The Night Train West
Dispatch XI
A Vagabond Adventure
Continent # 1: North America
Five years ago, when I first suggested my idea of traveling all seven of the world’s continents (see Dispatch I), but never by jet, Cyndy gave it long and serious thought and then said she would have only one rule. Every couple of months, we would have to stop wherever we were, get on a jet and return to Pittsburgh to check on her mother (Nana to the rest of us). I was so stunned when she agreed to go along with the idea that I almost couldn’t believe it. What a trooper! And of course I would agree to that. This was Nana we were talking about!
We also agreed that if other work or projects required that we stop traveling, or if our children needed us for any reason, we would abort. It didn’t mean we would drop the whole expedition, just pause. The only rule in all cases was that we would pick up each time where we left off (or very nearby). The key was that we keep absorbing the cultures we were visiting, take the time to meet people along the way and explore the language, history and geography while we tramped around, If we managed that, I reasoned, we’d still be operating within the bounds of our goal.
After Bonavista, and 3000 miles of train, car and ferry travel, Cyn felt it was time to check in with Nana. And so we did.
This shows the route in blue that we took when we headed into New England and then the farthest eastern corner of Canada.
It still took us two days to drive (and ferry) the 900 miles to Portland, Maine before flying to Pittsburgh, but we made it. After our visit (Nana was doing just fine), we rebooted and booked a sleeper roomette on the Capitol Limited to roll by train to Chicago and then take another train northwest to St. Paul, MN. From there we would depart St. Paul and the Mighty Mississippi by car and make our way west to pass over the Missouri River into the Black Hills of South Dakota (cue Paul McCartney’s “Rocky Raccoon”), then plunge into the American West: the land of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, great warriors like Cochise, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, iconic locations like Mt. Rushmore, Crazyhorse National Monument, Devil’s Tower, Moab and the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. After that, still farther west onto Monument Valley, Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks. Eventually we would find a way to Tijuana and drive the roads of the Baja 1000 to the tip of the peninsula and Cabo San Lucas, exactly the diagonal opposite of Bonavista. Somewhere in there we would join two of our daughters and their beaux for Thanksgiving in Jackson, Wyoming.
But that all lay in the future. First, we had to get on the road.
This was the proposed route west, and we've pretty much stuck with it. Stay tuned for the details. This Dispatch outlines the beginning: into the midwest, Chicago and St. Paul.
Midnight Train to Chicago
The first week of November, we did. Once again Cyndy and I bounced our bags along Smallman St from our Strip District apartment and headed for the less-than-hospitable environs of Union Station, this time for the midnight train to Chicago. The city felt vibrant and the skyline sparkled on a perfectly clear and warm fall night. Far off we could make out the dull roar of Steelers fans working up a sweat as the boys battled the Chicago Bears in their ever-constant effort to stay in the play-off hunt. Pittsburgh’s train depot is so sad that there was no TV, but since we were preparing to head to Chicago I could see a big man with curly black hair riveted to his iPhone watching the game. He would periodically leap up when the Bears succeeded, and hang his head when the opposite happened. Before we boarded, the Steelers won and I felt badly for him when he wagged his head in misery.
“Bears fan?” I said.
He nodded. “But I’m thinking about changing my mind.”
The Pittsburgh skyline sparkled and we could hear the roar of Steeler's fans far off as the train rumbled away from the Allegheny River and skirted the Ohio before bending west and then north. (Photo Wikipedia.)
The train arrived right on time, and we carried ourselves up the snug stairs to our roomette which was not quite like a sardine can, but not precisely the Presidential Suite either. A snorkel would have been useful for breathing. But once our porter set up our bedding, we happily nestled in while the train rattled and rocked its AmTrak carriages over the great iron bridge that crosses the Allegheny River. Reflected in the city lights we watched the river ripple its final furlongs to rendezvous with the Ohio, there to muscle its way 981 serpentine miles to St. Louis and the lower Mississippi, somewhere near the various misadventures of Huck Finn and Samuel Langhorne Clemson.
The train gathered speed and we felt the the hypnotic, arterial rhythms of its big wheels as it began to bend away from the Ohio north toward Cleveland and into America’s old industrial heartland; places like Pittsburgh that once made immense and remarkable things. Cyndy insisted on squeezing onto the top berth, which was probably a good idea because God knows what Three Stooges style damage I might do her with my long legs dangling in every direction. We lay for awhile and swayed with the train as if slow dancing, and just as I was dozing off, I heard the long, lonely hoot of the train whistle in the night, and was gone.
America’s Breadbasket
We woke up the next morning to a hazy, cool day in Indiana, along the eastern lap of America’s breadbasket. We found the cafe car and sat down to watch the flat ground, and wheat fields and their sentinel silos sweep by. Moist air rose out of the ground creating an impressionistic view of the world that would have done Monet proud. There were towns with names like Butler and South Bend, Elkhart and Gary, each All-American to the teeth. As we pulled out of Elkhart I saw a big heart built of white washed stones embedded in the small park nearby. It seemed to slide by like the next picture on a website, then we were off to the immense rail yards of Chicago.
While helping ourselves to hot coffee and an excellent AmTrak breakfast, we met Peggy and Gary, a couple about our age who we had noticed waiting in the Pittsburgh train station the night before. They had visited their daughter in Harrisburg, then took the Pennsylvanian to Pittsburgh to await their connection to Chicago before finally hopping the Empire Builder to their home in Seattle. Cross country by rail, I thought. Kindred spirits. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh’s forlorn train station had them thinking the whole city was as battered as the station they had been banished to so they never set foot outside. Instead they huddled four hours with no more food than a Twizzler from the vending machine on the premises. We assured them the city was quite beautiful and they could have enjoyed a fine dinner three blocks away. I’m not sure they were entirely convinced, but they did agree to join our Vagabond Adventure and accept future news of our upcoming attractions.
Once in Chicago, Cyndy and I would be boarding the Empire Builder too, but the train wouldn’t depart until late afternoon. So we headed into the station, hauling our four bags. I imagined that any minute we’d see Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint walking by; Grant dressed as a Red Cap in a hell of a pickle with the CIA and Soviet spies on his trail. But we never saw either of them. Maybe later, in a cornfield in Wisconsin. (See North By Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.)
For several hours we waited for our next train, but the experience was nothing like what Gary and Peggy had to go through the previous night. Union Station’s Metro Lounge allowed us to pass the hours languorously among multiple rooms, comfortable couches, and a light breakfast buffet with fruit and yogurt and all the coffee you could swallow. Not a Twizzler in sight. And beyond, in the depot itself, all of the station’s high 1930’s architecture beautifully and recently renovated. Truly, I said to Cyn, this is what train stations should be like everywhere.
Chicago's newly renovated Union Station (it seems all train stations in the United States are Union Stations). Pittsburgh once had four trains stations, and the one where The Pennsylvanian is now located was a beauty. But no more. (Photos by Chip Walter)
By afternoon, we were again rail bound, heading to St. Paul where we would stay the night with visions of Mt. Rushmore in our heads, and another imaginary encounter with Cary and Eva Marie.
We headed into Wisconsin in the late fall afternoon with the sun riding the horizon like a great incandescent bulb in a perfect periwinkle sky. Soon we passed Milwaukee and twisted north past large, rolling hills and small homes reminiscent of the 1910s along a broad lake, golden in the low sunlight.
The train was quiet. People slept or talked quietly. A little girl, perhaps four, giggled with her grandmother. They were heading to St. Paul from New Orleans. It had been a long day. At one point, Cyndy mentioned she was thirsty and noticed a big man who had a large bottled water in his hand a few seats down on the opposite aisle. She gave me a mischievous look and said, “See that. HE has water.” I nodded. “Well, be a man, and go get it!” I burst out laughing and that was the end of the quiet.
Not long afterward, I did go to the cafe car and got us some water. By now, the sun had begun slowly dissolving into the flat horizon like a melting ball of orange sherbet. The fields of naked branches made lattice work of the trees against the fading sun. Cyn fell asleep, and I walked to the viewing car to watch the night do its work.
The sun slowly dissolved into the flat horizon like a melting ball of sherbet. (Photo Chip Walter)
At the other end of the carriage, four Amish teens — two boys, two girls — were sitting alone, talking quietly. The girls wore their white bonnets and the boys their plain black hats. Then suddenly in unison, they quietly broke into song; a hymn, We Are Going Down the Valley.
“We are going down the valley one by one,
With our faces tow’rd the setting of the sun;
Down the valley where the mournful cypress grows,
Where the stream of death in silence onward flows.”
It was a song about death and salvation, and peace. Their voices were quiet and sweet, but they sung the refrain with a confident and unhurried strength.
We are going down the valley,
Going down the valley,
Going tow’rd the setting of the sun;
We are going down the valley,
Going down the valley,
Going down the valley one by one.
I nearly wept at the innocence of their voices. They were not in the least self-conscious; but fully focused on the song.
We are going down the valley one by one,
When the labors of the weary day are done;
One by one, the cares of earth forever past,
We shall stand upon the river brink at last.
(You can listen to the song We Are Going Down the Valley here, if you like. It is beautiful.)
When they finished, I quietly departed too and sat down beside Cyn. I left calm. I gazed into the black night, holding Cyndy's hand, and waited for St. Paul.
This is a series about Cyndy and Chip’s Vagabond Adventure - our journey to explore all seven continents, all seven seas and 100+ countries by land and sea, never traveling by jet. COVID has forced us to begin our journey in North America, not a bad start, but when the virus allows, we'll be heading overseas. What will the world be like following a global pandemic? What people will we meet? What cultures, places, languages and music will broaden us? Are we being pulled apart or are we coming together? We’ll find out.
A Few Facts
As of this Dispatch, we have travelled three thousand miles, across four ferries, on three trains, visiting three World Heritage Sites, through six states and three Canadian provinces, in 20 different beds, and eaten more blueberry pie than we ever had a right to.