~~~
Day’s Verse:
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12
~~~
We made it back to Washington intact; our train, contrary to the fears of some of our fellow-passengers, hit no cows and did not derail. We took a train coach to Albany; then overnight to Chicago in a roomette that included our own toilet, sink, and crazy fold-down beds; then three days from Chicago to Seattle in another smaller sleeper roomette, passing up along the Canadian border through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho (we slept through all of Idaho), and finally Washington. I read three books (Secret Life of Bees, The Dante Club, and Got Shorty) and we watched a half-dozen episodes of Firefly, which Ian gave me for my birthday. We snacked on the official Amtrak snack, a mix of strawberry-flavored sugary pretzel sticks, sliced almonds, and dried papayas, ate our meals gratis in the dining car, and met interesting new people. We watched lots of flat, grassy land go by and amused ourselves by commenting on the towns we passed through. We became car graveyard conniseurs, critiquing the less-organized Western car graveyards as compared to the wooded, grid-like compilations of rusted-out hulks in Ohio and Indiana. We ate dinner while watching the sunset on the Mississippi river, then the next night ate dinner while passing through heavily clouded Rocky mountain vistas. We disembarked to stretch our legs at various stops – St. Paul, Whitefish, various others – and marveled at the change in climate as we crossed the country. We felt unconfortable about the sleeping car attendant’s jobs; we like doing things for ourselves, and she kept offering to do things for us, like a servant. At the end we tipped her all our remaining cash.