Leaving Chicago I went on the longest train ride so far, Amtrak’s Empire Builder all the way to Seattle. This was a two day trip spent almost continually on the train – I did go outside on two longer stops, for just a few minutes, but that was just enough time to stretch my legs and get some fresh air before it was back on the train again. Long distance train travel has a way of really compressing the world to a microcosm. There’s your seat and your seatmates around you, with the occasional journey to the observation car and the dining car.
Hopefully it’s a nice pocket universe, as it was in my case, but no matter how nice it is by the end of it I was glad to be in Seattle and finally get off the train. Not to get more space, not to get away from the people around me, but to shower. And while I’m not quite there yet in my tale I can say I did not get my wish until several hours into Seattle, due to check-ins at the hostel not happening until late in the afternoon. Good thing Starbucks doesn’t care you haven’t bathed or changed clothes in two days.
But back to the Empire Builder. The trip was amazing, easily the best so far, with some truly beautiful views. Not at first though. The first part of the trek was a bit boring, with some urban terrain and junk along the railway, but once we got to the plains of Montana (also known as Big Sky Country) that changed completely. Big Sky Country, dry lands and golden fields as far as the eye could see on a gently rolling landscape. Above that a beautifully bright blue sky in which the clouds appeared very close to the ground. This was a place where distances were impossible to guess at and I could sit and watch that beautiful tapestry unfold outside the small train window, all the while contemplating life, the amazing trip I’m on, and a new beginning for a short story I am in the process of revising. So far my writing has taken a hit, but the ideas are flowing quite nicely, as often happens when I travel. Inspiration is always just around the corner. As we traveled through Big Sky Country I went to the observation deck for a time, but that wagon was so filled with people I actually got a better view from my own window seat.
After that the train passed through the mountains and forests of Glacier National Park and I got my first look at what the upper western side of the United States had to offer. Gone were the plains of gold and in came green forests, near and distant mountain peaks, and night. Part of the trip through the Cascade Mountains was unfortunately spent in total darkness, but the views returned in the morning. There were trees there that were several hundreds of years old. Not many of them, since a lot of areas were pretty heavily logged before it became a National Park, but even then the towering trees and deep foliage made the forests look primordial.
This is what I came here to experience, the beauty and majesty of nature.
We followed a winding river and the interstate for much of eastern Washington State. From the moment we came to Glacier National Park, to when we’d finally leave the Cascade Mountains the next day, we picked up some folks from the Trails on Rails organization, volunteers all, who set up shop in the observation car and basically gave a tour on the area we were passing through. Very interesting stuff and a good initiative of them and Amtrak. It really added something to that leg of the journey, like the story about the drunk bears and tales of the early settlers of the region, highway robbers and bootleggers.
Meanwhile back in the microcosm, as fields, forests and mountains flew by, my seatmates and I had lively talks about all sort of stuff, including Batman, comic books, the state of DC animated movies (which are awesome and very well constructed plot-wise) versus DC live-action movies (which for some reason are not that well-constructed in terms of plot (DC what are you doing? (Yay, nested parentheses))). It’s always such a wonderful thing to find likeminded people to share a part of the journey with.
Now with this being the fifth long-distance train journey of my world tour I got the chance to put into effect the most important lesson I learned from the previous four shorter trips, which is eat in the dining car whenever possible. The café car only has fast food, such as microwaved hamburgers and pizza. You eat those once and you’re done for life. This wasn’t much of an issue before as I packed my own food for the shorter journeys, but there was no way I was going to bring two days’ worth of food with me. For one, where was I going to keep it and two, most stuff doesn’t hold up well sitting in a backpack for two days. The dining car’s food options were a lot better. I had some good steak every night. Pricey but good. Got to speak with some friendly travelers as well, such as the family from Canada who, like me, wondered where the other half of the steak was and voiced that to the hostess. That created some fun banter at the dinner table.
I also achieved a small and hilarious moment of fame on the train. The first night wasn’t so busy so I got a timeslot to eat. The second night however I got put on a short waiting list, by name, which would be called out when a spot opens up. My name is very, very, very hard for people outside of the Netherlands to pronounce. The woman making the list looked at me, looked at my spelled-out name, tried saying it once, and determined that she would never be able to pronounce it right. So I said, for shits and giggles, just call me the Dutchman. And they did, much to everyone’s amusement, including the Trail on Rails guys who promised to fit that in somewhere in their stories.
These are the type of things you don’t experience on planes.