Home Contents ************************** One day I'll learn to note where these pictures are taken. I have no idea what train station this is. This is a little dark because the sky was so bright. You can see the train seem to vanish as the aluminum reflects the sky. The Burlington Station in Omaha is in pretty sad shape. A shot towards the new depot. That's Robert in the center of the frame. Once upon a time this place must have been awesome. ...And so it goes. The Burlington Station A weary traveler. A weary station. Another trip, another ambulance. My mobile office. The downstairs lounge. Going upstairs. Iana. A new card game. Iana's photo of me. Ottumwa. Ottumwa. Ebony at Ottumwa. A video through the midwest. John & Sarah. Lisa Marie & Jeff. Midwestern silos. Arriving in Chicago. Go to June 12th

Day 3 June 11th, 2007 The Midwest and a Missed Connection The next morning, there was much fear that we wouldn't make it to Chicago to make our connecting train. I personally didn't see it. We were two hours late getting into Lincoln, Nebraska. The layover in Chicago would be four hours, so we'd had to have lost another two hours to miss the connection. Lisa Marie was hoping we'd miss it so they'd put her up in a hotel overnight and she could get a shower and a night off the train. Since she was heading all the way to Orlando I couldn't blame her. She said they had showers in Union Station last time she was there twenty years ago, but Robert the car attendent told her that they took those out fifteen years ago. That's too bad. If they charged for showers they could get $20 a person out of them, and to further keep out the riffraff they could have them in a secton of the train station you can only get to if you have an Amtrak ticket. It was cloudy out in Nebraska, and we were clipping along nicely at around 55mph. Nebraska seemed quite a bit hillier than I remember Kansas from last year. I seem to remember Kansas being flat as a pancake for as far as I could see. Nebraska seemed a bit more like I remembered Illinois from my last trip, with the more trees and hillier terrain. I don't know what it is about me and train rides, because I can't imagine the interesting things that happen on my trips happening to everyone else. The kids I had dinner with the other night with the college teacher on their way home to central Illinois left the train in Omaha. They were escorted into the little gray car by the cops. I didn't actually see it (I was too busy taking pictures of the old Burlington Station) but it was the talk of our car. Apparently the night before the girl was asking everyone if they'd seen her suitcase. Nobody had, but the next morning a couple of guys were walking down the car asking everyone "Hey is this your suitcase?" Now, when someone asks you if a suitase is yours and it happens to be full of cocaine, it seems to me that the answer should always be "No." According to a lady that was sitting next to them when they were being questioned, they had one suitcase full of cocaine and another full of pot. Somebody's life just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated. It just goes to show that you don't really know anything about the people you meet on the train. At dinner they seemed like a couple of kids taking a trip. Lisa Marie was also saying that someone else was pulled off of this train. Rumor had it (and I'm not sure how these rumors get started) that they busted someone "dangerous" and on his computer they found emails to a girl and that he had given her train tickets to come visit him. Rumor continues that she had run away from home to go meet him and they found her on the train. If true, she is one lucky girl. Which brings be back to Ebony. She let her Iana run all over the train with just about anyone. She came downstairs and was hanging out with me for a bit, until Sid made her go hang out with mommy. Except when they were sleeping, that little girl hasn't been with her mom for two days. Sure, everyone seems nice, but the two kids pulled off of the train in Omaha seemed like a couple of average kids, and I'm sure that if the girl would have been friendly to Ebony, she would have let Iana wander off with them as well. This trip had been relatively photo free so far. I was having such a good time hanging out with the people I met that I didn't feel much like taking photos. Especially since I'd been through most of this trip already last year. At around 10:30 that morning I decided that Amtrak needs to stop letting me on their trains. Once again I have a photo of an ambulance trainside. At the stop before Oceola we were cruising through the middle of Iowa and there was an announcement for all conductors to go to car twelve. I don't rmember who it was that said there was a seven year old boy who had a seizure. Once again we were met by an ambulance, and that makes an amblance on each of the last three trips. I spent a couple of hours downstairs playing rummy with Lisa Marie and Jeff. This was the only trip where I've hung around with the same people for a whole leg of a trip. I'm so glad I picked that random "CHI-1" tag to sit under. John sat and played with us a little. He asked me if I'd ever been to the railroad in Santa Cruz, gave me his card, and said if I ever wanted to go I could look him up and he'd pick me up at the airport. There are so many nice people on the train. By this time it was obvious that I was wrong and we were going to miss our connection in Chicago. I was hoping there would be an alternate train out of Chicago to New York later in the evening. As much as I like Chicago, I didn't want to lose a day in New York. As we taversed the farms of the midwest, Lisa Marie was totally stuck on silos. Being from Florida, they don't have many silos in her parts. It was fun to see someone experiencing something totally new. It was a beautiful afternooon in Illinois. It's too bad we didn't get my half day in Chicago, the weather was perfect. We arrived in Chicago only about half hour late for our connection. There turned out to be another train that night that could get me to New York only four hours or so late. I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to go through Pennsylvania, as the train I was switched to was the same one that would bring me back from New York. I thought about changing my return trip to ride the train through Pennsylvania, but it would leave too early and I'd lose a half day in New York. I got my tickets changed and met up with Lisa Marie in the Amtrak Guest Services lounge where those passengers who couldn't find another connection were getting arrangements made for lodging. They put her up in a hotel overnight, she would leave on the Capitol exactly 24 hours late. We tried to get a cocktail, but the bar was closed and she had to pick up the bus to her hotel anyway. She gave me her email address and we sent each other on our way. I'll say it again - she was the funnest travel companion I've met on any train ride. My new train was the Lakeshore Limited heading east along the Great Lakes and then south into New York. No Superliners here. This is what I'd call an "Amfleet" car - the safety guide just called it a "single level coach". Iana found me, and the empty seat next to me ended up becoming Ebony and her's. Ebony couldn't find a pair of seats for both of them, so they had to compress themselves in the one seat. Then they ended up doing something I'd do...they disappeard for the whole night and didn't return. I'm not sure where they found a place to sleep, but I'm sure it must have been more comfortable than the seat next to me. I finally ate the banana I'd picked up in Grand Junction and stuck the peel under the seat. There was no convenient trash can and I didn't feel like going and finding one. The lights were out now and it was pitch black outside as we flew between Gary, Indiana and Ogden Dunes at 80MPH. It looked like we were going to be pulling south through the northeast corner of Indiana to get to Toledo at a scheduled 4am, which should have meant light all along the shore of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. (Of course I learned later that the Lakeshore Limited means just that - limited lakeshore. I don't think there was one place where I saw a Great Lake.) After midnight I was really wanting to get some sleep, but the guy behind me had a movie going on his laptop and obviously didn't seem to care that it was the middle of the night and people were trying to get some sleep. I turned off my overhead light and hoped he'd get the idea. It didn't work too well...the movie played on for quite some time after that. The rudeness of some people just astonishes me sometimes. Next time I think I'll bring some throw-away headphones and hand them to people like this. Eventually, though, sleep must have become important to him, because he finally shut off the movie and it was the end of another day. Go to June 12th