Sightseer

As I write this, Stacy and I are sitting in the “sightseer” car staring at the endless jagged spine of mountains that we have been passing by over and over since right about the time we woke up this morning. When the horizon was still flat as could be, the red sun rose to burn my tired eyes in greeting. It was beautiful.

I’ve typed up posts again and again and failed to have WiFi. So, sadly, this won’t show up until a couple days from now, I believe. I should probably note then, that it is 3:27 MST on the 22nd, in Texas. We’re now looking on towards the Rio Grande and the mountains that are part of Mexico’s territory. It really is beautiful. It’s just... well, those shrubs get so redundant. So does the green-brown-tan of everything in sight in every direction ever. But, no. It’s beautiful. I’m being too critical.

We had a minor stop due to a freight train ahead of us that had stopped moving. Despite a promise of updates from Jerry (that’s our conductor--yeah, we’re on a first-name basis via the intercom now), we never found out what that was about. We just sat there staring some shrubs down for an hour. I believe we passed out asleep for a little while too.

So far, of my many runs to the “cafe car,” I have not dropped any drinks or ramen cups on my wobbly return back. The guy who runs the cafe is cheesy in an epic sort of way. Like, the moon-is-made-of-cheese cheesy. Let me just share this tidbit of a joke he blasted over the intercom around lunch: “The gull that flies over the sea is a seagull. What is the gull that flies over the bay? A BAY-GULL. That’s right. We have bagels in the cafe car! Come on down!” Just an example.

People are nice on the train. Some people are a bit... well. There’s a nice old man next to us who offered up great conversations the first couple hours of our ride. Those conversations have since become one-sided and confusing through his drunken slurs about T-Mobile and his grandkids and working in Alaska. He is a nice guy though.

Next up is a semi-brief stop in El Paso. I think we’ll hop out and stretch our legs and sniff the air before going back to our cozy little nook where we fidget around and try to stretch and eat candy and be productive on our internet-less technology.

That is all.

- Seth

P.S. I posted this at 5 pm MST. I think. Ha. Yay internet!