Day 2
I wasn’t able to get a good data connection after yesterday afternoon. We had passed into the Montana plains, and data and cell phone service was spotty at best.
The scenery around me in the car changed overnight. My seat-mate was detraining in Williston, North Dakota, which happened to be a pretty busy stop. We should have been there at around 7:00PM, but we weren’t there until almost 1:00AM, I think. We changed a bunch of people around me there. I dozed-off after that with an empty seat next to me on the aisle. I remember waking up three times. Once, we were stopped somewhere, and someone had just sat down next to me. I seem to remember telling her that if I was snoring, she should kick me or something. I don’t really remember. She said that she was only on for a few stops, so she wasn’t worried. A second time I woke up, we were flying through some dark countryside, and a few seats around me, including the one next to me, were empty. I woke up again when we were stopped again, but I think it was to meet another train. The next time I woke up was this morning with the sunrise, and most of the people around me were new. There are a few people bound for Chicago who are still around me.
One of the reasons I like to ride the train is to talk to people. I’ve been doing a lot of that. I spent some time in the lounge car yesterday, watching the area through a gorge near Sandpoint, Idaho roll past us. I sat at a table with a woman on her way to a funeral. She is a librarian at a school district somewhere near Pasco. She just got her MLIS, so we talked about how much No Child Left Behind sucks, why we like travel by train, and other assorted things. I eventually went back to my seat. I think I was doing that to wait for lunch in the diner. Later, I returned to the lounge as we traveled the pass through the mountains near Glacier Park. I sat at a different table with two people who were bumped from their sleeper.
OK. Side story time. I had not yet heard why the train was so late or coach so over-full until later yesterday morning. I talked to the coach attendant, and he said that there was a safety-related mechanical issue on one of the sleepers, so it was dropped from the train. Everyone on that sleeper had the option to wait, or travel coach. It seems like there are a lot of people who decided to travel anyway. Ah ha! Now it makes sense why the train is so full. The coach section was so over-crowded that they were actually seating people in the lounge car because they didn’t have actual seats available for them. They were moved as soon as seats were available, but it sometimes took a while. I was trying to spend some extra time in the lounge yesterday afternoon so that I could actually look at the scenery, but the train staff had to keep removing people at some stops who had real seats just to accommodate incoming passengers.
Now that we’ve passed Williston, things are getting somewhat better. I have a new seat-mate headed for Staples, Minnesota. She’s just sleeping, so I just stepped over her to get my cheese and bread for breakfast this morning. I had woken up to the sunrise over North Dakota somewhere before Grand Forks. It should be a good day.
jonathan
