I read more of "The Canterbury Tales." I was almost through with it, too. It had very little about the pilgrims' actual journey to Canterbury. I was a little surprised it was still required reading in some high schools, considering how downright raunchy some of the stories were. I was struck by the variety of stories, as well as the variety of writing styles Chaucer used. Each tale sounded like a different person was telling the story. It was like some modern writer doing a series of short stories, one in the style of Raymond Chandler, one in the style of Zane Grey, etc. That took talent. The recurring theme of one man mating for life with one woman, sometimes to the liability of those involved,  showed how deeply ingrained the concept was in western society... and what an uphill battle gays and poly families faced for acceptance. In "The Knight's Tale," two friends become enemies when they both fall in love with the same girl. I kept thinking, if they just formed a triad everybody could've lived happily ever after. I found many sections to be colorful, wise, funny, and –perhaps most surprising of all– progressively feminist. I didn't care for the anti-Jew stuff, though. I didn't care for that at all.  
  
Obnoxious Man spent the evening in the observation car with his buddies, fortunately, playing cards and drinking Coronas. The lady in the seat ahead of me was on her way to Omaha to visit her son. She lived in a small town northwest of Reno, but she had lived several places in her life. She made regular shopping trips to Reno. We watched mountains pass by in the pale light of dusk. She said she used to go hunting and fishing in the mountains, but now just enjoyed camping and getting in touch with nature. She was all for people traveling, getting out and seeing the world. She said, "If you have the opportunity to live, do it!" She said I didn't sound like I was from Oklahoma. I told her I get that a lot. Right at 9 PM, we arrived in Winnemucca, where the train sat on the tracks for the next hour. Lots of passengers got out to walk around. Orlando Girl wondered if there was a grocery store nearby, where she could get some sandwiches. The conductor, however, warned people about wandering too far from the train. If you weren't there when the train pulled out, you'd be stranded. I took the opportunity to dig my sweats out from the Alice backpack and change clothes for the night. I was glad I did. It got downright chilly on the coach. As soon as we pulled out of Winnemucca, I settled down in my seat and soon fell asleep.... I woke several times in the night, usually to find a different, more comfortable position. I always fell right back asleep again. I was getting used to the whole sleeping on a train thing. Once, in the night, I woke up to see the amazing full Moon lighting up a remote, Nevada valley, everything shaded in hues of blue and purple. I must've slept right through Elko.  

I opened my eyes, and realized we weren't moving. Outside, freight cars sat waiting on parallel tracks near an overpass. It was Wednesday, September 6th, and we were in Salt Lake City. I went out to the platformed and walked around, stretching my legs. Someone mentioned we'd been there a half hour. One passenger said we might make Denver on time after all, but another said we were running 3 hours late. It was 6 AM Pacific Time, 7 AM local. After another half hour, we were on the move again. Outside of town, I saw some water off to the side– was that the Salt Lake? We breezed through Provo at 8:30 local time. Beyond Provo, mountains rose all around us, carpeted with green and red trees. Omaha Mom wondered if there'd been a frost already, but I figured the leaves had turned from excessive summer heat.  

 

We went through a long tunnel, and emerged climbing through beautiful, rugged hills. I got some hot tea ($1.75) and sat in the observation car for a while, watching the rocky landscape roll by. A gurgling stream snaked its way alongside the tracks. The train dangled right over the stream as it churned into white water directly below us. Trees and green brush lined the stream, which flowed over and around couch- and car-sized rocks. Wild flowers dotted the hillsides. Nobody said, but it may have been Davidson Canyon. Steeples of rock towered over us, capping many mountains and hillsides. We rolled into Helper, Utah at 10:35 local. A grey-haired woman got out, and was met by a blonde girl and a young man in a ball cap. The conductor said it would be another three hours to Grand Junction. The sky turned overcast. The Omaha Mom moved to another seat further back in the car. She said she had trouble in the night, because of the racket from the door to the next car, which was right in front of her. As soon as she left, I moved forward and took her seat. It had better windows.        We rolled into a broad, flat valley, with lots of farmland, possibly the Price River valley. The farmland soon melted away into crusty desert.  Shallow gullies gouged their way through the dry earth, as pastel cliffs squatted in the distance. On the train rolled. Life stubbornly returned to the landscape, and green trees emerged, flourishing among the stones and along the dry riverbed. In the shallow between two rises, we passed a family of antelope –about a dozen of them, led by a tall bull with dark horns.  The bull watched the train in silence until we rolled on down the track. Incredible. Dry grass dotted the soft desert hills. To the north, the tracks followed scarred, violet escarpments –the Book Cliffs. Spread out to the south was a wide, sandy plain as we approached Green River, Utah. My left hip still hurt from standing on the Gerlach road for so long. It hurt to get up, sit down, and crossing my legs was a pain.

 

I dozed off... I woke up when I noticed the train changing speed. I got up, and saw lots of lights outside. It was 9 PM Pacific Time, 10 PM Mountain Time-- We made it to Denver. We stopped at the station about 25 minutes later "--Only two hours late," one woman said, as she packed up to disembark. While on the platform, a Japanese guy was trying to get a picture of the Denver skyline. I showed him he might have better luck if he turned off his flash. Several people got on at Denver; the conductor said the train was "packed." A young man with a guitar got on and sat across the aisle from me. He made me nervous playing with his lighter. He eventually read a book while munching on some popcorn. We were at the Denver station for a good hour before we resumed our route, and it was another half hour before we got out of the city. Once on our way again, I tried to get some sleep... 

I woke up just after 4 AM Pacific Time. Dawn was no more than a rosy glow in the east. I couldn't see outside very well, but from what I could tell we were flying across the plains. As it became brighter out, I saw miles and miles of-- corn! What a surprise. At 5 AM Pacific Time, we rolled into Hastings, Nebraska. It was Thursday morning, September 7th. By now, I figured, my campmates were all back at their homes, resuming their lives in the Default World... I still had many miles to go.  The Sun rose over a sleepy Nebraska. It was a new day, full of promise, entheusiasm and vigor. Going through a town called Crete, I saw a business called Suds 'n' Rays-- a combination laundromat and tanning salon. The train was really pushing it. I could tell we were getting close to Omaha when I saw something different in the landscape: hills. When we pulled into Lincoln, Nebraska, the conductor said we were five hours, 6 minutes late. A woman who was supposed to catch a plane in Chicago calculated she wouldn't make it on time. The guitar player across from me was having trouble sleeping in the morning sunlight, so I closed the curtains of my window. We passed the Linoma Beach lighthouse, an unexpected thing to see in Nebraska.  

I called my sister-in-law when we were stopped in Lincoln. I told her it would probably be another hour before I got to Omaha. It actually took about an hour and a half before we rolled into the station at Omaha. I'd been on the train for just over 39 hours. My sister-in-law was on the platform waiting for me. The Zephyr was still several hours behind schedule. Passengers were on cellphones, canceling plane reservations and rescheduling. I switched my watch back to Central Time. It was just after 10 AM. Back at my sister-in-law's house, I showered and changed into some clean clothes. Satori was indeed loaded up with silk flowers from the wedding.  
 

In just two hours, I was clean, dressed, packed and ready to head back to Oklahoma. I stopped at a gas station for $20 of gas (at $2.39 a gallon), and hit the road. The sky was a pale blue, with some dark-bellied clouds to the south. At 2:45, I crossed the border into Kansas.      About half past three, traffic came to a halt outside of Holton. Ahead, it looked like a semi had gone off the road, and sat on the east side embankment. Northbound traffic was backed-up all the way up the far hill, and it wasn't long before cars behind me stacked up. Some of us got out of our cars to see what was going on. The lights from many emergency vehicles flashed in the road ahead. It was an accident, for sure. One motorist speculated that many emergency vehicles only showed up when there was a fatality. That's what I was thinking of when traffic resumed. I inched my way forward with the rest of the cars. We passed a blue passenger van in the southbound lane, all turned around, the whole right side of the vehicle smashed-in. I thought I caught a glimpse of a blue & white dotted skirt in the front seat. I wondered about lives forever altered in one tragic moment.       On down the road, I  pulled into Topeka for a snack. I found a Schlotzsky's, and had a delicious sandwich. There was a neat model train store right next door. At 5:50, I passed under the I-35 overpass. In New Strawn, Kansas, I stopped for $25 of gas ($2.39 a gallon).

I went through Independence, Kansas at 7:40. The sun was just setting, a big, pretty red ball in the sky, and I was hoping to get a picture of it. Outside of town, the road straightened out, and right ahead was the sunset, in all its glory. It was like the road was pointing right at it. I got my picture, and was feeling pretty good about myself... But then, I figured it's easy to get a picture of the setting sun when you're on a road going west. I needed to be going south. I was on the wrong road.   I turned around, and headed back towards Independence. As I took the road back eastward, the lines of the highway all pointed to something looming on the horizon. It was the full Moon, blood-red and ghostly, rising above the road in exactly the same way the Sun had been setting directly over the road just minutes before. The road became an axis between Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and I was navigating among the spheres.  I got myself navigated back southward, and it wasn't long before I crossed the border into Oklahoma. Dewey and Bartlesville passed me in the night, and as I headed south towards Tulsa, the full Moon rose bright and cheerful in the east --a shining beacon lighting the way for me.   All in all, my trip on the train was a positive experience, although 40 hours of anything can wear a guy out. The cars were clean, and the crews were all very nice and very professional. I think if I took a trip that long again, I'd get off at the halfway point and get a motel room somewhere. The big lesson I learned about train travel was: be flexible. If your train is scheduled to arrive at 9 AM Thursday, don't count on it arriving at 9 AM or 10 AM or even 11 AM-- just count on it arriving on Thursday.   Somewhere in southern Kansas that last day of my journey, my van clicked over 175,000 miles. Satori got me home. It felt good to be back in my own bed again.

• The Reno Trench 
• Linoma Beach 
• Steve Irwin 
• Amtrak