I awakened in Kansas and then we traveled just through the corner of Colorado and area dropping into New Mexico. Here we will go over the Sangria de Cristo mountain range, with the highest peak being 7,588 ft. The southern part of Colorado and the northern part of New Mexico are very pretty. I'm seeing little yellow sunflowers lining the tracks and roads.
I am ready to go home. Traveling is great, but there are things about home that are nice too. And I miss my dog(s) terribly. I always refer to them as my children (Hannah, but Nova may as well be my child too). The problem is that with dogs, you communicate with them through touch, taking them for a walks, talking to them. I can't talk to them over the phone or text message with them, see what they are up to on Facebook. I am so grateful Chris sends me pictures and videos, but Hannah doesn't understand I'm seeing them. I'm glad she is at home with Chris house sitting for me because I think it helps her feel normalcy and she can do her job - guarding the house.
Some thoughts after making a loop around the country. I don't like the humidity in the midwest and east. It makes heat miserable. But, it is what keeps the east so beautifully green. The midwest farmlands are cute and idyllic, but I prefer to see mountains or at least hills in the distance. There are only so many cornfields one wants to see. I don't think I could deal with the extremes in weather here. Chicago is fascinating and I would love to go back and explore the buildings a little more. The city is known for it's architecture and I now completely understand why. I do think I'd take NYC over Chicago though as far as wanting to live somewhere.
The East Coast - New York City is certainly a place you can keep going back time and again and still find something new and interesting and I love Central Park. Pennsylvania is wonderful in the farming areas with lovely forests. I'd like to go back and explore the Amish country more. Maryland was surprisingly beautiful to me. There is so much history and natural beauty and art here that I feel I could live on on the upper half of the East Coast happily and even deal with the weather (after all I didn't mind Boston in January, it took a bit getting used to but I got used to it...granted we missed the blizzards and I missed the heat waves this summer - God has blessed me in the weather department).
The South - I loved Virginia and I could probably live in Virginia and the weather, I believe, is a little more temperate than the northeast. I did notice the further south we went, the less it seemed that African American and white intermingled. I may be wrong since I obviously wasn't there long, but when we would see groups, it seemed to be one or the other, not so much of a mix. I could definitely see more poverty. New Orleans, while historically interesting, culturally fascinating, and uniquely beautiful, seemed a bit creepy and evil.
Mississippi, and much of the rest of the south, did seem to have way more buildings that were in disrepair. Katrina and I talked about the fact that we both have grandparents that live on farms that if we were to look at them from the train, they would look in need of repair too, so it's hard to know exactly what the real story is from just looking in from a train window. Still, it was interesting to see that from the 2010 census facts, Mississippi did rank poorest. I've seen a lot of nicer places and towns from the window going through the rest of the US. We didn't seem to see any in Mississippi from our limited train view.
I did love downtown Memphis. I could live in that part of Memphis. I didn't love all of Memphis as we went a little further out. I think the saving grace with Memphis would be that I could drive to some beautiful mountainous areas easily. I would love to go back and explore more of Kentucky and Tennessee as well.
Rocky Mountain areas of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico - beautiful vistas with blue skies, cute little mountain towns. I'm not as much a fan of the drier areas of the Rockies, but still you can't discount the rugged beauty it holds. I love the red rock areas. It certainly makes up for the dryness and the drier heat is easier for me to handle. I could live here too.
The flat dry deserts of Nevada and Utah - blah. I don't really get why people live here. I'm sure they have good reason, but I don't think I'd like it.
Thoughts about riding the train. It's not luxury. Spending multiple nights on the train and dealing with hygiene makes me feel like I am never clean. I did see a room (not just a roomette) and the toilet area was the shower room. I guess you'd feel you had a clean toilet since it would get your shower water. It's still pretty cramped but I would probably feel a lot cleaner, but then the cost-saving aspect of the train is gone.
It's nice that you get to sit back and ride while someone else is driving and that you are still covering ground while you are sleeping. You can get up, move around there is great viewing from the lounge cars on the double decker. There's no stress of figuring out where to go or dealing with bad weather. You meet interesting people (sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not). I can blog, write, read, play games, and even surf the internet to my heart's content. You don't have to interrupt the trip to use the restroom or get food. Day trips are great for all these reasons. Our ride from Memphis to Chicago was great because basically you fall asleep in Memphis and wake up in Chicago. That's nice.
Would I do it again? Probably not the trip across the whole US without a sleeper car. Even then, I'd prefer to split that trip up. But, economically this was a great idea. I've done it...not sure I need to do it again in this same fashion. If I had little kids, it would be nice that they can move and play without being buckled in, but I don't know how I would feel about the sanitation or their exposure to certain conversations and use of language. Of course, if you have your own room, then that may be better. I haven't seen the room that sleeps five people either. That may be much nicer.
There have been lots of interesting people - Amish (a large group this trip), boy scouts headed to a hiking camp, some kind of youth group doing some kind of service project, lots of college aged kids it seems in the western half, elderly, and some families.
Today has been rather uneventful. We crossed from Colorado into New Mexico. I saw another deer with antlers running across the hills. We traveled along part of the Santa Fe Trail, and old cow trail. I had two very cute little boys come sit next to me and ask about my iPad. They have one, too, and are on their way to Disneyland. I had lunch in the dining car again today. I ended up sitting with a couple from Germany who have been traveling around. They LOVED Dodge City and the cowboy life there. They were very disappointed to leave just when the rodeo was starting and plan to come back for that. The other girl, who must have been in her 20's was from Brooklyn but had spend the last five weeks doing a farm internship in southern Colorado. She said she loved it and she was afraid it would be harder for her to go back to Brooklyn than it was to adjust to the farm.
We stopped for about forty-five minutes in Albuquerque. I did not realize there would be this much time, but I guess they have vendors that always come in to sell their goods to the train travelers, and of course, we love to get out and shop - anything to break the monotony of the train! I bought a pretty little turquoise colored bracelet. They were mostly native styles of jewelry, crafts, and blankets.
Our sky is amazing, it is blue with puffy clouds and a thunderstorm. I've been watching the rain in the distance and the lightening forking its way to the ground. The reds in the earth are breathtaking and the area right outside the city was so green, with plenty of fields. The desert has it's own vast beauty and I'd take this New Mexican and Arizona desert to much of the desert we have in California and what I see going out in Nevada.
I think it's the red rock and the plateaus, but I also love the saguaro cacti as well. They always look like people to me making different signs and body gestures as I drive by. As I went through the area around Gallup, I was once again stunned at the beauty of it. I remember that when I drove through about five years ago and I was mesmerized by it again.
The train rolled on through the evening and into the night as we made it into Arizona. I realized today that the train actually goes through Fullerton almost two hours before LA. I would then probably not be able to take a train out of LA to Irvine until 9:40. I decided to get off at Fullerton at 6:45 in the morning. I inquired about my luggage that I had checked. The only time this whole trip that I checked my luggage was the time I needed it most! I first had a no from the attendant that I would just have to go up to LA to get it later. Then a conductor told me to talk to the next conductor who was getting on at Winslow AZ and he should be able to get it out for me. That conductor told me no. Nevertheless, I knew I'd rather get off at Fullerton and drive up to LA later.
I finally fell asleep after midnight, but I didn't sleep well at all. I woke up shortly before 5 am. By 6:15 I was down at the door, and stood there for about 20 minutes before the train actually came to a halt in Fullerton. I was watching Chris' location and mine get closer and closer as on the Friend Finder app (which he checked frequently on my trip to know where I was). I stepped off the train and started walking down the sidewalk. I was almost home! I saw Chris and we both had big cheesy grins, it was good to be home!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Rancho Santa Margarita,United States
No comments:
Post a Comment