Train back to Montana

I had to be at the train station for luggage check-in by 10:30 am. Even though we were getting all green lights, my brother and I were cutting it close. Then we discovered the road to the station was blocked off. The train station is being remodeled from the boring 1970s style box building to a station with bricks and a sloping roof of an old style station. Because of the construction work the road was closed.

*argh!*

The detour was way around to the east and through downtown Minot.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

I got to the station at 10:25 am. *whew*

I found when I got to the train station that my train reservation/ticket was wrong. It was from Whitefish to Minot, not Minot to Whitefish. The arrival and departure times are close each way so I hadn't noticed. The only thing I could think of was that Amtrak's web site reset to my profile's default itinerary sometime during my search for available dates.

Oh! Great! I need to get home today.

The ticket agent checked and said there were no seats left. WHAT?! Then she corrected herself. Because the time now was after the scheduled departure time her computer had checked availability for the next day.

*whew*

Checking this day showed one seat left. I bought it even though when a person buys a ticket from an agent and not through the 1-800 number or web site you can't use your discounts on the purchase price. No matter, what I wanted was a ticket.

Then it was time to wait for the train. It arrived after 11 pm - more than 2 and 1/2 hours late. Apparently the train had been delayed around Detroit Lakes, Minnesota in the middle of the night because a car was on the tracks. People weren't sure if it was a suicide attempt or someone drunk out of their mind. A wrecker had to be called to move the car.

Because of the number of people on, and boarding the train at Minot, I made sure I was one of the first to get on my train car. I was able to find two seats open and got a window seat. While there were plenty of passengers, the car was only about 3/4 full. I was able to have the two seats my entire journey.

I checked three large suitcases. There is a 50 lb limit and they check the suitcase's weight if they feel heavy. My suitcases weighed: 47, 47, and 35 lbs. The agent weighed the two 47 lb suitcases as she didn't believe me when I said they weighed that much. They did.

In addition I had another suitcase plus a half dozen bags and boxes. These I brought on with me as there is always plenty of room around one's seat and in the downstairs luggage bin.

*whew* Made it.

As the train left Minot I could see the areas that had burnt in the grass fires a month ago. The ground was a nice green. The areas not burnt had more brown than green as the green grass is not very tall. It was this way across North Dakota and much of Montana. It got greener the closer we got to the mountains. When I got home I was surprised at how green and tall the grass was in my yard. I shouldn't have been surprised considering it is this way every year at this time.

The tulips on the north side of my house are in bloom and very pretty. On the south side they are not and actually seem stunted and smaller. The south side always blooms first so this is a surprise. I wonder if the deer ate them and they are now re-growing. The tulips I transplanted to the west side of my house are a mixture of stunted and trying to bloom. I found I didn't find all the tulips bulbs last Fall when I moved bulbs from the holding area outside my tulip garden south of the house. I have a dozen or so plants coming up.

My train trip was enjoyable, though non-descript. I think this was partly due to me being tired and partly because I have done this trip quite a few times. I mainly slept and read and didn't spend much time sightseeing out the window. One noteworthy time was when the train passed the Sweetgrass Hills. I sat on the north side of the train and had view of them. The other time was when we were in the mountains. Even though the train was late it was still light when we entered the mountains, though dark once we got to West Glacier on the other side. The Middle Fork of the Flathead River is running high and brown in the mountains, even on high and closer to the Pass.

There is still lots of snow on the mountains and they are very pretty. The setting sun added a muted orange color in the sky around some of the mountains. The best views shift back and forth between the north and south side of the train. I didn't go to the observation car as, while beautiful, I have seen the views many times before.

The passengers were of a different breed than usual, else I was too tired to really socialize. I did speak with a guy across the aisle from me. He was getting off the train at East Glacier, then going the next day to the Many Glacier Hotel where he will be working for the summer. Last summer he worked at the Lake MacDonald gift store. This past winter he worked at a resort in Hawaii. This is what he does for a living. The jobs don't pay much so he does it partly for the experience. After working this Summer at Many Glacier he has no idea what he will do next.

He was a nice enough guy, but there was something odd about him. He was balding and looked to be in his 40s, but he had a naivety about him. My gaydar was going off, and although he mentioned he used to have a girlfriend for 4 years, I wonder about him.

Oh well, he should have a good summer at the Park.

At times during the journey the train was as much as 2 hours 40 minutes late. Eventually the train began to make up time and I arrived in Whitefish a little under 2 hours late. They could have made up time on the whistle stops but the train allowed smokers a couple minutes to smoke outside and that delayed us.

The smokers would rush outside and stand and smoke their cigarette furiously. While one of my friends thinks seeing a woman smoke is sexy, not me. Quite the opposite. Even the young women with good looking bodies who smoked looked old and haggard to me when I looked at their faces.

Bob and Jan were waiting at the Whitefish train station for me. To my surprise Jackie was there also in case Bob and Jan couldn't make it. Jackie brought me a bag of food to help me until I get situated.

Around the luggage cart one young woman waiting for her husband/boyfriend/or brother didn't manage her daughter well. Once the cart arrived it was a mad rush of people pulling their bags down off the cart. This is not a place for a 3 or 4 year child. Fortunately the little girl did not get clipped by a suitcase or stepped on before her mother finally pulled her away from the cart. I did give the mother a look though, and not a pleasant one.

I got home at 11:30 pm. The house had a smell of a combination of being stuffy with a wood smoke smell. An interesting combination and neither smell was dominant which made for an interesting smell and not a terribly obnoxious one. I did open the windows briefly today in an attempt to air the house out.

I was tired as I had slept only three hours the previous night and a few hours on the train and fell into bed without unpacking my suitcases. My bed felt odd. It was no longer familiar after all these months. Still, I quickly fell asleep and slept long and hard.