On most of my vacations I try to blog every day, attempting to capture the mouth-wide-open new experiences as well as the inevitable mishaps. This trip has been different, for reasons obvious and because nothing interesting has really happened, I mean unless you count comically delayed trains and sleeping car oddities interesting, and I hope you do because I’m about to tell you all about them.
Okay, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, still in Vancouver, where I’ve managed to age enough to qualify for AARP. On the morning of our departure to Toronto, via VIA Rail , Canada’s favorite of the rails, we received a friendly call from VIA HQ informing us that our train was canceled and that no other travel accommodations would be provided. This was not a surprise, since we had been warned that the wildfires may disrupt our plans. I mean, it was about 3 hours before boarding so I had kinda convinced myself that all would be well, that this train trip, so meticulously planned for over a year by my very skilled (and very detailed) mom , would actually happen. Alas, the Canadian wildfires scorched that plan (sorry - had to) and we were stranded in Vancouver. Vancouver. As you may recall I spent a strange 9 days hanging out at a Vancouver-adjacent hotel, waiting for this train. (Did I mention my outing to the Japanese grocery store next door? No - I did not. I walked away with a satisfactory loot bag filled with kitty cat themed slippers, sarsaparilla soda, and sesame candy). So to have waited and then been disappointed seemed to fit quite well with the theme of this vacation.
Since this outcome was not unexpected, we had crafted a plan B for transportation to Toronto, where the last bit of our Canadian extravaganza was to take place. We could have flown there. But that would have required airport experiences, which were already problematic for us. And we’d be many days too early for our accommodations. So instead we trained back to the US and took Amtrak east 2,741 miles to Buffalo, via Chicago, where we’d board two more trains to continue our Canada trip in Toronto. I mean, at least we were taking a train trip, right? Well, right. And some of this trek across America was stunning, beautiful, awesome. But we also faced those inevitable mishaps.
We booked our tickets last-minute, of course, so we did not get a sleeper room for the Seattle to Chicago leg. Instead we inhabited a Roomette. Sounds cute. Was cute. But it was really too small for two cranky travelers who could no longer remember why they had been gone from home for so long. And, mom and I were both terribly concerned for the others’ well-being at this point in the journey. So we sat in the folded down tiny sized lower mattress, adjusting our bodies to benefit the comfort of the other. “Does this position work for you?” “Can I put my leg across you?” “Won’t your butt get sore sitting that way too long?” We sounded like new lovers gingerly discovering… I’m gonna stop myself right there. No one wants to see where this is going.
We spent two nights on the Empire Builder, across the US and into Chicago. I had the top berth, which was a bit more ample than a coffin. I tried to eat one meal up there, but wound up with indigestion, because I couldn’t sit up and ate hunched over my food pretending that this was normal behavior. Our journey was marked by delays, most notably outside of Minneapolis, where we spent over three hours waiting for a freight train in front of us to be repaired. I could have gone home, showered, said hi to George and the critters, grabbed lunch, napped, and returned to the train in the time it took the repairs to be completed.
In Chicago, we sat through another delay, again for several hours, climbing aboard around 12:30 AM. During this wait, I ripped my pants, right through the crotch. They’d had enough of our endless train adventures, so I changed into my jammies, and wore them for the duration of our travels to Toronto. If you’d like a souvenir pair of black ripped pants from this journey, you can find them in the Metropolitan Lounge garbage can at Chicago’s Union Station. As the evening wore on, we amused ourselves in the waiting room looking at Trump’s mugshot on CNN and chatting up the Amish family next to us. They tried to sell me a natural cure for autism. That was weird.
I need to devote a little space to explaining our strange accommodations on the trip from Chicago to Buffalo. I had called Amtrak a few nights before to arrange red cap service at the stations to help Mom get from train to train. The kind lady on the line helped with this and she also offered to upgrade our roomette to the disabled room on the train. That sounded like a good plan, given the hobbling (though not so hobbly as last year, post knee surgery) mom. We boarded the train and found our cabin to the right, just past where passengers were embarking. Immediately, we noticed that there was a toilet in the room. Not in an attached bathroom. In the room. Strange. I wasn’t too keen on peeing in front of my mom, or anyone else for that matter. But look! There’s a privacy curtain. That makes it all better. Hmm. Also, the car designer put a window right above the toilet, where all of the passengers were boarding the train. Again, a curtain protected the pee-er from public exposure. Well, might as well get used to our new situation, I thought, so I closed the curtain, separating Mom and me, and got ready to pee. This whole time Mom and I were discussing trip logistics, and the conversation continued as the curtain closed, with Mom sitting on her bed, her knees almost touching mine, while I tried to focus on the act of urinating, which was really quite difficult in such close proximity to, well, everything. Oh, and then when I finished, I discovered that I neglected to close the curtain to the window behind the toilet. I mean what the actual half-past-midnight, curtain-draped-train-toilet, pajama-clad, Amish-hoodwinked business is this? It’s our business, how we’ve come to accept it on this trip. As I lay in my much more spacious upper bunk that night, I pondered our situation - until we began the journey - when the conductor raced out of Chicago at a speed that was alarming, so much so that the woes of the day disappeared, to be replaced by anxiety, fearing that my public pee may, in fact, have been my last.
Alrighty, let’s get moving. This is a long post. We didn’t die on the Amtrak pretending to be a bullet train, but we also didn’t get much sleep. And we did survive the trip to Toronto, marked by a stop at the border to visit the Canadian custom folks. Everyone on the train had to get off with all of their luggage for this visit, and then get back on the very same train. Everyone except Mom, who was treated to her own customs official in a house call (train call?). I was alone, in pajamas, carrying a bag that had “Celebrating 100 years of meat” written on its side (insulated cooler bag hand-me-down from Dad), getting ready to explain how I was just in Vancouver a few days ago but now I really want to go to Toronto. Apparently this situation was a bit suspicious to my new customs agent friend. He peppered me with questions about my intentions and was very tired. So when he asked what I’d be doing in Toronto, I said “I don’t know”. And then I followed with “Our train was canceled due to wildfires.” Things got tense until he asked who I was referring to when I said “we”. Oh, my mom is still on the train with her own agent, customs man. I’m not a pajama clad meat smuggler trying to slip into your country by myself. I have a mom. And that did the trick. Right quick I was back on the train, headed back into Canada. Didn’t think we’d make it did you?
And that’s where we are now, on the 56th floor of a condo that I’m pretty sure is just a bunch of Airbnbs, judging from the number of suitcases we’ve seen on the elevators. We are resting for a day before heading out for more Canadian adventures. Stay tuned.
I am so exhausted for you.
ReplyDelete