It is not lost on me that my train ride to Washington DC should begin on the longest day of the year. Though I'm grateful for the quiet of the train ride to Flagstaff to Chicago, the leg from Chicago to DC with all its characters and hijinx made the five hour delay on an already 17-hour ride totally worth it.
I met a "fellow wanderer" in the lounge car today -- that's how he labelled the URL for my blog in his own journal. This guy is 27, just quit his job in Portland last week (I can dig it), and is going east to hike the Appalachian Trail from Harper's Ferry to Maine. Though he looks like he could easily be returning from the trail with his full beard and scruffy appearance, that I could sit with him at a table in the lounge car and not be knocked over by the smell is probably a good indicator that he has yet to set out.
Meanwhile, my seatmate is an Irish dude who looks something like a blond/gray Robin Williams. When we boarded last night in Chicago, he fussed rather aggressively with his footrest.
"It's okay," he said. "I'm Irish; we break everything."
"Yeah, I'm Scottish," I replied. "We break everything too."
Shortly after the train got moving, he embraced more of the stereotype and disappeared to the lounge car, where I discovered him two hours later. I went down to get dinner: a couple hot dogs and a glass of cabernet -- because I'm Klassy with a K. Irish was tucked into a back table, drinking and talking politics while one of the conductors sat and chatted with me.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the conductor was chatting me up, but at one point he did drop the "how do you not have a boyfriend" line. After I gave him my best explanation, he said, "Sounds like you need to find a new bike path." I had to agree.
Once the conductor went back to work, Irish came and sat with me, having sufficiently worn down his previous conversation partner. Between the late hour and his level of intoxication, all I could take from it was "this is the part of the movie where Irish imparts his wisdom, only it turns strange and awkward." The bit I remember is that he works for a pharmaceutical company and invented some hardware that streamlines the processing of pap smears, as well as something that does 3D imaging on mammograms.
All I know is it is an AWKWARD transition from late night chatter of this nature in the lounge car to walking back to our assigned seats to sleep that close together. But Irish is an early riser, so he was up and back in the lounge car when it opened at 5:30am. I wandered down to get myself some coffee around nine, only to find him buying himself a beer. YES!
There are still three other very drunk, very entertaining characters I haven't even gotten to yet -- oh and the lounge car attendant who challenged me to a push up contest -- but as this post is already lengthy, I'll wrap it up here.
As much fun as this ride was, with all the colorful travellers, the absolute best was being greeted in Union Station by Daniel and Julie, the travellers who will accompany me on our two-wheeled journey west:
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