So, first I'm gonna say I'm here, which I am, just to reassure you that I arrived safely. Next I'm gonna drop the three pages of notes I took on the train onto here, then, maybe continue on, or just leave it at that for tonight...
Allright, first day out, and already homesick as hell. I had been in my ”room“ for like ten minutes, when this little kids came running in, and said hi. She looked like she was four or five, I later found out it was the former. Her name is Alice, but everyone, I.e. her parents and myself, calls her Ally. She looked like fun, so I started just reacting to whatever she did, and soon I met her father, Cecil, who is headed out to Seattle to a Sci-Fi Convention. We talked about that for a while, then he went off and read while we sat and played for a good three hours. We explored the room, sampled all of the freebies, and then, after much pleading by Ally, who had heard me say that we might go get my juggling stuff, threw beanbags back and forth for two hours solid. She is a hyper kid, not quite yet potty trained, who is the most fun thing on this train. Her dad came and got her at five, when they went to supper. I went at five thirty, had a big steak, free of course, and met three very memorable characters. One, Nancy, felt very much like Blanche. She had taught school forever, and now is retired and rides the Amtrak rails, just going places. The Second, Ken, dear god, he must have been the guy that that one guy on red Green is modeled after, you remember, the guy with the “Tiger Ranch”? He was pretty cool for a while, but as soon as you said anything remotely cool , he topped it, and whedn you got to the really cool stuff, well…let’s just say he was like me on a really good day…But with the age to “back it up”…but not the knowledge. For instance, did you know that Ken was the third American Tourist to enter the Kremlin not in a single file line? He also was imprisoned in Saigon, is next door neighbors with Julia Roberts, kills an Elk every day, and doesn’t mind putting down Mountain Lions “When he has to…”. This guy, well…you all know me, and if you don’t, I must have mistyped your email adderess, but you should keep this letter, because it will be worth something eventually. Anyways, he has this little old lady wrapped around his finger.
So I spent the night on the top of the bunk, because I didn’t want to put my guitar somewhere else. This scenery is not so much beautiful as constantly changing, because we’re flying along at like 75 or 85 mph. We just flew through a thunderstorm in less than a minute, and we go from massive hills and vales, (side note: I’ve never actually used the word vale before without the “hill and…” connected, and I also never really connected it to anything, but now I know what ‘they’ are talking about. End of side note) to massive flatlands in no time at all. Nancy! I only got to the first two people I ate supper with, and I didn’t talk about other Nancy. She is a senior in St. Paul, and absolutely crazy, but someone I am very glad to have met. I really don’t know how to describe her, and I’m not going to try, but she is a very cool person. After supper, we went into the Lounge car, and met Ally’s other father, George, who is Cecil’s partner and Ally’s Biological father. Apparently she was carried by a surrogate mother, from Jeffersonville, IN, and George bought an egg from a company in Iowa. He is 61 years old, and a fairly cool guy. He taught school for an incredibly long amount of time, was a principal, and is now retired. Music Choice: Right now “Bridging the Gap” by Jim Smoak and crew, yesterday, lots of Zarb bros. Allright, so it says that Zarb is misspelled, but as a correction, it suggests “Zarf” , which apparently is spelled correctly. What the hell is Zarf? Where is Aunt Carolyn when you need her? So, back to Nancy. After we spent a couple of hours on the observation deck, I snuck her back into the sleeping car section, which is much tighter than her place. I played guitar and just chilled back here for a while, while she played with and marveled at all the differences between the “Coach” class and the “Sleepers”. I’m digging this modern day class warfare, when the people back in Coach send their little kids up here to use the bathrooms up here. I think that’s fairly clever, and it pisses me off that I’m now ‘better’ than those ‘slackers’ back in the back. Mostly because I know that if I ever travel on a train again, I’m gonna be back there too…Anyways…
I got off in each state as we went through it, just so that I could count it. And I did twenty five pushups each time I got off as well, just to get some kind of exercise. It felt pretty good. We just went over this monster bridge on this incredible river with all kinds of cliffs and tight stuff like that. Music Choice: Pretty Varied, right now “The Benoit Freeman Project” I.e. random stuff. Immediately, were talking some smooth jazz, stuff like that. I find myself having to censor this, so that if I get around to it, I can fire it back to everyone else at home, so no cursing, overtly male thoughts, etc. Ah well, such is life. I got my guitar out today anf learned how to play bottle slide blues. It’s pretty tight, actually, so I can now do that bar trick where you grab your beer and play a blues slide riff with it. Except it’s not beer, (sop to mother) it’s sparkling apple cider…seriously, it is. I played with Alice some more today, while George and Cecil were at a wine tasting. This little kids was amused for hours by throwing juggling balls at my forehead, and then laughing when I dodged out of the way and smacked my head on the upper bunk, which I put down to sleep in and never got around to putting it back up. In fact…*gets up to put bunk up, then remembers why he never did so earlier* never mind, there’s a guitar there. So I really want to get good at this bottle slide guitar thing, because that feels like a nice little party trick. I can kind of do it with my nalgene, but I would rather practice with something closer to what I am going to be using…an Ale-8 bottle.(another sop to mother). Right now I’m crossing this massive wheat field, and going backwards, which seems to be a bad idea, and that I should be watching the scenery now, and writing this when it’s dark, which will hopefully not be until we get through Glacier National Park. GNP…Nevermind, that already has a (what’s the word? Reverse acronym? Series of words? ) associated with it. Gross National Product. Thanks Koontz for that one. Speaking of which, I wonder how well Will and Koontz are getting along? They still haven’t gotten into it yet, which surprises me greatly. Oh well. I’m going to watch the scenery now, because off in the distance, I can see the range of buttes we’ve been following all day, and way off in the distance I can see the massive mountain range that has just now come into sight within the past couple of minutes. Or maybe that’s when I just noticed it. Ah…Beautiful. I like how I can only spell beautiful by saying it in my head “B-e-a-utiful” And the ironic thing is that while writing that last little sentence, I misspelled “spell, head, only (just did it again there), and saying”. Much fun. I was about to be done for a while, but I just turned around front ways and noticed a massive, read that rfb, mountain range right in front of us. Reassuring, but pissing me off that I didn’t bring a camera. Mom, if I ever get around to firing this off to you, you should ask Uncle Mike if he has a good film camera that I can beg, borrow, buy, have as a birthday present, etc. And then you should mail it to me, along with tht big stack of papers you put in the mail today and my jacket, which you decided was a good thing for me to have asap, because it’s really cold up here already, like 50’s. Allright, now I’m done. Actually I lied. I just heard the epitome of jazz drum solos, on the Benoit Freeman Project. Mom, you always complain of never hearing a good solo, but you need to go get this CD, out of my basement, next to the lamp in my room, and pull up whatever track “Mirage” is. Jesus Christ! We just turned probably 75 degrees, and now we’re turning back with this “S” curve thing, but this mountain range is quite large. *NOTE TO SELF: EDIT BEFORE SENDING* I cannot see the end of it, looking down one side, and I would be willing to bet I couldn’t on the other side of the train too. In fact, at some point, I’m probably going to go back to the observation car and check that out. There is, however, a large gap in between the far left and centre left side. So I’m going to try to avoid jet lag and go to bed early and get up early and just deal with breakfast at seven by pretending that it’s really like ten, or whatever time that really is, because I’m generally good at getting up by nine, even when I go to bed at four or five, so if I just keep myself fooled into going to bed early and suchlike, then I can…Interuppt. I just heard the least reasonable announcement in a while. All day they’ve been going on about not smoking, and some of those were pretty funny “We’ve told you again and again, this is a nonsmoking train, and as such there is no smoking on it.” “Some of you are following the rules, and some of you aren’t” “There is to be no smoking in the lavatories” Five minute pause “or in the shower either…However, this one takes the cake. It was fairly straightforwards, you know, the lower lounge is closing in ten minutes, come by our overpriced crap now, or else you’ll have to have an even smaller selection with the guy at the top of the stairs, fairly standard. But this one ended in a way that I couldn’t anticipate or even really imagine what was going on in the guy’s head. “We thank you for your intentions.” Thanks for thinking about buying our stuff. Where is he going with this one? Jesus! We just turned again, and this range is really , really big. Like I had always heard that there were peaks on mountains, but I always that that was just kind of a big spot where you got to the top and said, whops, now we’re going downhill, but on these, they’re all pointy and steep and did I mention really, really, _really_ big?
And That's as far as I got. Maybe I'll get around to finishing my tales of the train, but right now I've got more important things going on, like bed.
Much love to all,
Nathan
