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Introduction
On Thursday, January 15, 2009, I began a historic journey to Washington D.C. to witness President Obama's inauguration. I was excited to go in part due to the events at the journey's destination – how often does the average Montana resident get to attend an inaugural ceremony? With the popularity of this particular president, my expectations for the event were higher – more positive energy and excitement in the crowds, lights and sirens and celebrations, and any number of other events or elements I might discover.
However, I am also a geographer and I was excited to make a leisurely-paced adventure through many of America's different landscapes, from Montana's western mountains and eastern plains, through the Midwestern agricultural heartlands in the Dakotas, Wisconsin, and Ohio, to the hidden mountain creeks and cabins of the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Virginias. Moreover, this trip fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams – to ride a train, which I've dreamed about since I was perhaps six years old and enthused with Thomas the train.
Day 1 The Adventure Begins
The first day was exciting beyond belief! I quivered in my coach seat as the train started to move, expecting big "chuff chuff" noises (I guess my head was still back in the days of coal and steam)...and was surprised to silently glide away on electric power with only tiny "huffs" from the wheels as the pace increased to cruising speed. I happily snuggled in my seat, nose plastered to the window, and stared out the window at the Montana landscapes rushing by, especially as West Glacier neared. My one moment of excitement and alarm occurred as we passed a red rock wall whose jagged face flew by mere inches from the window, causing me to duck as particularly large pieces jutted towards me. Then we were into the absolute blackness of a long tunnel and my alarm was replaced by my earlier joyous excitement. Joining it was an inexplicable feeling of humility and acceptance that I was blind to the outside world within the confines of the tunnel – as we are in our mother's womb. It was only as we exited the darkness that I realized I was the only one still in my coach car. Everyone else had moved to the lounge car or snack car for sightseeing and munching.
I entered the lounge car and was instantly captivated by the huge floor-to-ceiling windows! Ah, the joys of the amazing landscapes in the comfort of angled lounge chairs. This was after I spent a few minutes negotiating how to switch from my coach car (it was like traveling through an airlock in the international space station)! Despite the allure of the world passing by my window, I soon struck up an enthusiastic conversation about the environment, green architecture, the economy, and national politics with a former architect who lost his job during the recent recession and was on his way to a new position in the oil industry. After a short lunch break, I found him again and learned to play "Settlers of Catan" – a fascinating strategy game involving purchasing roads, settlements, townships, and knights while earning more points than your opponent. The game intrigued me almost as much as chess (which is tough to do) and I passed several delightful hours of winning, losing, and conversing with this new friend.
After a dinner break, I settled into my coach seat for the evening as the train chugged over the border into North Dakota, making innumerable stops, including a 3-hour break at Minot when Amtrak temporarily ran out of train crews that had met their regulatory sleep requirements. Around midnight, we chugged on to Grand Forks, at which point I feel fast asleep.
Day 2 Gorgeous Landscape, Train Malfunctions!
I woke up shivering at about four AM and at that moment thanked my mother who had forced me to bring along a faux-leopard print blanket. Wrapping myself in it, I slept fitfully for another hour and a half before it grew too cold. At that point, I was informed that the heater in my coach car had been broken since about four AM near Devil's Lake, North Dakota and currently the internal temperature was hovering at around 46 degrees Fahrenheit. Given that the temperature outside was below zero, this news did not provide much comfort. Moving as fast as my muzzy brain would allow, I moved to the eminently warmer lounge car and munched down some breakfast as the sun rose over the horizon. Although grumpy about the chilly car, I soon forgot about it as I encountered a man eagerly snapping photos of the emerging day. After striking up a conversation with him, I showed him my own camera. He examined it, and (to my surprised delight) proceeded to demonstrate its many functions and teach me some basic photographic techniques. I spent much of the rest of the day happily snapping pictures with my camera.
Later, I snuggled back into my quilt and vegetated for a few hours to reflect on the trip thus far. As passerby moved through our car, numerous comments ensued about the noticeably colder temperature (e.g. "Is this the Arctic theme car?"). During my reflections, the train came to a complete halt just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Complete silence reigned for a few minutes as puzzled passengers (myself included) tried to figure out what was going on before the typical rumors and conversation only experienced in the company of experienced (and resigned) travelers ensued. After about twenty minutes, the train began moving again and the conductor announced that the electrical cables between two cars had become disconnected, cutting off power to the train (including the PA system).
The rest of the trip's first half was fairly uneventful until we reached Chicago at which I realized two things. First, my brother was correct that rail switches and rails are unfrozen by setting them on fire (as evidenced by small flames on neighboring tracks during the slow entry through the switchyards). The second was that while we were four nerve-wracking hours late into the station, I didn't need to worry because my connecting train not arrived yet to the sub-zero temperatures in the Windy City.
I passed the time at Chicago's Union Station in conversation with a man who worked for the Salvation Army. He was generous enough to buy me a sandwich and drink for me, and I in turn shared my Chips Ahoy cookies with him, although it seemed like a paltry offering in return. We took bets on which of our trains (which were all delayed) would arrive the first. By the time my train arrived, we had given up on that topic and switched to making guesses about how late we would arrive at our destinations. The announcement came and I madly waved goodbye while hustling through the blast of seriously cold Chicago weather into the warmth of my Capitol Limited connection to DC. I was on the same train as four carloads of high school band students from Detroit, so I got a toasty-warm lower-level car (normally reserved for elderly or disabled passengers) with two other passengers (a former thespian from the Baby Boomer generation and a guy heading down to party at the Inauguration). I stretched out and relaxed into a much-deserved night of sleep.
Day 3
Adventures, People, and Traffic!
The next morning I woke up with my original gibbering excitement reborn as I sensed that our common destination of DC was just over the mountains. I quickly munched some breakfast and hussled up to the lounge car with my camera to capture more of the Appalachian mountains and chattering high school students (who were even more excited about the trip than I was).
Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at Washington, D.C. my excitement was overshadowed by the realization that all my previous delays would result in arriving late to the University Presidential Inaugural Conference, whose events were to start at 7:00 PM that evening. We arrived at DC's Union Station at about 5:00 PM with a faint glimmering of hope that I might yet make it to my hotel in time to change and arrive on time. That hope dimmed slightly in the twenty minutes it took me to collect my bags and a further ten minutes of bewilderment standing at the entrance of the station wondering how to catch a taxi before asking one of the hundreds of Obama paraphernalia salesman who directed me to the taxi line. An hour later (6:30 PM) I was happily resigned to being late as I finished traveling the five hundred feet to the head of the line, only to find out I would experience another twenty minutes' delay, as President Obama's train had just arrived at the station and all roads were blocked off. Despite the dire situation, I managed to stand in line next to two fellow conference attendee's who joined me in griping about the endless delays and sharing in the excitement of Inaugural preparations in DC. I finally got into a taxi and learned my first "DC Insider lesson" of the week - do not count on the cab driver to give you the right change. While I was beyond exhaustion and didn't pay attention at the time, I later discovered that the driver had given himself a 100% tip, and thus was a very expensive cab ride.
I finally checked into my room at the Omni Shoreham (in Adams Morgan, Woodley Park) for the week and discovered that while I was indeed a bit late to the meet-and-greet party, my roommate was even later and had not yet arrived. Tiredly, I trekked up to my room and slowly began to unpack some of my clothes for the next day, intending to take it easy that evening. When my roommate arrived, we both realized that we still needed to register at the (other) hotel where they had held the party, so we hussled into suits and ties and walked/shivered over to the registration site, which was only a block and a half away at the Marriot-Wardman Park. When we arrived, the staff informed us that registration was closed, and that we could pick up our ID badges back at our hotel later that evening (around 11 PM EST). Resigned to that fact, we went and found a local Irish Pub near our hotel and enjoyed some conversation and a light meal before heading back to the Omni Shoreham to collect our conference materials. We collected what they had for us (they promised the rest in the morning) and headed up to our room at around 12:30 AM. I downloaded the conference schedule and we were shocked to discover that breakfast was at 6:00 AM...so we topped off the end of an adventurous day with a quick scramble for bed so that we could catch what sleep we could in the next four or five hours...before the new intrepid day began.
Reflections on the Trip
This was one of the greatest trips I have ever made in my lifetime. I got to experience my first train ride in my 23 years of life, witness some amazing landscapes, indulge my geography interests and tinker with amateur photography. Riding the train offers the passenger a view of America not normally seen from the highway – snapshots of our industrial past as we roll past grain mills, lumberyards, aluminum plants, and coal-fired power plants and glimpses into the backyards of suburban and rural America. Watching the sun rise over snow-covered Dakota fields is an amazing sight, made even more so by the symbolic escape from my chilly coach car into the light and warmth of the lounge car. When the purpose of the trip is sightseeing and conversations, you can feel the excitement of the passengers as they make new acquaintances, share life stories, and change each other's lives forever. Had I not met the people I did, I might not have taken the pictures shared in this entry above, starved in Chicago's station, and had a lonely wait for a taxi in the cold DC night. The moral of this story is to take every opportunity to make friends on your travels through life – for you never know where the journey may take you and how those brief acquaintances may help you later.
This writer's adventure continues in the next entry....watch for it soon!
Writing with pleasure from the Nation's Capital,
The Mental Cartographer
