TOP: David Burrow in Room 12 of Car 2730 on the Empire Builder
BOTTOM: David Burrow in Mill Ends Park, Portland, Oregon
TOP: David Burrow in Room 12 of Car 2730 on the Empire Builder
BOTTOM: David Burrow in Mill Ends Park, Portland, Oregon
My married brothers have the tradition of alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas between our family and their in-laws. In 2003 they went to their in-laws for Thanksgiving, and we were together in Oskaloosa at Christmas. This year we all got together at my Aunt Alaire's in Coralville in November, but everyone went their separate ways in December. Since I'm single and my sister Margaret is widowed, we had no in-laws to visit. We decided this would make a perfect year to travel at the holidays, and we'd been planning the trip almost since last New Year's.
We'd both enjoyed traveling by train before, and we thought it would be fun to spend the holiday on the rails. We also figured we might as well go somewhere neither of us had been before. Checking Amtrak's schedule we decided to take the Empire Builder to Portland, Oregon. We didn't know at the time that this was a very significant year for what the train crew calls "the Builder", the train's 75th anniversary. Named after the founder of the Great Northern Railroad, who almost single-handedly built an empire across the high plains, the Empire Builder continues to connect far-flung towns from Chicago to the Northwest. Spending Christmas on the train would indeed make a fascinating holiday, and Portland turned out to be a most enjoyable place to visit.
I finished my grades for Iowa Lakes Community College this morning and left town around 11:30. Make no mistake, it was cold today. We've had a remarkably warm fall, but this past week the bottom seemed to drop out. The bank thermometers read -5o Fahrenheit as I left town, an improvement from double digits below zero overnight.
I drove east on McGregor Road, the county blacktop that skirts the south end of Algona. Just east of town I admired the holiday display ... along the road. One thing ... (this display) didn't have--for which I'm grateful--was lawn balloons. These seem to be spreading like a cancer at the holidays. Each time I drive out to the college I pass one particularly bad example of the trend. Some family has erected a lawn balloon that is apparently supposed to portray Spongebob Squarepants as an elf. The face on the balloon has a truly evil grin, though; to me it's downright scary and would fit in better at Halloween than at Christmas. The balloon seems to frequently deflate. Whether it's due to wind or vandalous kids I don't know, but I couldn't help but think the lawn looked better without the sadistic elf.
I stopped for a ham and cheese sandwich at Hardees in Garner and then made my way up to Forest City. I was amazed at the number of RVs I saw in Forest City. This is where they make Winnebagos, and it seemed as if every motorhome owner in America had come here on a pilgrimage-in winter. I couldn't help but wonder why people would travel in motorhomes at Christmas, particularly when the thermometers here still showed 3 below.
The mercury had risen to a balmy -1o by the time I got to Osage, where I stopped for some $1.669 gas at Kwik Star. Normally I'd have gotten coffee, too, as Kwik Star makes a delicious cinnamon-flavored brew. They were out of that in Osage, though, and what coffee they did have on hand was thick and stale. I instead picked up some orange juice and egg nog and then continued on my way.
Before long I made it to Cresco, where my sister teaches at Crestwood High School. Ever since I first got my driver's license, my directions have been confused in Cresco. It's a small, square town, but for some reason nothing ever seems to be where it should be. That was true again today; even with directions Margaret had given me over the phone, I had trouble finding the school. I made a couple of wrong turns before eventually seeing their athletic fields.
We had finished school at Garrigan yesterday, but Cresco was still in session today. Their schedule called for first semester to end at Christmas, and today was a semester test day. (What they'd have done if there had been snow this week, I have no clue.) Margaret finished her tests this morning, so she was essentially free (though she couldn't leave school) this afternoon. I spent much of the afternoon watching her grade tests and also thumbed through a book on Latin American Christmas customs. A large part of her semester test was multiple choice, and at Cresco they have an optical scan machine that will "automatically" grade the tests. I use the quotation marks because the "automatic" scanner still requires that each answer sheet be fed slowly and individually, which struck me as nearly as much work as grading the tests by hand. The big advantage, apparently, is that the machine also produces data they can use to prove they are making progress toward the "No Child Left Behind" standards.
We left school mid-afternoon and drove over to Margaret's home east of Decorah. While she prepared Oriental peanut chicken for dinner, we listened to a CD of a group we would be seeing in Portland next week., the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Around Labor Day I had done a search on the Ticketmaster website to see what cultural opportunities the holiday season might offer in Oregon. The lone result was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. When I booked the tickets both Margaret and I assumed we would be seeing people from Russia playing violins and cellos. It turns out we couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of Irkusk or Vladivostok, the performers were from New York, and while they have strings in the background the music mostly features guitars and synthesizers. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is essentially a rock band, albeit a rock band who bases their material on classical music. They call their work "rock operas" in the same spirit as Jesus Christ, Superstar.
I did a Google search on the origin of their name and found out that we were far from the first to find "Trans-Siberian Orchestra" confusing. According to the "Garage Radio Coffeehouse" website in 1996 Rosie O'Donnell booked them for her Christmas Eve show, thinking she had chosen an innocuous Asian symphony. Her mistake was the band's big break, with their CD sales going from so-so to platinum. Ever since then the group has specialized in putting Christmas music to a hard rock beat. . I'd never heard of them until now, but they really do make excellent music.
I finally found the derivation of the name in--of all places--"al.com" ("al" as in "Alabama"), the website of the Huntsville Times which I had looked at before for coverage of Brad Nelson's exploits in AA baseball. In an interview before a performance in Birmingham, the group's leader noted that he came up with the name while on a trip across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. He said he found Siberia "incredibly beautiful, but also incredibly harsh and unforgiving", which is also the band's goal in their music. ...
We opened gifts and had an early Christmas, since it made little sense to lug bulky packages to Oregon and back. I read through the Spanish version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which Margaret apparently uses in her classes. It's difficult reading, definitely more advanced language in Spanish-though it's not one of those 200-word beginner books in English either. After finishing the story of the "Quiénes", we watched the weather on the 10:00 news from LaCrosse. The predicted overnight low was -17o. We decided to let our cars run a while (already it was about 12 below, and mine groaned a bit when I started it) and then to switch things around so my car (which we would be taking tomorrow) was in the garage instead of Margaret's. That accomplished, we settled in for the night.
We were up around 7:00 this morning. I had coffee while Margaret packed for the trip. She couldn't decide whether to take two small bags or one large one. It really doesn't matter on the train (where the luggage regulations, though recently tightened, are still far more liberal than on airlines); basically it came down to what she wanted to lug around. She settled on two small bags, plus her purse; and soon it appeared we were ready to go.
... But there was a problem. Somehow in the rush to get things packed, Margaret's garage door opener had been misplaced. Like many people, Margaret really doesn't use her front door at all (in fact she couldn't find the key for that door, either.) She always goes in through the garage, and so do any guests in her home. Of course she wanted to keep the garage closed and the house locked while she was away, so it was vital that we find the remote device. After more than a half hour of searching we finally did-in the pocket of a light weight jacket she had packed in one of the suitcases to wear on the trip. Margaret had put on the jacket for the couple of minutes we spent switching cars around last night and had forgotten she had put the remote control in the pocket. Well, thankfully we found it.
* * * * *
It was icy cold as we drove north toward Rochester. The heater in my car normally does quite well, but today it had quite a challenge. With two people in the car, I had to mostly keep the control set on "defrost" to keep the windows from fogging up (and in some cases icing over). That meant, however, that our arms and feet quickly got cold. I did the best I could switching between "heat" and "defrost", but I can't say we ever got properly warm.
* * * * *
We stopped briefly at a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Rochester and then headed north toward the Twin Cities. Our train didn't leave until evening, and we decided to fill some time by doing a bit of exploring in the area. Minneapolis opened a brand new light rail system last summer, and just two weeks ago they expanded the line to the airport and Mall of America. It was easy to get from Decorah to the Ft. Snelling park-and-ride, and taking the train definitely beat driving in the Twin Cities' notorious traffic.
I'd taken the Hiawatha light rail last summer and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately today was a different sort of day. While snow and bitter cold had screwed things up somewhat, the real problem was that one of the biggest football games of the season was happening this afternoon at the Metrodome. Playing football on Christmas Eve seems pretty silly to me, but it didn't seem that way to the throngs of people on the platform at Ft. Snelling. Literally thousands of sports fans were trying to take the train downtown to see the Vikings play the Packers. (It certainly makes sense to take the train--which has free parking and costs $2.70 round trip--over the headache of driving downtown and paying $10 or more for event parking.) We had originally planned to go downtown to see the Mill City Museum, the first General Mills plant which is now a historic site. It was silly to try to battle the football crowd, though, so we instead caught a southbound train.
The Hiawatha light rail uses long sleek cars that bend in the middle. They normally run as trains of two cars. The two doors in each car open to provide an entry right at curb level, and you can walk up stairs to sit in higher seats located above the wheels. The cars are decorated in an unfortunate color scheme. The powder blue and beige décor reminds me of a restroom from the '50s.
Like most light rail systems, Minneapolis uses "proof of payment". You're supposed to buy a ticket from a vending machine in advance and have it available in case a fare inspector asks to see it. Buying a ticket was easier said than done. The first machine I tried to use wouldn't accept coins. Finally I found one that would, but it required negotiating a series of confusing menus. The machine would communicate with me in at least eight different languages, but it was hardly user friendly in any of them.
I'd taken the train from Ft. Snelling to downtown last summer and found it interesting. The southbound route is less so. Just past Ft. Snelling the train enters a tunnel beneath the main part of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. There's a station in the middle of the tunnel, right beneath the Lindbergh terminal-the main terminal at MSP. It astounded me just how utilitarian this station was. Most modern transit stations (including most of the others on the Hiawatha line) feature some station art that gives them a bit of personality. At an airport, where people would get their first impression of the city, I expected them to go all out (like the neon backlights and sculpted rock they have in the subway at O'Hare). That obviously wasn't Minneapolis' priority, though. The only "decoration" amounted to lining the tunnel walls in brick. Otherwise there was the concrete platform and a couple of stainless steel benches.
The train surfaces at the south end of the airport, with a station for the Humphrey terminal (which serves obscure airlines I've never heard of). The connection there is less convenient-a lot like the 'L' station at Midway, with a long skywalk between the train and the terminal. South of there it has a semi-exclusive right-of-way in back of several office parks in Bloomington. There are two stops here which are probably busy at rush hours on business days, but they were absolutely desolate on Christmas Eve. We waited for a switch to change before getting to the final stop, on the bottom level of the east parking ramp at Mall of America.
There was a little building right near the entrance to the Mall of America station that was decorated with an Indian plaid pattern. There are similar buildings near many of the stations, and I'd always sort of wondered what they were. This one (a free-standing structure that was actually built inside the parking ramp) happened to have its door open. The whole inside was full of those green circuit boards that are the heart of modern electronics. About three workers were also inside, presumably overseeing the operations of the trains.
While the station is called "Mall of America", it really isn't all that convenient to anywhere you'd go shopping. If you actually park in the ramp, it's a fairly simple matter to take a skywalk into the mall. >From the station, though, you have to go up and down a series of ramps and stairs before finally coming out at a rather remote side entrance. It's close to a 5-minute walk, unless you're rushing. The downtown stations at the Metrodome and Nicollet Mall are much more convenient.
We didn't really do any shopping at Mall of America. I've been to the monstrous temple of consumption a couple of times before, but honestly I've never found it a particularly pleasant place to shop. It's too big and really rather awkward, and the individual stores can be quite hard to find. This was demonstrated by the fact that both when we came and left there was a long line of people at the mall information desk near the entrance. We managed to find a map sign and located a food court, where we had a Chinese lunch at Panda Express, followed by delicious caramel apple empanadas from Taco Bell (highly recommended for taste, if not for nutrition). We then made our way back to the bottom of the parking ramp, where we had a long, cold wait for a northbound train.
The transit system was still trying to recover from the crush of football fans. In fact, though the game had already started, there were still people with purple and yellow face paint wearing foam Viking horns standing on the platform. Announcements at the station advised us that because of the game there would be a 10 - 15 minute wait for a train (even though service is supposed to run at about 8-minute intervals). When 10 minutes had come and gone, they informed us that when the train arrived the driver would need to walk the platform from where he had been to what was now the front. They advised that "matters will be expedited" if passengers stayed out of his way while he did this. We all did as we were told, and after we started on our way the driver complimented our obedience. He noted that because we were so efficient the train was only 8 minutes behind schedule, which was the best of any train currently on the line.
From what I've read and observed the light rail system in Minneapolis has been very well accepted. (It has had almost triple the expected ridership, which the crowds for today's game illustrate.) However, as we made our way back to Ft. Snelling we couldn't help but overhear a woman who had nothing but complaints about it. The problem was, though, that her complaints were inconsistent. She said she lives near the train and was constantly hearing it at night. However, then she complained that they'd eliminated the bus she used to take, and she had to drive six blocks to a park-and-ride to catch the train. The trains are really very quiet, much quieter than traditional subways or 'L's. If she has to drive six blocks to catch it, there's no way she can hear it at her house. She grumbled the whole way, though. I couldn't help but wonder, if she hated the train so much, why she took it. She obviously has a car; you'd think if she hated public transit, she'd simply drive.
We bought gas (1.719) and had eggnog milkshakes in Eagan and took the Great River Road south from St. Paul through Red Wing and Wabasha. ... We admired the beautiful scenery ... as we made our way to our ultimate destination was Winona, one of two towns with Amtrak stations that is vaguely near Decorah. LaCrosse, Wisconsin, is actually a bit closer, but we figured it would be easier to find the station and park in Winona. We got there right at sunset and found the station without any problem. Parking near the station seemed rather limited, but we found a section with cars that had snow piled on top of them and figured that must be the area for Amtrak passengers.
Our train wasn't scheduled to leave for a couple of hours, and at this point the station wasn't even open. We had planned in advance to go to a Christmas Eve worship service, and I had scanned church websites to see what was available. Many of Winona's churches had websites, but the majority hadn't been updated in months or even years-making them pretty much useless. The two that did have Christmas schedules were a Lutheran church with several services throughout the afternoon and evening and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, which had mass at 5:15pm. We braved the brisk evening air and crunched our way through the snow for about six blocks to the cathedral.
To me "cathedral" has connotations of a grand, old church that is an architectural masterpiece. Sacred Heart is not old, it's not big, and it's not especially beautiful. It is, however, the seat of a diocese that extends all the way across southern Minnesota, so on that technicality it is deservedly called a cathedral. The building, however, is about the same age as St. Cecelia's 1950s or '60s), and it would be dwarfed by the Algona church. The most noteworthy feature in a very dull church is the backdrop behind the altar, an intricate wooden structure with arts and crafts influences that reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright.
We entered the church together with many other people. Both we and they were surprised to hear music as we entered. It was a little before 5:00 when we arrived, and we all assumed that the crowd in the church was for a 4:00 mass. That seemed odd, though, since everybody agreed that the first mass of the evening was supposed to be at 5:15. There were red-cloaked ushers, but they seemed no help. Eventually we all seated ourselves and hoped we weren't disturbing anything. It turned out that before mass they had about an hour of hymns, and we had walked in on the tail end of that. We weren't interrupting anything; I just wish I had known about it, since we might have tried to get here earlier if we had known.
After the concert was over, the cantor had us practice the "Gloria". In particular he told everybody to get out their car keys and shake them each time we sang "Glory to God" to simulate bells. It does make an interesting sound, and it was amusing that after mass started the rector and the bishop both shook their keys together with the congregation.
Father started mass by telling us he had some sad news. "Our beloved Vikings have lost", he said. Margaret and I couldn't help but notice that in this town on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin that news was met with decidedly mixed emotions. There were clearly as many Packers fans as Vikings fans in the church.
I may not have cared much for the church architecturally, but the Christmas Eve mass was unquestionably one of the nicest services I have ever been to. Most of the music was led by a children's choir from the parish school. They sang well, and they were also incredibly well behaved. College kids played trumpets during the processional and again on "Joy to the World" at the end. There were other unusual features, like a middle school girl dancing down the aisle with ribbons during the offertory to the music of "Children, Go Where I Send Thee". They even had what Protestants would call a "children's sermon", where all the kids went up front and Father grilled them in a friendly way on the true meaning of the season. (He also passed out candy canes, which he cautioned the kids not to eat until after church.) The cathedral is across the street from Winona State University, and the liturgy was the sort of modern service you'd expect in a college church. They went out of their way to use inclusive language in the prayers and in the homily, and we sang the bouncy responses of the St. Louis Jesuits' mass (the music we used at Garrigan back when I started there). For all its modern elements, though, this was a remarkably reverent and traditional service. Everything came together just right, and it really was a lovely way to welcome Christmas.
The station was open when we made it back from church, and we checked in quickly with the stationmaster. He made small talk, noting that his car hadn't wanted to start this morning, and his daughter's car wouldn't start--period. Fortunately the forecast was for the temperature to climb overnight. He said the latest word was that the Empire Builder was just 2 minutes late leaving the Wisconsin Dells-amazingly close to on time for an Amtrak train. Apparently there had been talk of holding it in Chicago to make connections with late trains from the east (delayed by heavy snow). Fortunately for us, they didn't.
At first we thought we might be the only people catching the train here, but eventually about a dozen people showed up. Most noteworthy was a girl who had just been dismissed from the Mayo Clinic after having a tracheotomy. She was going to Minot, North Dakota. Winona is the closest station to Rochester, and apparently a number of Mayo patients take the train from there. It makes sense, given the space that is required for some medical supplies and the potential for problems with the pressure changes on an airplane.
We killed time in the station by reading brochures from the Winona chamber of commerce. There honestly doesn't seem to be a lot to do in Winona--basically it's an old river town. The most interesting thing seemed to be a stained glass walking tour, which visits a number of century--old churches, as well as banks and office buildings in the downtown area. I've always loved stained glass, and if I get a chance some summer I just might come back to Winona and check that out.
Shortly before the train's expected arrival, a conductor came around and collected tickets right in the station. Amtrak's website says that since 9/11 they're required to check IDs when they take tickets, but the conductor just took the tickets. ...
We were told that the train would fill the platform and the various passengers would have to board in different places. The Mayo patient was booked on a car in the very front of the train, and the station master and conductor decided to take her and her stuff in a golf cart. Most of the passengers would board coaches toward the middle of the train, but Margaret and I were booked into the very last passenger car. The conductor told us we'd probably have to walk to the end of the platform to board. However, as it turned out they had us wait at the middle of the platform and made a second stop just so we could get on. (Actually, I'd have probably preferred to have walked to the end like they originally planned instead of waiting in the cold. I'd bet, though, that they were worried about legal problems had we slipped on the icy platform.) We ended up boarding around 8pm, about 15 minutes late.
This was not as big as some trains I've been on, but it was sizeable. Behind the two engines were first a sleeper bound for Seattle, then the dining car, then two Seattle coaches. Following that were two coaches bound for Portland, the sightseer lounge, the Portland sleeping car, and finally a box car that would follow us until Spokane.
This trip would be different from the other train trips Margaret and I had made because we were traveling in a sleeper. We'd enjoyed the spacious Superliner coaches before, but no chair is really made for sleeping. This journey would involve four nights, and we were hoping that in a sleeper they might actually be restful nights.
Sleepers on Amtrak don't come cheap, although when you consider all the things you get, they're really not that expensive either. Coach seats are subsidized and are usually cheap (about $200 round trip when we bought the tickets, but last-minute deals could bring the price well under $100 round trip). Sleepers, however, don't receive a government subsidy; they're one of the few ways Amtrak actually makes money. Our "economy roomette" cost around $500 each round trip. That sounds like a lot, but it's not much more than a typical airfare to Portland-and it includes a lot more. In addition to the getting the sleeper, the cost also includes all meals en route (for us that meant four breakfasts, two lunches, and four dinners each on the round trip-with a retail value of $150 or more per person) and unlimited coffee and juice (instead of paying $1.50 per cup in the lounge car). There are assorted other perks, but just subtracting the meals gets you closer to the range of a coach ticket. Figure that you are, in a sense, paying for a hotel as well as train fare, and the cost seems quite reasonable indeed-at least when two people travel together. You can get a sleeper when traveling alone, but the cost is exactly the same as for two people (that is, about $1000 for this trip). That means what is reasonable for two is astronomical for one. At any rate, both Margaret and I felt we got very good value for our money, and if we take the train overnight again, we'll likely again get a sleeper.
We were in room #12 of car #2730. We needed to provide those numbers endlessly, and I had a dickens of a time remembering it all. I now know that the first two digits of the car number (27) are simply the number of the train we were on, the third (3) is which car this is on that train (the third passenger car bound for Portland), and the last is basically a place-holder that always seems to be "0". Had I figured out that system before we left, I wouldn't have had to look at the ticket stub every time I was asked for the car number.
Every Superliner sleeper has essentially the same configuration. When you enter at track level, there's a small vestibule and shelves for storing luggage. At either end of the lower level of the car are large rooms-one for handicapped passengers (with a handicapped toilet and shower and space for a wheelchair to move around in the room) and one for families (that sleeps up to five people). Near the handicapped room are three bathrooms (each slightly larger than an airplane toilet) and a fairly large shower and changing room. Near the family bedroom are four economy roomettes. Stairs by the vestibule lead to the upper level. There is a drink station (with that free coffee and juice) and another restroom at the top of the stairs. To the front of the car are ten more economy roomettes, and in the rear are about six "deluxe" bedrooms. The deluxe rooms are larger and include a sink and toilet in the room itself. Apparently there's even a shower head that you can use while you're sitting on the toilet.
Car 2730 was an older car that I'd guess dates from about the time Amtrak was created in 1972. While it had been well maintained, a very dated color scheme betrayed its age. Every surface that wasn't stainless steel or glass was covered in avocado enamel, and the upholstery was done in burnt orange.
Room 12 was on the lower level of the sleeper, right next to the stairs and very convenient to the luggage storage. As we faced the family bedroom, ours was the first room on the right. There's a reason they call it a "roomette"; it was very small indeed. The compartment features two large chairs that face each other. There was sufficient, but not generous, legroom between the chairs. (Legroom in coach is far more ample.) The bottoms were upholstered in burnt orange fabric, while the tops had been more recently covered with bright red fake leather. Each seat had a large pillow that could both provide comfort while traveling and be used for sleeping. The two seats came together to form a bed, in the same way that a trailer dinette makes into a bed. A second bed pulled down from the ceiling. Mattresses for both beds were stored in the overhead bunk. Between the seats a tiny plastic table (with a checkerboard printed on it) could be pulled out from the wall. We found it more convenient to leave it in the whole time, but other passengers might want to use it for writing or for a laptop computer. There was a tiny metal closet (about six inches wide) with two hangers, two very dim overhead lights and three reading lights (one for each chair and one intended for the upper bunk) similar to the lights on airplanes. There were also three coat hooks on the walls (I used one for my baseball cap) and an enormous mirror at the foot end of the upper bunk.
Behind my chair were controls for the lights and a volume control for the speaker system on which we heard train announcements. Behind Margaret's chair was a heat control. There was a vent in the ceiling that had an adjustable lever; however adjusting it didn't really seem to do anything. There was also a call button we could use (but never did) to summon the car attendant.
There was a big picture window covering the entire wall between the table and the fold-down bed, and the wall to the hallway was also mostly glass. (It slid like a patio door.) There was also a burnt orange curtain that could be opened or closed. This afforded several levels of privacy. We could close the door to keep out noise, but still see out if we wanted to. We could also close the curtain for privacy, but keep the door open to let in air. We could also have either both open or both closed-and at various times we used all four configurations.
Margaret and I both commented that while it was perfectly serviceable, the room was really not that well designed. There were lots of gaps where things could get lost and lots of unused space. For instance, there were stairs that led up to the upper bunk that were entirely enclosed. These could easily have opened to become storage space, but they designed them to just be steps.
In addition to pillows, mattresses, sheets, and blankets, we were provided with two small bottles of water (Dannon brand, with what looked to be a surfing rat on the label), two postcards with pictures of the Coast Starlight (a different Amtrak train), a route guide describing the various places we would pass through on the trip, and two complimentary copies of Empire Builder magazine-similar to the "in-flight" magazines you see on airplanes. There was also a safety card and a very awkward box of Kleenex that there was nowhere to store (another strange design feature-why couldn't there have been a built-in dispenser?)
It was fun to look out the window at night and see all the little towns decked out for the holidays. Lots of people seemed to put out decorations especially for the train. In many cases the train went past the back yard, but that's the side of the house people had chosen to decorate.
We were welcomed by a mustachioed man in a Santa hat who introduced himself as "Brian, your car attendant". He asked if we'd ever traveled by sleeper before, and when we said "no" quickly explained the features of the room and car. He also asked if we'd had dinner. We hadn't, hoping it was in fact included even though it was getting late by the time the train got to Winona. He made arrangements with the diner and very quickly called us to dinner.
It was a long walk from the Portland sleeper to the diner, but well worth it. Unlike the airlines, who these days are charging extra for a croissant and rationing the coffee and pop, Amtrak's food continues to be excellent. Since it was included in the price of the sleeper, I didn't hesitate to order the most expensive thing on the menu-New York steak. I know from my days working in a restaurant that a New York strip really isn't that great a cut of meat (it's fatty and generally overpriced; you're almost always better off ordering sirloin if that's a choice). It was the only steak on the Amtrak menu, though, and since it had been a long time since my sweet and sour pork and apple empanada, it sounded good. Margaret chose the second most expensive entrée, roast rack of lamb. Each dinner came with a garden salad, choice of potato (I had baked; Margaret mashed), "vegetable of the day" (which on all four of the days we traveled was corn with peppers, with green beans on top), and really excellent crusty dinner rolls. We also could have any non-alcoholic drink we wanted (I had iced tea; Margaret milk), and dessert was included at no additional cost. Margaret had what the menu called "strawberry torte" that turned out instead to be a tart. My dessert was a called a brownie, but it certainly wasn't those little things my mother made out of the blue boxes when I was young. This "brownie" was a good three inches by two inches, and nearly an inch thick. The chewy chocolate cake was punctuated by chocolate chips, and a rich caramel sauce was drizzled over it all. It was probably a month's worth of calories, but it was definitely good. If we'd been paying cash, I would certainly have opted for less food; including drinks and dessert, each of us would have had a $30 bill were it not included with the sleeper
They had obviously gone out of their way to let us dine. We'd find out later that the last dinner seating was usually at 7:30, and it was more like 8:15 when they called us to eat. By the time we finished there was no one left in the diner but employees. Ulysses, our waiter, was very pleasant, though, and we tipped him based on the menu price of the meals. While that's only appropriate, apparently that's not what a lot of sleeping car passengers actually do. We saw many who didn't tip at all and others who left just a buck or two. I suppose 15% of a free meal is in fact nothing, but it's not really fair to the waiter to figure things that way. Most of the sleeping car passengers could certainly afford to tip well; they just seemed stingy.
We had expected that the train might be decorated for the holidays, but mostly it wasn't. In fact the only decoration on the Empire Builder was a single string of lights they'd put above the waiter station in the middle of the diner. The diner also made "turkey with all the trimmings" their special of the day each and every day we traveled. I've never been a big turkey fan (ham was always the traditional Christmas food in our family), so I'd have to get my Christmas spirit from the lights.
By the time we finished dinner we were almost to St. Paul. There's a service stop in St. Paul, where they empty the toilets and add fresh water to the train. We mailed Margaret's cards from the station, and it also seemed a convenient time to have Brian make up our beds. He did so almost instantly, but unfortunately Margaret's suitcase got trapped under the bed when he did it. He had to un-make the bed, rescue the suitcase, and then re-make it. There's really no space for a suitcase any larger than a small day bag in the roomette. That's why it was particularly convenient that we were right next to the vestibule with the luggage storage. I consolidated stuff and realized that all the essentials I needed could fit in a small ditty bag, while Margaret put most of her stuff in her purse. When we needed something more we could easily get it from the hallway, but it was better not to have big things cluttering up the room.
I went to the shower to change for the night and then made my way to the upper bunk. The bunk is plenty long (probably a good 6'6"), but it is very narrow and almost claustrophobically close to the ceiling. It was actually a tighter fit than the pull-down bed in our old trailer, though longer from head to foot. One problem they had here that a trailer doesn't have is that the train moves while you sleep. Because of that there's a safety harness that hangs from the ceiling to keep you from falling out of bed if there's a sudden jolt in the night. The harness would certainly work to keep an adult safe, but it would be very easy for a child to fall out of the gaps it leaves.
Neither Margaret nor I was especially tired yet, so we spent quite a while reading. John and Janet had given me a fascinating book called Chicago Christmas. The book was published by WBBM, the news radio station I grew up listening to and still tune in every time I'm anywhere east of the Mississippi. It's a collection of stories (apparently first told on the radio) of Chicagoans' experiences at the holidays over the years. There are stories from after the great fire, during various wars, from the Great Depression, etc. In addition, they have little sidebars that tell what gifts were popular under the tree in different decades; what was popular in movies, music, and sports; and what the cost of various holiday items (a turkey to roast or a child's train set, for instance) was at any given time. It's not a book I would have ever known existed, but definitely the perfect gift for J & J to give me.
Eventually we turned out the lights. Sleeping was much easier in the sleeper than in coach, though it was hardly my bedroom at home. The upper bunk was extremely hard (again like the pull-down bed in a trailer), with just a very thin mattress between me and a hard metal shelf. Margaret tells me that the lower bunk was, if anything, too soft. That same thin mattress separated her from the bumps and gaps of the seats that formed her bed. It didn't take all that long for both of us to become comfortable, though, and we both remarked that we got a surprisingly good night's sleep.
We started our Christmas around 6:45am, when we awoke to the gentle rolling of the train. I made my way to the shower-another definite advantage of the sleeper. I'm generally a very clean person; I like to shower daily, sometimes even more often than that. In coach the best I could do was a quick rinse in the sink of the handicapped restroom. By the time I got to California or Boston I felt like a total slob. The sleeper, on the other hand, had a full sized shower and a fairly large changing area. The shower wasn't luxurious, but it was functional. Water is, of course, at a premium on a train. To keep you from wasting it, you must press a button to release about 15 seconds worth of water. You can press the button as many times as you want, but you have to keep pressing it to get more water. There is a temperature adjustment, but it wasn't overly sensitive; basically it seemed to me there was a choice of "hot" and "cold". Still I was able to wash my hair and body, so I felt truly clean.
Those who know me know I tend to take old tattered clothes with me when I travel and throw them out en route. That leaves room to acquire souvenirs and the endless newspapers I collect when I travel. This trip I'd be throwing out some, but not all, of my clothes. I brought along a tough plastic grocery bag from Aldi (the same thing the homeless people in Chicago store their possessions in) to collect the dirty clothes I'd be keeping while throwing away the rest in the enormous cardboard trash receptacle in the vestibule. I had chosen my wardrobe for the first two days to be festive. Yesterday I wore a sweatshirt with a dove that said "PEACE" in many languages that I had gotten from a charity group. That went into the Aldi bag. I replaced it with a "festive" green sweatshirt with drama mask logos from the All-State Speech Festival. I've never cared for that shirt (which I got only because it wouldn't fit Sue Ney, our former speech coach), and I'd be discarding it tomorrow.
After Margaret was also clean and changed we made our way to the diner. Last night we had eaten by ourselves, but this morning we had the more traditional Amtrak seating. Margaret and I shared a bench on one side of a table, with two strangers facing us. This morning our dinner companions were a couple from the Twin Cities who were going on a ski vacation in Whitefish, Montana. They had not slept much overnight and were tired and a bit disoriented at breakfast. They were traveling with their daughter, who was apparently fast asleep, but would likely be keeping them awake later in the day.
The couple had vegetable omelets, which looked disgusting and which they clearly didn't like. I was glad I ordered bacon and eggs (which Margaret also did). The eggs were perfectly cooked, and while the bacon was cold, it was crisp and flavorful. The meal came with either potatoes (remarkably crisp hash browns) or grits and either a croissant (my choice) or a biscuit (Margaret's). We also got both coffee and juice (we chose cranberry, thinking it was appropriately festive), all included in the price of the sleeper.
It's a long way from Minnesota to Oregon, with a long time to kill on the train. Today actually went fairly quickly. I had bought a box of Christmas crackers, those little tubes full of toys that make a pop when you pull on them. They're a holiday tradition in Britain, and they've also become quite a tradition in our family-though why they should be, I don't know. (After all, the last time anyone in our family lived in England was well before Charles Dickens invented the "traditional" Victorian Christmas. I think one of our mother's English penpals must have sent us some once, and it grew from there. These particular crackers were miniature in size, which was appropriate for our mini-room. Each had just one toy, mostly little plastic animals (and one had nothing more than a large paper clip). They also came with the traditional paper crowns and stupid riddles printed in English, French, and Spanish. We got quite a bit of entertainment pulling eight separate crackers.
Margaret had brought along some Christmas trivia cards, and we also entertained ourselves going through those questions. Many were impossible, and most were dumb, but it was fun to just read through the questions and answers. We read through all the materials Amtrak gave us (including a profile of the many charms of "Minot, the Magic City") and the local papers from each of many stops. I re-read Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Margaret read a book on Latin American history she was using to prepare for a college course she's teaching in the spring. We enjoyed some wine I brought along (I'd gotten it at Aldi when I got the plastic bag, but it was actually remarkably good Australian red wine), and candy that was leftover from playing bingo at school the day before Christmas.
We called Paul twice on my cell phone (the first time things cut out when we entered some badlands) and left messages on Steve's and John's machines. I walked to the lounge at one point and got some really bad chips and salsa, and of course we had lunch and dinner. All of that together made the day pass quite quickly.
Our lunch companions were an incredibly wealthy couple. They lived in Everett, Washington, but the man "commuted" to work in Colorado. He never actually identified his employer, but I think it was MCREL, the educational consortium that issues standards for schools to follow. At any rate he was an educational advisor, and obviously a very well paid one. Both he and his wife fly constantly, and they were enjoying the change to relax as they traveled on the train. I had pizza for lunch, a freshly cooked personal sized pepperoni pie that came with salad on the side. Margaret had a cheeseburger with coleslaw. The man across the table ordered a chicken sandwich, and the woman had a truly disgusting salad that looked like lettuce topped with California mix frozen vegetables with a slice of grilled fish on top of that. She said she liked it, but she barely ate half of it. Lunch is definitely the worst meal on Amtrak. The choices are limited, and at least in my opinion it's the weakest and most overpriced food (the burger and pizza were each around $9).
Dinner is more expensive (entrées from $15 - $20), but it comes across as a better value. There's also more interesting choices. Even so, I had steak again, and this time so did Margaret. Our dinner companions were unmemorable. All I wrote in the rough notes I made of the trip was "they were whiners". Before leaving on the trip Margaret and I had read a magazine quiz that had you rate your travel partner. A series of questions decided which named category someone fit in. The first two boiled down to adventurous and snobby, though I don't remember the exact names. The third was "cruise director", someone who planned every last detail. The final choice was "whiner", which was apparently what our dinner companions were. That's all I wrote, and a week later I couldn't tell you what they whined about if you paid me.
We were ahead of schedule at every single stop today. The biggest problem with Amtrak keeping on schedule is freight trains, and there wasn't a single freight train running on Christmas. That meant that at most stations we stopped for five minutes or more, because we couldn't leave until the scheduled time. Many on board (including our car attendant) loved that. Smoking is now forbidden on all trains, and the schedule includes a longer smoking stop only once every few hours. Being ahead of schedule, every stop became a smoking stop, and the smokers were enjoying it immensely.
I used the stops to pick up papers from all over the high plains. Most of the news was the same (fortunately not much was happening on Christmas), but it was interesting to read some of the local stories. I even enjoyed reading the ads, which mostly featured the parties every hotel and restaurant was having for New Year's Eve. Probably most interesting were the editorial sections, particularly in Montana. One paper noted, "this isn't the state your father lived in" and proceeded to talk about how Montana politics was changing. I've always thought of Montana as one of the "red states", and quite reliably so. Pretty much the whole Mountain time zone has voted solidly Republican all my life. (The strange politics of heavily Hispanic New Mexico are the notable exception.) Montana did vote for Bush last November, although by a narrower margin than in 2000. The state now has a Democratic governor, though, and a split legislature. The paper noted (and not with regret) that the Montana of ranchers and miners was dying off. Replacing them were people from the "blue states" along the Pacific coast and in the industrial Midwest. They were attracted by the beautiful mountains and undeveloped land. It would be interesting to come back here in a decade or so to see if things continue to change.
Our longest stop of the day was in Havre (pronounced HAV-ur, though presumably named after the French port of L'Havre). Another service stop (re-fueling the engines, emptying the trash, etc.), we had nearly 45 minutes to spend here. I went into the station where the train crew was all enjoying ice cream bars from a vending machine. I picked up a travel brochure for nearby Alberta as well as the free Bear Paw Bulletin. This is sort of like a shopper, but I have a feeling the ads don't change much from week to week. It actually looks a lot like the weekly bulletins that many Catholic churches pass out after mass, full of small display ads for local businesses. The Bear Paw Bulletin had a calendar of events for the happenings in Havre, but mostly it was full of filler material. The vast majority was just little "fun facts" of the sort you might find in a trivia game. We learned, for instance, that the world's smallest drawbridge is located in Bermuda. Why the people of Havre would care about that, I have no clue, but there it is in print.
It was probably good that we had all this reading material, because a trip across the plains is hardly entertaining on its own. They'd had the warmest winter on record in Montana and North Dakota, which meant there was most decidedly a brown Christmas. All of eastern Montana is flat rangeland. It's not very attractive in summer, and it's even less beautiful in winter. We'd occasionally look out the window, but mostly we just entertained ourselves in the car.
It was dark by the time we came to the part of our journey where the scenery was truly beautiful, Glacier National Park. We weren't about to miss it, though. Margaret and I turned off all the lights in our room, and we were pleased that it was a clear night with a nearly full moon. The mountains were snow-covered (though thinly), and it was fun to see them in silhouette as we rode along.
In the middle of Glacier Park there is a flag stop at the Isaac Walton Lodge in the "town" (population 30) of Essex. The lodge was all decked out for the holidays, and guests came out to wave at the train when we stopped.
We had another lengthy stop in Whitefish, the ski resort where our breakfast companions left the train. I went in to the half-timbered station to buy another newspaper (which mostly told of the misfortunes of the local high school basketball teams), and Margaret walked the platform in her slippers. Brian wondered aloud if she wasn't freezing, but she said she was quite comfortable. There was no reason she shouldn't have been. While there was snow on the ground, it was likely above freezing. Their high today was in the mid 40s, and they were expecting a low of only around 28. After 17 below that was balmy indeed.
Brian made up the bed in Whitefish, and we were asleep not long after that. I felt the train stop in Libby, Montana, but I was asleep by the time we got to the one and only stop in Idaho.
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The background music on this page is a selection of herald trumpets with Christmas variations.