Moving, part 1

On Monday Tammy, her parents and I loaded up the moving truck with her household stuff and left Rochester.

It took longer than normal in the morning to get the moving truck as the old guy at the Budget rental office had an old-fashioned tube computer, and it and the Budget rental software wasn't working right.  Over and over he tried to complete the rental before it finally took.  Then, after I drove the truck to Tammy's house, he called and Tammy had to go back to his office as he still hadn't completed the rental correctly. 

It took four hours to load everything in the truck.  Because we were pulling the mini-van behind the truck the minimum size of the truck was 16 ft.  While that was larger than what we thought we needed, Tammy didn't sell her furniture as planned.  We filled the truck.  We had left a few items at my brother's house so the photo below doesn't show how full the truck was when we left Rochester.

It was after 3 pm when we finished loading the truck: too early to stay in Rochester and too late to drive all the way to Minot.  Then I remembered my friends Francis and Linda in eastern North Dakota.  A perfect distance.  And I hadn't seen them for a few years now.  A quick call to them and then Tammy and I were on our way.

A fully loaded truck pulling a mini-van can't go very fast so the drive took a lot longer than normal as we couldn't even make it up to the highway speed limit.  What could be done in five hours took us seven.

I had concerns about driving this big rig around the Twin Cities due to all the traffic.  But the traffic wasn't too bad and we didn't hold people up much.

We had a nice chat with Francis and Linda and slept on a comfortable air mattress on their living room floor.  Tammy and I got a late start after noon Tuesday as we chatted with Francis all morning.

The highway between Jamestown and Minot is mostly two-lane.  The traffic was light so we didn't hold up many vehicles with our slow speed.  It took five hours to get to Minot.

October train to Minnesota

Friday, October 21, I took the Amtrak train to Minnesota to get Tammy and move her here to Montana.  Unlike the previous day where the train was over 5 and 1/2 hours late to Whitefish, the train was on time the day I rode it.  The train lost some time as it went across Montana so I arrived in Red Wing, MN twenty minutes late.  For Amtrak that is not bad.

My train car was a little over half full with passengers but I was able to get two seats to myself.  When I walked through the three other coach cars I found that they were less than half full with a number of two seats without people.

I only had 3 1/2 hours of sleep the night before so I slept as the train went through the mountains. I woke up east of the mountains and this is what I saw.  Yup, fresh snow on the mountains.   When I returned home there was much more snow on these mountains.

East of Browning, MT

Between Malta and Glasgow, Montana the train tracks go near the Milk River as it curves back and forth.  It is very pretty in the Fall when the colors change.

In this area the BNSF railway had upgraded their communication network - apparently to satellite as they had removed all of the power line poles along the track and had quite a number of stacks of poles along the tracks.

At Havre, MT the train stopped for 20 minutes for refueling and we could get off the train to stretch our legs.  The weather was nice.  Here is the car I rode in.

While I noticed several border patrol agents on the platform outside the Havre train station this was the first time the agents didn't walk on the train asking everyone if they were U.S. citizens.   After I got home I found out why.

Current and former Border Patrol agents said field offices around America began receiving the order last month — soon after the Obama administration announced that to ease an overburdened immigration system, it would allow many illegal immigrants to remain in the country while it focuses on deporting those who have committed crimes.

 The full story can be found here: US northern border checks scaled back


Before the North Dakota oil boom few people got on and off the train at Williston and Stanley, North Dakota.  On this trip the three top destinations were: Chicago, Minneapolis/St Paul and Williston.

A Montana truck driver getting off at Williston told others that Williston and the area is like living through a gold rush.  He claimed there were over 6,000 trucks operating the Wiliams County alone.

Minot, ND was devastated by a flood this past Spring.  The train tracks, which were flooded, are located at the south end of the valley.  As the train came into Minot I looked out the window for the city lights.  I could see the lights of North Hill, but one can always see those lights before entering the city.  This time I turned around and looked out the south train windows to find we were in Minot as those lights were bright and I could see where we were.  Large areas of the valley to the north that were devastated by the flood were still without house and street lights and it was eerily dark.

The Minot train station is still closed due to the flood damaging the train station and platform.  The train still stops there for refueling but no one is allowed to get off the train during this time.

While the train refueled at the closed Minot train station I talked with a man heading home to St Paul for a break from work.  He had a job laying new train tracks.  Private companies are building oil loading terminals and also new train tracks. 

The Bakken boom: Rail terminal construction picking up speed

The St Paul man had a job back in Minnesota but his brother, working in the oil fields, strongly encouraged him to come to North Dakota to work.  His wife and kids are staying back in Minnesota but he hasn't regretted it as he is making good money and paying off his house mortgage, his debts, and is building a nest egg for his kids' college tuition.

But then he hasn't spent a winter in North Dakota.  He said the train track continues to be laid even in the dead of Winter.  The company has a large structure that covers the area where track is to be laid and heats the ground allowing for track to be laid when normally the ground would be frozen.  With the oil boom going full blast no one can wait and allow Winter to slow things down.

While the St Paul man and I were having a pleasant discussion on ND and Minnesota winters another man chimed in about how the wind blows in North Dakota and not Minnesota and North Dakota winters suck.  He didn't know that I had lived in Minnesota and can call his BS about the wind not blowing in Minnesota.  I lived in southern Minnesota and the wind there blew just as much and strong as in North Dakota.

This second guy was also from Minnesota and he was a prideful ignorant Minnesotan who thinks Minnesota is better than all other states.  He reminded me of what a person who had lived in both Minnesota and Texas (but was not a native to either state) once told me: Minnesotans are like Texans in that they think they are better than others.  The difference is that Minnesotans don't have a sense of humor about it.

Here is another example.  A bicyclist rode across the U.S. and had a blog on the New York Times website describing his ride.  He wrote about how nice and friendly people in North Dakota are.

Welcoming Monks and Wild Horses, in North Dakota

Of course a Minnesotan couldn't let it be.  Here is her comment on the article:

Funny.  When you read the bicycle rider's blog about his ride through Minnesota he didn't mention how nice Minnesotans are.  Gasp.

Anyway the Minnesotan on the train - who was wearing a t-shirt with the saying "If you can read this, thank a teacher" - wanted to brag about Minnesota to me.  Uh, oh.  Wrong person.  I lived quite a number of years in Minnesota and know that "Minnesota Nice" is just a marketing slogan.  Only Minnesotans or former Minnesotans use this phrase.

He was a classic case of cognitive dissonance.  He used two methods of resisting information: attitude bolstering and selective exposure.  For more on cognitive dissonance, click here.

For example, since he couldn't get anywhere bashing North Dakota and Montana and saying how much Minnesota is better than these two states, he switched and said he was happy to pay higher taxes as Minnesota schools are the best there are and he would never live in Alabama and Mississippi because they have low taxes and bad schools and roads.

Another point he tried to make was Minnesota was better than North Dakota and Montana because Minnesota had more people than these other two states. He tried to ridicule Montana and North Dakota because they have less people than Minnesota.  Really, then why do so many Minnesotans take their vacations in Montana? And why are so many Minnesotans working in North Dakota?   Here is a Minneapolis StarTribune article on the subject: Minnesotans drawn to North Dakota’s siren song of prosperity

From another Minneapolis StarTribune article...

So even with facts on your side one can't argue with people like this.  It is a waste of time. They have a closed mind and are annoying.  So I excused myself and left the observation car and returned to my seat.  The St Paul man had left earlier after the second Minnesotan hijacked our conversation.  I left the Minnesota man to wallow in his "Minnesota niceness" and superiority.

Tammy's back in MN

Tuesday Tammy left and returned to Minnesota.  She traveled on Amtrak.

Just like when she traveled here there was another freight train derailment that closed the tracks for a few days.  This time the derailment was in Idaho and she didn't have to take a bus part of the way.  However people traveling between Spokane, Washington and Whitefish had to take buses in order to catch the train again in Whitefish.

That "service disruption" made it hard to tell when the train would leave Whitefish as Amtrak had no estimate as late as the night before.  Calling the 1-800-USA-RAIL number meant waiting on the phone for a live person for over a half hour as automated "Julie" couldn't handle a "service interruption".

The morning of departure I got the phone number of the Whitefish train depot and talked to a person in a matter of minutes.  He claimed the train would leave on time.

Uh, huh.

We had no choice but be at the train station before the 7:46 am departure.  It was an early morning for both of us.  Tammy wasn't too thrilled when I turned the room light on to help her wake up.  Bright!  She pulled the covers over her head.

Amtrak didn't back the train into the station until after the buses arrived. That meant everyone tried to get on the train at the same time.

Because Tammy was going to a train station with no luggage service I carried her luggage and placed it in her train car for her.  Tammy's fractured shoulder is still healing.

Even though the station agent had told me the train would leave on time, the train didn't leave until almost 10 am, well over an hour late.  I was the only person outside waiting for the train to leave when it did.  While everyone was on the train ready to go, the train had to wait for the luggage for the people who had been bussed.  The luggage eventually arrived in a rental truck.  The people weren't moving too fast in transferring the luggage from the truck to the train if you ask me.

Tammy got two seats to herself and in a car with electrical outlet so she could plug in her phone and laptop computer.  This being Montana and western North Dakota cell phone service is spotty.  Tammy's calls to me from these areas would often break up.

While there were plenty of people on the train Tammy was able to have two seats to herself the entire journey.  Two seats makes for more room for a person to lay down and sleep.  Unfortunately a nearby seat was squeaky and made noise as the train moved. 

And it appears the young man in the seats behind her had some foul smelling gas.  He was on the train the entire time Tammy was on the train.  Tammy said she had to hold her nose a few times, especially after he ate some food.  He didn't always make noise so sometimes Tammy was caught by surprise. Who knows... maybe he is a vegan or vegetarian into eating beans. 

North Dakota had a major winter storm going on when the train went through that state. Parts of the state were closed down during the storm and Minot got 8 to 10 inches of snow.

Tammy never got to the Red Wing train station until two hours late.  Then she had to drive 40+ miles home in a rain/snow mixture.

Oh!  The joys of traveling in the Winter and on the train.

MN to ND

Monday night I caught the train from Minnesota to North Dakota.  The estimated arrival time into Red Wing was on time at 8:52 pm.  Tammy said it took 45 minutes to drive there and we left at 8:01 pm.  No sense getting there before we had to.

Well... it may take 45 minutes in good weather but it was snowing lightly and the road was slippery in spots even though the Minnesota highway department trucks were out in force salting the roads.

Tammy said it takes 20 minutes to reach Zumbrota where her friend lives.  This night it took us 27 minutes.  Not good.  We had 23 miles left and 24 minutes, a 55 mph speed limit in the country and less in the half of Red Wing we had to cross to reach the train station.

The stress level began to rise, especially when we came up upon vehicles taking it slow in this weather.  Even with her vehicle's high beams we saw more black (night) and white (snow) that we wanted to and not enough of the road ahead of us.

In the dark I fiddled with Tammy's cell phone and eventually was able to call Amtrak and "Julie" and found the train was estimated to be late 10 minutes.  *whew!*   We can make it!  Still we didn't let up.   Behind another slow car I called "Julie" again and found the train gained time and was now only 6 minute late.  *augh!*

It took forever to drive through Red Wing and we arrived at the train station at 8:55 pm.  No train was at the station.  Had it come and gone, or not yet arrived?  At Red Wing the train only stops long enough to load people on board.  There is no train station personnel and no baggage service so this is a quick stop as not too many people use this station.

Inside I found a half dozen people waiting for the train.  *whew*  We made it.

A few minutes after I got my bags from Tammy's car and placed in front of the station the train arrived.  I never have been so glad the train was late.

It was a whirlwind to get on the train, and once everyone was on board, the train left and I never got to give Tammy a proper goodbye.

The train ride was better than I expected as I expected the train to be full. It wasn't.  However the other people who boarded the train got upstairs to the seats just before I did and got the last pair of open seats. It seemed as if my only choice was to sit by other people who were sprawled across pairs of seats and sleeping or pretending to sleep.  I found that the reserved seats for couples were mostly empty and I took a pair of those seats.  When the train attendant came I explained I was in those seats only to Minneapolis and that I would move back to the correct seats when the Minneapolis people got off the train.  And that is what I did as three pairs of seats opened up at Minneapolis.

While waiting for Minneapolis I struck up a conversation with a woman across the aisle.  She and a few friends and family were on their way home to Winnipeg, Canada after spending the holidays in New York City.  This NYC visit was something on her bucket list.  She had a great time and talked about New Years Eve near Times Square: how she and the others got separated and reunited, how the large crowds were managed by the police, and how friendly people were.  She also talked about the snowstorm and standing outside the Today show studio when they were broadcasting one day.

While there were lots of people at the Minneapolis station waiting to board the train I never got anyone sitting by me.  At the later stops I was curled up asleep or pretending to sleep and no one sat by me.  By the time I woke up the next morning the train had only a little over an hour left to Minot, and, while full, was uncrowded.  Many people had gotten off at Grand Forks, ND earlier that morning: mainly what looked to be university students returning to school.

So, surprisingly I had two seats to myself the whole journey.

I chose the seats just in front of the stairwell area.  No seats were across from me but I was still ahead of the stairwell area and none of the stairwell lights shone on me.  And everyone around me was quiet and no one snored.  At one time I heard a baby cry in the back part of the train and was glad I didn't choose one of the seats near there.

I believe the train was an hour late into Minot at around 9:30 am (I had accidentally packed my watch away and didn't know the exact time).  The neighbor was there to get me as my brother had to work.  She had been there since 8:45 am as Amtrak said that was when the train would arrive when she initially called.  I forgot to tell her to call again closer to the arrival time as Amtrak is overly optimistic they will make up time when they are behind schedule.

As usual plenty of people were getting off or on the train at Minot.  Some people has been away for a while as their cars were snowed under in the Amtrak parking lot. I saw a few people around their cars shoveling the snow away.

A day delay

I was supposed to be in North Dakota right now but Amtrak canceled train service over the weekend between Minneapolis and Montana due to the blizzard that hit eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota over the New Years weekend.  So I am delayed one day in traveling.  The train is running today so I'll be in ND tomorrow.  I got the last seat on tonight's train so it will be a very crowded train.

Sunday Tammy and I hung frames around some of the wall art on her walls.  Here is what it looks like.

We also temporarily fixed her fence.  The strong winds this weekend blew it over.  Bungee cords are a good thing.

Here is another Homade Gourmet supper Tammy made for us last night. Lemon Garlic Chicken.

IKEA

Tuesday Tammy and I drove to Minneapolis near the Mall of America where the IKEA store is located.  I never had been in an IKEA store.  It is huge.  The store has everything you would need for your house or apartment, from appliances to towels to utensils.  Everything but food, though one could buy some Scandinavian crackers, cookies, jams, and meatballs.

The store had a marked path on each floor directing people on where to go.  Naturally I wasn't paying attention when we first got there and we ended going against the flow for a while.

What I found confusing was the Scandinavian words on all the display signs.  I kept thinking that was the name of the item, rather than the Scandinavian word for the English word.

Here is a neat wall hanging that I liked.  These wall hangings are a material that is closer to canvas than a solid board.  Another item to build after you get it home, though it would be easy to carry it home.

Light rail

Here are few photos from when Tammy and I took the light rail train from the Mall of America to downtown Minneapolis.  This was the first time I have ridden the train as it was built after I moved from Minnesota.  The ride lasted 39 minutes and had stops every two or three minutes.  The train is only two to three cars long, which was plenty to hold everyone wanting to ride.

The train passed by the snow deflated Metrodome, home to the Minnesota Vikings football team.

Downtown Minneapolis buildings on Nicolette Mall.  I don't see tall buildings where I live now.

We also walked a few blocks around downtown.  I wanted to see if the 1st Avenue club was still there.  Yup.  It did have a fresh coat of black paint.

We walked around some of the other stores and skyways along Nicolette Mall.  Not much going on in the stores.

A few of the stores Christmas displays.

One place had a life sized art sculpture.

Lego Land at the Mall

The Mall of America also has Lego Land. It was a busy place.  Here are a few large Lego structures around the store.

At the Mall

Last Thursday when Tammy and I visited Macy's Christmas display, we also visited the Mall of America.  It was cold and snowy outside so spending time inside was the better thing to do.

It has been many, many years years since I lasted visited the Mall.  The Campy Snoopy rides have been replaced by Nickelodeon.  The rides have been improved as from the upper floors I could see a number of new rides that are more scary and exciting.  I didn't get a chance to see all the Nickelodeon changes as by the time we got down to the lower level we had been in the Mall almost three and a half hours.  By then we called it quits as we had worked our way down from the 4th floor to the 1st floor.

The Mall is like most other malls: lots of clothing stores, jewelery stores, chocolate stores, and other stores with stuff that isn't really needed.  We didn't find anything to buy - even at the "As Seen on TV" store.

Macy's Christmas display

Last Thursday Tammy and I drove to Minneapolis to see the Christmas display on the 8th floor of Macy's downtown Minneapolis store.

From the Mall of America we took the light rail train to downtown Minneapolis.  A train station stop was several blocks from the Macy store on Nicolette Mall.

In front of the Macy store is a statue of Mary Tyler Moore.

Tammy and I rode the escalators to the fifth floor where we had to go to another part of the floor to find the escalators to the eight floor.

The fifth floor was eerily empty except signs directing us to the escalators.  No one else was around.

On the eight floor we found people.  A line.  A kind of long line.  A line with lots of mothers and kids.  The good part was the line kept moving and the wait wasn't as long as it could have been.

The display had moving parts as seen in the two short videos below:

Dance competiton

Last Saturday Tammy and I watched the dance competition at the Lake City High School that her youngest daughter,  Emily, participated in with her high school dance team.  There were about six to eight high schools competing depending on the category.

The competition went from noon to 5 pm.  There were lots of families in the stands supporting their daughters.  Some of the mothers yelled and shrieked when their daughter's team competed.  I think I lost more of my hearing.

The dance competition consisted of two routines: high kick and jazz. For high kick dancing think of the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.  The girls would do high kicks in one big line and also in various combinations of smaller groups along with other dance steps as they changed combinations.

The various songs in the high kick dancing was techno music with a fast tempo and strong beat, even if the original song was some 1980s style of song.  Even so, most songs would kick it into high gear with the beat at some point in the song and the girls would get in a line and kick harder and faster.

Here is a video of a short part of another team's high kick routine.

For jazz dances there was more variety of moves and the music didn't always have a strong techno beat.  One routine was danced to Sugarland's song "Stuck on You".

Emily is one of the team captains on both of her school's junior varsity dance teams: the high kick and jazz teams.  I was busy videotaping her routines so I don't have any photos of her dancing.  I did get a couple photos below of other teams.  The dances seen are jazz dances.  I thought the high kick dances were more entertaining but those dances were faster so the photos came out blurry.

 

At the end, while the judges finished scoring the teams, all the teams came out and waited on the gym's floor for the results.

It took a half hour for the judges to total the results and then announce them and hand out trophies to the top two or three teams in each category.  While waiting, more music was played and often the kids would dance around.  I think this was all a plan to wear the kids out before the bus ride home.  For us spectators it was a long wait.

Train to Minnesota

Thursday I took the train from Montana to Minnesota.  The train was on time so that meant an early start to my day.  Still, I was ready when Patti came to give me a ride to the train station.  Or I thought I was. Halfway across Montana I realized I had left the bag of fruit at home.  At least I had left it in the refrigerator so I might have something edible when I return next month.  Or maybe not.

Since the train had not run on Wednesday those people were taking Thursday's train.  This close to the holiday season the train normally has a lot of passengers, today the train was close to full with all the extra people.

It was still kind of dark when the train arrived.  Inside the train the interior lights has not been turned yet for the day so it was difficult to find an open seat.  Many people were still sleeping and spread over two seats.  Several other people were in the same situation as me and we went up and down the car looking for the right seat.  I avoided sitting next to people going to Chicago.  Not all people going to Chicago are crazy, but enough of them are that the odds aren't good, and in the dark I couldn't tell the crazies from the normal people.

I chose a seat next to a woman going to Winona, Minnesota.  Once I woke her to get her to move off the second seat I discovered she was quite large.  She was nice - though attending college in another state (Oregon) and not really going off campus in over three years to exploring this new city and state showed a lack of depth, and she didn't have much of an outgoing personality.

A number of people got off the train several hours later at Shelby, Montana.  A pair of seats together opened up and I moved over to them so as not to be crowded in my own seat by a person who couldn't quite fit in her own seat.

That worked for a few minutes until just before the train left the station when a father and daughter got on the train.  No two seats were open together so the train car attendant went up and down the car until she decided to ask me to move and sit next to another guy in order to open the two seats.

*sigh*

I sat in that seat all the way across the rest of Montana and until we reached Williston, ND when the guy across the aisle left and two seats together opened up.  These seats were in the first row and near the door so they were not the best seats.  But I figured they would be the last seats to be filled so I took the seats.  That lasted until Minot when a huge number of people got on the train.  So many people wanted to get on that the train attendant had to move eight or so people to another car to find seats for them.

I got a seatmate.  A high school kid for whom this was the first time he had every ridden the train.  He later asked me if it was ok to go downstairs to get something from his luggage.  Yes, this is not an airplane.  You can move around the train.  And the bathrooms are also downstairs.

He rode the train all the way to Minneapolis so I had only one seat to sit in overnight.  And as I was in the first row I couldn't stretch my legs out completely as I couldn't slip them under a seat in front of me.  Still, I can sleep about anywhere so I made it through the night fine.

I had two seats from Minneapolis to almost Red Wing when the train attendant moved a young woman to the seat next to me.  Oh well, it was for only the last 15 minutes of the trip.

Also increasing as I went from Montana to Minnesota was the amount of snow.  During the night as the train went through Fargo, ND I looked out to see, under the lights, trucks dumping snow near the Red River.

While the train was on time when I started my trip it steadily lost time.  By the time I arrived in Red Wing the train was over two hours late after 11 am.  Tammy was there to meet me.

The Amtrak train was 14 cars long: three locomotives, a luggage car, the dining car, observation car, four sleeper cars and four passenger cars.

Where Tammy works

This is where Tammy works at the Mayo Clinic.

'Shhh!' on a full train in the New Year

I am back in North Dakota after spending the holidays with Tammy in Minnesota.  To all my Minnesota friends who I did not contact when in Minnesota... sorry.  I had good intentions to call or see you, but between spending time with Tammy and the cold Minnesota weather I rarely went outside.

As to the Minnesota weather... the Minnesotans should worry more about global cooling than global warming.  My October visit to Minnesota had cold temperatures and plenty of snow.  This visit had snow (naturally) but also very cold temperatures.  Sub zero temperatures.  Tammy and I went to see the movie, Avatar, (in 3-D) and the temperature outside was -18 degrees.  High temperatures that never got above zero - ya, we had a number of those days.  Well below normal temperatures.

When I left Minnesota the train to Red Wing, MN ended up being 2 hours late and never arrived until almost 11 pm.  It took us almost an hour to drive to Red Wing and in that time the train lost another 25 minutes so I was in Red Wing forty minutes before the train.

The train unloaded five people from two cars.  The conductor made sure first one then the other of the two cars stopped in front of the station so the passengers didn't have to trudge over train tracks and through the snow to get off and on the train.

I left Sunday night so I expected the train to be relatively empty.  Who would be traveling a Sunday night in January?

I think only two people on got on the train in Red Wing.  The conductor assigned us seats as the train was full.  Huh?!   Okay, maybe lots of people were traveling to Minneapolis and I would get a better seat after we arrived there.

Lots of people got off at the Minneapolis station but lots of people then boarded the train. Huh?!   Before the passengers boarded in Minneapolis the train attendant moved people to free up pairs of seats to make it easier for couples to sit together.  I had an aisle seat next to another passenger so I didn't have to move.

Why all the people traveling on a Sunday night?  Everyone would be arriving at their destination Monday morning or later.  I found that many of the passengers were going to Grand Forks.  Why there?  The university started Monday and these people didn't want to get there any sooner than necessary.  The train was scheduled to arrive at 4:52 am.

I used to travel that way when I lived in Minnesota.  Several times I returned from vacation at four or five in the morning before heading to work at eight or nine.  That is the providence of the younger people.  And I preferred to be on vacation than in Minnesota.  For me now, the reverse is true.  I rather be in Montana than on vacation.

Also lots of people were getting off the train in Minot.  Minot usually is a busy stop.  I don't know why Minot was busier than usual.  The people getting off the train in Minot didn't look like college students.

My seat mate got off at Grand Forks.  He was a faculty researcher returning to the medical department at the University after spending the holidays in Chicago.  He was sleeping across the two seats when I boarded the train and the conductor had to wake him to move so I could sit down.  In the hour it took for the train to reach Minneapolis an incoming phone call woke him and he talked until we left Minneapolis.

I just love cell phones. 

My seat mate was oriental and spoke in Chinese or Vietnamese or whatever which was good as it was easier to tune out his conversation not knowing what he was speaking about.  After he ended his phone call he and I ended up talking.  We talked about my life, my past life at IBM, his past job as a researcher in the pharmaceutical industry, and his current job at UND as a medical researcher until 2:45 am when he went to sleep.  I read for another hour or two before sitting back and going to sleep.  The train attendant never turned off the car's lights until some time after the researcher and I ended our conversation.

Sometimes when I get excited I speak in a louder voice.  But this night when we talked we spoke quietly.  So quiet that between his accent and soft voice I had to occasionally ask him to repeat words. Early on in our conversation a young woman sitting in the row behind us with her boyfriend or husband got up and asked us to talk quieter or not at all as she claimed the sound and pitch of our voices was annoying and was keeping her awake.

It must be me she was talking about as other women in the past have complained that the sound and pitch of my voice grated on them.    These other women turned out to be strange and self absorbed people so it wasn't just the sound of my voice they had problems with.  Therefore, as this was a public place and I can't change how my voice sounds, I merely tried to keep my voice low.  He was getting off at Grand Forks so if we didn't talk now, we'd never talk.

Later another flaky young woman, sitting in the two seats in front of us, started "shhhing" occasionally.  Again we weren't talking loud, weren't done with our conversation, so we kept talking quietly.  This woman later moved to the seats in the row ahead of her which were empty.  When the train attendant came by he told her she was sitting in reserved seats.  She told him she moved because we were talking so he let her stay there and changed her old seats to reserved seats.  We had been talking very quietly so he never said anything to us and let us continue talking.  Besides, the train's lights were still on.

Many people can't or have trouble sleeping when traveling.  I may sound harsh, but that is something they have to work on rather than expecting other people to cater to them.  Otherwise instead of ignoring it I would have had the overweight woman snoring loudly in the seat across the aisle from mine change to another position to stop snoring.  People who snore should not lay on their back when sleeping around other people.  But, I tuned her out and went to sleep.

The young woman, and the black guy in the seats across the aisle, were both going to Minot.  She told him she was connected to the military, hated living in Minot and couldn't wait to leave.  Another flaky woman.   He had gotten out of the military but stayed in Minot because there are lots of jobs there.

My brother was there to meet me when the train arrived into Minot well over two hours late. The two plus feet of snow that fell in Minot during the Christmas blizzard still covered lots of things.  Many cars parked in the train station's parking lot were still buried under snow.  I saw many huge and tall piles of snow during the drive to my brother's house.