Circum-training the American West: part 4, guest post by abigailmm

From Whitefish on the west to Browning on the east,*  from about 8 to 10:30 am we were crossing the Rockies via Marias pass, up the Flathead River and along the southern border of Glacier National Park. Delightfully, we had another pair of park volunteers, who had boarded in Seattle the evening before, and gave us great commentary. And SUCH scenery they had to comment upon! In 30 hours, I went over the Cascades, up the Columbia River Gorge, and over the Rockies. WOW!

 

Flathead River roiling with snowmelt

 

modern vacation photography**      Aahhhh… that’s

.                                                          the way to travel!

Humans have to leave our mark -

Izaak Walton Inn*** at Essex and Teddy Roosevelt obelisk at the summit

 

I am fascinated with satellite imagery, and can lose hours online exploring Google Earth. Here is a clear view of the obelisk from above, with a big truck pulled in for a rest. Zoomed out, two freight trains show passing, going over the divide. And what’s with that tight curlicue of track in the corner, with the line of little, short, rusty, probably antique cars? If they are still parked there, I didn’t see them, ’cause our guides were pointing out the obelisk on the other side.

 

track-side snow, and a beaver lodge in the lake at middle distance, right

 

peak next to the route near the summit

 

leaving the Rockies behind for the plains

 

My cousin Kieren quoted his parents to me, about crossing the northern plains. “Miles and miles of miles and miles.” It was, rather. Noon on Sunday till mid-morning on Monday, lots and lots of Montana and North Dakota and Minnesota. As a botanist, I did wish that I could get off the train and see the terrain close-up, with a hand lens for the botanical details. But I couldn’t, and that was that. It *was* fun to turn on the map program and GPS function of my phone, and zoom in really close so I could see the rails in the satellite view, with the little blinking blue arrow marking “you are here” moving along them. You could almost imagine you could see the train moving along.

 

the engine of our own train

 

a North Dakota dawn, and the Big Sky

 

eastern Montana  . . .    or maybe North Dakota

 

 

At breakfast on Monday, at the table across the aisle from ours, a native American flutist and flute-maker#  on his way to a gig in Minneapolis was talking about his craft. Later he got into his outfit and gave the lounge car a little concert.

 

Among the audience were a few families of Amish or a similar lifestyle, who got on in the middle of the night somewhere in western North Dakota, and got off in Chicago. Some of the families were coordinated in blue, and some in green.

We were on time on Sunday evening, but sometime overnight we must have been stuck on a siding for a good while, because we found ourselves over two hours late on Monday morning. We never managed to make it up, and a lot of people were going to miss connections in Chicago. Amtrak arranged special chartered buses to get them to their destinations. I am glad I wasn’t one of them; the train is far nicer to ride than a  bus, even if coach passengers have to negotiate those steep winding stairs to the lower level every time they need a toilet.

There was a long stop at the Minneapolis/St. Paul station. You would think this would have been a chance to make up some of the time, by shortening the stop. But the crew had a lot to do there, hooking on to our train some private cars, antique dome cars and the like, that had been ferried from Chicago up to Minneapolis for National Train Day celebrations on Saturday. So they had to get attached to get taken home.

About 10 am Monday we left the Twin Cities on the last leg to Chicago, and then the next day I would head home.

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* those 5 stations may be the closest-together ones in the western Amtrak system, except the central California complex

**  I’m not knocking it! 90% of my photos were taken with my phone too, even though I carried my “real” camera on the trip.

***  It was originally built as housing for Great Northern RR workers, but with an eye even then toward re-purposing it as a hotel

# I didn’t think to get his name, and Google has failed me.