. That discussion happened to be with a Scoutmaster from Winona, Minnesota, who was seated across the aisle from him. The pierced man asked a number of probing questions about the Scouts' well-known policy against gays, and in the process he revealed that he was gay himself. I thought the Scoutmaster fielded the questions very well. He politely listened to everything the pierced man had to say, and said that he had no particular feeling one way or another on the issue himself. He did feel, however, that young boys should not be having sex with anyone--male or female. That's what Scouting has taught for generations, and it's simply good moral behavior.
The Scoutmaster also noted that there have been numerous charges of molestation of boys in the Scouts, which was probably part of the reasoning behind the policy. He mentioned that as a Scoutmaster he was not allowed to be alone with his Scouts at any time; there always had to be at least one other adult present. Usually the Scoutmasters work in groups of three, so if a problem comes up, one of them can go get help while still leaving two with the boys. It's sad that people are so suspicious of things these days. It seems that too often good, honest people suffer because of the horrific acts of a few.
The pierced man listened to music on headphones throughout most of the trip. Either the headphones were poorly made or he had things set to maximum volume, because Margaret and I were treated to the second-hand music that leaked out. While the music was a bit too modern for my tastes, I tuned it out fairly easily. Margaret is very sensitive to sound, though, and she got really annoyed by it.
The other two members of the New York group were two scruffy forty-ish men who spent most of their time in the smoking lounge. When they were in the coach they mostly slept. They were also obsessed with electronic devices and seemed to forever be recharging batteries for cell phones, pagers, and the like. I found it amusing that they didn't wear watches, but instead used their cell phones to tell the time. (Not owning a cell phone--or even desiring to own one--I didn't know that they had built-in clocks.) This caused a problem whenever we switched time zones. Apparently the cell phones were supposed to switch automatically, but these didn't. The men seemed to have no clue how to set the clocks on their phones, so they were forever struggling to tell the correct time.
It had been a bright, clear day, but clouds built up as we headed southwest from Galesburg. By the time we reached the Mississippi the sky was dark and there was serious lightning. The river was extremely high as we crossed into Fort Madison on a rickety old bridge, and I for one was grateful to get to the other bank. It was only 8:00, but with the storm it seemed like it was late at night.
We spent only about half an hour in Iowa-all in Lee County-before crossing the Des Moines River into Missouri. The storm let up, and we saw a gorgeous sunset among the tree-lined hills as we sped across the Show-Me State. As it became truly night, the New Yorkers commented that they must still be in civilization, because there were lights in the houses we drove past.
We noticed much more movement on this train than we had on those we traveled on last summer. It might be because we were gong quite fast-I think faster than on any other train we had been on. Also, the tracks might not have been in as good of shape. One way or another, we jostled severely through most of the trip.
They turned off the lights in the coach fairly early, but it was hard to get to sleep. Several people were snoring, and the pierced man had his headphones blaring. Then, just as I was dozing off, the car attendant came on to announce, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you are walking through the train, you will pass through a sleeper. Please be quiet and considerate." The yard crew in Chicago has screwed up in assembling the train. Normally the sleepers are at the front of the train and the coaches are at the back. Then, in Amtrak's version of apartheid, the riff-raff won't annoy the wealthy patrons when they head to the lounge. For some reason, though, on sleeper on this train was placed as the next-to-last car. Our coach was the tail end, and we had to make our way through the sleeping car to go anywhere else. Of course, common courtesy would dictate that we not annoy other passengers, but it seemed annoying to me that we should be awakened to be told that.
We got to Kansas City about 11:30pm. I kept my eyes closed, but was wide awake as I felt them detach and join freight cars at the end of the train. Eventually, though, we set out across Kansas, and I managed to get some real sleep.
The sunrise woke me up at about 5:30am. We were somewhere in central Kansas, speeding very rapidly across the plains. I was trying to be very still so as not to disturb Margaret in the seat beside me, so I entertained myself by trying to estimate our speed. Using my wristwatch to clock things, I noted that we passed towns approximately every 5 minutes, and we crossed county roads at a rate of nearly 2 per minute. Even more than in Iowa, Kansas' roads follow the old section lines from homestead days (which puts them a mile apart), so it didn't take a lot of serious math to figure out we were doing at least 100 mph.
....... At about 6:30 Margaret and I headed to the dining car for breakfast. The diner was already full of Boy Scouts at 6:30am. To fill our time for waiting, the lounge car attendant gave us free coffee (which normally goes for $1.50 a cup on the train). As we waited in the lounge for dining space to free up, we noticed Scouts from Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Maryland--all staring out the windows at the Great Plains. Kansas is hardly the most scenic state in the nation, but anything different from your home is always interesting. .......
We were greeted in the diner with the message that they were out of ham and steak; the Scouts had eaten all of it. I've never been one to have steak for breakfast, but ham might have been nice. I can't fault the boys for eating hearty, though, before spending a week in the wilderness. What's more, Margaret and I had a lovely breakfast of omelets, together with what they called "breakfast potatoes" (big chunks of potato, sautéed together with onions and green peppers).
They never waste seats on Amtrak at mealtime, so you always share your mealtime with other travelers. The more interesting of our breakfast companions this morning was Scott, an assistant Scoutmaster from Springfield, Missouri. He and his troop had sleepers, which he said was the only way to go. When he had come out to Philmont a few years ago as a Scout, he said he never slept the whole way. In the sleeper he and the boys could get some rest so they would be fresh when they started their hike.
Having made our way through the sleeping car to get to breakfast, I don't think either Margaret or I would share Scott's enthusiasm for travel by sleeper. There's no doubt they would be better for sleeping at night. While the coach seats are large and have generous legroom, they're still chairs-not beds. Unfortunately, while the sleepers might be good at night, by day they struck me as extremely claustrophobic. Each one is an enclosed room set up like the dinette in a trailer. On either side of a table you have a bench that comfortably seats only one-though you might squeeze two small children there. In a party of two, someone is always riding backwards. The dinette makes into a single bed, and a second single bed pulls down from the ceiling. There is no storage space at all. The entire room-including walls-takes up no more space than four coach seats. The jail cells we saw last summer in Philadelphia were more than twice as large. They also have deluxe sleepers (at a higher cost), which are slightly larger. Those have a sink and toilet right in the room beside the dinette. I'm not sure I'd care for that, either, as I think you'd smell the toilet-and you certainly wouldn't have any privacy while using it if you were traveling in a pair.
The ideal, if you could afford it, would be to book both a coach seat and a sleeper. You'd have the bed-together with the shower and free meals that accompany it, but you wouldn't be cooped up in a cell all day. That freedom wouldn't come cheap, though. The standard sleepers go for about twice the cost of a coach seat-plus the normal fare. That means that instead of the $359.10 I paid to go to California (much of which was covered by the free voucher), I'd be playing nearly $1,500 if I wanted both a seat and a sleeper.
Joining Scott and us for breakfast was a very strange man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who wouldn't shut up the entire time. He was an "expert" on everything-just ask him. Aside from the requisite introductions, Margaret and I didn't get a word in edgewise the whole time-and Scott didn't say a whole lot more than we did.
We finished breakfast around 8:30. Afterwards we spent some more time in the lounge. All the western trains have so-called "sightseer" lounge cars with panoramic windows covering the sides and wrapping around to form much of the ceiling. Facing the windows are swiveling chairs that are not especially comfortable, but at least different from the coach chairs.
....... We were now into much drier country. Things were less green, and we saw big circular irrigation projects here and there. It was also cattle country, and we passed a series of enormous feed lots. Then somewhere in western Kansas we saw a series of gravel-lined ponds. Margaret and I immediately recognized them as sewage treatment lagoons, and it was fascinating to overhear other passengers ponder what they must be.
We entered Colorado at 8:45 MDT. It was very flat, flatter even than Kansas. As we made our way back to the dining car we noticed all the Scouts and where they were from. Standing out most was a single female Scout, who seemed very out of place amid all the boys. (We found out later there was exactly one other girl going to Philmont.) Another thing that we noticed was that the first coach (which was entirely full of Scouts) reeked of cigarette smoke. I don't really think this was the Scouts' fault. While I'm sure some of them smoke, it would be pretty daring for a high school kid to smoke on a crowded train while wearing his Scout uniform, with his Scoutmaster close by. Instead I think they had a ventilation problem. The smoking lounge was on the lower level of that coach (it's always the bottom of the coach right behind the lounge), and obviously the air from there was getting mixed with the general air in the rest of the car.
We got to LaMar at 9am, about 1:45 late. LaMar is a dumpy little town, but they have a lovely train station. Beyond the station is a statue called the Madonna of the Trails that offered blessing to the pioneers as they headed west.
....... They had been serving breakfast for at least four hours--an unusually long time. Still, this apparently wasn't long enough for one of the New Yorkers in our car. He complained to the Chief of Onboard Services about the diner. Apparently their dinner last night was delayed and they weren't able to eat the food they wanted. This morning, he claimed, they were unable to eat breakfast (which was an out and out lie--I'm betting he just didn't want to wait). He bitched and whined for quite a while, and eventually the chief issued him a voucher for a free dinner. I suppose if we had wanted to complain, we could have gotten free food, too. The food was good, though, and the wait really wasn't that bad, so I didn't feel we had any business complaining.
The train moved much more slowly in Colorado. We were following the headwaters of the Arkansas River, which was beautiful but made for slow going. The track seemed to curve with every little bend in the water. At 9:50 we reached La Junta (luh-HUNT-uh), where the conductor announced, "All lounge passengers, would you please move to your seats. We need to seat passengers in the lounge for about an hour." I had already noticed that there were destination tags above every single seat on the upper level of the train. Apparently the bottom level was sold out, too. The "about an hour" was a generous underestimate of the time from here to Raton, where the Scouts would be getting off. As it turned out, most of the passengers boarding at La Junta were also Scouts.
Around 10:45 we made our way to the lounge car for a snack. In front of us in line were two Puerto Rican bombshells that we would see repeatedly throughout the rest of the trip. The lounge attendant spent quite a bit of time flirting with them, so it took us a while to get served.
As we left the lounge we noticed that we had finally reached the edge of the mountains. This is the start of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Range, which continues through northern New Mexico. Prominent to the west were twin peaks that the local Indians apparently call the "Breasts of Mother Earth". I can only say that it was unmistakable to which mountains that name referred. .......
I'd swear that whoever built this railroad was drunk. Throughout southeast Colorado we were traveling through fairly level land, but we had frequent switchbacks, as if we were crossing a mountain pass. We kept going around and around and around, like we were on an amusement park ride. Meanwhile the highway in the distance that we roughly paralleled went arrow straight the whole way. After brainstorming why this might be, the best reason Margaret and I could come up with was that we had frequent river crossings, and they wanted to build all the bridges perpendicular to the water. That still seems like a pretty lame reason, and I really don't understand why we zigged and zagged so much out in the middle of nowhere.
Even with all the curves, we managed to make up quite a bit of time, and we were only 35 minutes late when we arrived in Trinidad. This is a really ugly town, the sort you only find in the mountains. ....... The station fit the town-just a box built of cement blocks, with paint peeling from the side.
Beyond Trinidad we made a rapid ascent up Raton Pass. ("Raton", by the way, means "mouse" in Spanish; I have no idea why the pass was so-named.) Beside us to the right was the old Santa Fe Trail, which today looks like any other county road. The pass was beautiful-particularly so as it was the first really striking thing we saw on this trip. It's lined with pine trees, and part way up there's an old Spanish mission. At 11:57 we reached the highest point on our ascent (a wimpy 7,588 feet), the Raton Tunnel. Rather bizarrely, the tunnel also marks the border between Colorado and New Mexico. That would make more sense to me if the border were the Continental Divide or something, but it's just a straight line. Strangely enough, the tunnel just happens to cross that line.
The New Mexico side of Raton Pass is much drier than the Colorado side-with far fewer trees and a paler shade of green in the underbrush. We descended the pass quickly, and at 12:15 we arrived in the town of Raton. This little town was a major stop, since this was where all the Scouts were getting off. There were special announcements asking the troop leaders to each assign a Scout to pick up that troop's luggage. They also announced that Troop 150 should go first, because their checked luggage was at the front of the baggage car. The luggage consisted mostly of enormous backpacks, far larger than anything I'd want to carry.
I pondered the whole time we were in Raton if anyone other than the Boy Scouts ever gets off the train here. It seemed like a nice town, as mountain towns go, and it's mission-style station was one of the nicest we saw anywhere. I have no idea what may be in the area besides the Philmont Ranch, but it might be interesting to find out sometime.
All the time we were stopped at Raton, the power kept flickering on and off on the train. We didn't think much of it, as strange things often happen while you're stopped in stations. The Raton stop was actually more efficient than many, and by 12:30 we were on our way again.
CONTINUED IN PART 2
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