A Journey Home Worth Remembering

Yesterday morning Mom and Colin picked me up at the Denver train station with my six pieces of luggage and two carry-ons. And so here I am, finally back in Colorado after 2 weeks of trying to get here! I am minus one beloved car, but other than that managed to get all my stuff that I started with back to CO.

And how was the journey?? Well, let me tell you, it was pretty amazing! It started on Saturday morning at the Boston train station. Will dropped me and my luggage off and I got everything checked and sent off to be put on the train and that was a relief to not have to worry about my large and heavy bags again until I got to Denver. Then I sat and people-watched in the train station until my train arrived. Yay train! It was kind of exciting. We all stood in line on the platform waiting to get on the train and when we got on I looked at my ticket and had no idea where my seat was. Was it like a plane where your seat is assigned? I asked the guy standing behind me and he said he had no idea, I asked a woman already sitting down and she said she just picked a seat. So I decided that was a good plan. I walked through the car and by the time I reached some empty seats they had signs saying "reserved for parties of two". Well great, now I have to awkwardly turn around with my big backpack and duffel bag and make my way back to an open seat in the single people seating area. Grrr. Then the guy behind me says "do you want to be a party of two?" Well out of pure laziness I probably would have said yes anyways but he happened to be so cute and speaking to me in a great accent! So, obviously, I said "OK!" He said "so if anyone asks, we go way back". And so began my first half of the journey home - on a train from Boston to Chicago with a cute guy beside me.

As the hours went on I tried to figure out the guy's accent. I first thought English, then upon asking him where he's from discovered he was Irish. Moved to Boston about a year ago, on his way to Chicago to meet a friend and then road trip their way to California! Sounds like my kind of travelin' man. The best part about meeting this guy: his name. Now Irish people seem to have very silly names in general anyways (Jess and I met an Irish guy named Darragh in NYC!) But my train traveling partner's name was...get this: Fergal! I have no idea how one would spell that, but that's my best attempt. I thought a couple of different things when he told me his name: Fergie? Fruegal? Fievel? (like in Fievel Goes West). But in any case, what an awesomely strange name! I love it. I can't wait to visit Ireland and ask everyone I see what their name is. Maybe I'll write them all down!

So Fergal and I chatted a bit during our long train ride to Chicago and suffered through the discomfort of trying to sleep through a night on a train. Although it was one of the most uncomfortable sleepless sleeps I've ever had, I think the awesomeness of riding on a train mostly cancels out the discomfort (unless you needed to be alert and refreshed when you arrived at your destination, which I did not!) so everyone on the train suffered together through there being no comfortable way to sleep in a seat that only reclines halfway. Everyone on the train seemed to have about the same sleep pattern: try one position for 10 minutes, flail around for a few seconds, settle into a new position and doze off for 10 minutes, then flail around again and try a new position, and so on. Oh well! We all survived, and I got probably 3 hours of sleep which is just fine since I had to get on another train in Chicago and I can sleep the day away on that. Isn't it strange how its easier to nap on a train or airplane but once night time comes and you feel like you really should be sleeping it's impossible to fall asleep. Hmm.

We arrived in Chicago around 9:30am. Fergal was off to meet his friend at the airport so we said goodbye and I set off to find the gate for my train to Denver. I had 4 hours to kill in the train station and sadly I couldn't find any internet access or outlets to charge my phone but I found food and magazines so it wasn't a total loss. Then I went to wait at my gate. Boooooring. Although I did get to do some serious people-watching. There were 4 amish women waiting for a train. There was a very cute little girl running around making friends with everyone while her mom called her back every couple minutes when she wandered too far. There was a guy with the most amazing mustache which upon later internet investigation could be called a horseshoe or a very thick fu manchu or basically a Hulk Hogan mustache...as a side note, I discovered there is a website called americanmustacheinstitute.org - probably the coolest thing I've found in a long time! I recommend you all go check it out.

Anyways at 2:00 I got on my train to Denver. And this was quite a train indeed. Called the California Zephyr - it was 2 stories high! It had an observation car, a snack bar, a dining car, lounge cars, plus all the regular seats and sleeper cars. Oh to be rich and stay in a sleeper car...oh well. I met lots of interesting people on this train ride. No cute guy next to me - only an average looking guy with unbelievably bad breath :-( suffice it to say I spent a lot of time wandering around the train instead of sitting next to bad breath man. He was a nice guy, but he slept most of the time and seemed to only be able to breathe out of his mouth, making the bad breath situation pretty much unavoidable. Eww. Anyways in my wanderings around I met a guy who said his name was D. He was from Indiana but was on his way to California at the moment. We talked for a while, then later I met a woman who only spoke Spanish and so we attempted to converse in Spanish. The conversation was mostly about weather, where we were from, our names, and food. Eventually I headed back to my seat next to smelly breath man and read a book for a while, then tried to sleep (with my face away from the bad breath). It wasn't too bad of a night's sleep actually. Still only a few hours but on this train we had foot rests on the seats, making them more like lounge chairs and somehow that made all the difference in comfort. It was still sleeping in a chair, but a slightly more comfortable chair. We went through Iowa and Nebraska during the night (and I'm really ok with the fact that I missed seeing those two states) and finally made it into Colorado the next morning. We pulled into Denver's train station around 8:15am and I deboarded the epic California Zephyr train and was greeted by my Mom and Colin! I treated my taxi drivers to some Starbucks and then we were on our way to Boulder with all my stuff loaded into their 2 cars.

I feel like there's more to write here but the problem is that I am starving for breakfast right now so I'll have to finish later! :-)