Overnight on the Train

The train, the "Empire Builder", was 45 minutes late pulling in at the depot in Whitefish, Montana, where about 50 passengers waited to join its westward run. This is one of the classic American trains, connecting Chicago and Seattle along an efficient and scenic path. The Amtrak station in Whitefish features a statue of the Great Northern Railroad's symbol, a fierce looking muscular Rocky Mountain sheep, recalling the glory days of rail. The cars are large and tall, permitting views of the often spectacular scenery, though the first part of our trip was to be in the gathering dark. The ride was smooth, and the cars were clean. We had sat outside the station, enjoying the soft warmth of the sumer evening, watching the sky turn from red to gold to gray when the headlights of the train came into view up the track.

Quite a few passengers got off in Whitefish, ready to go experience Glacier National Park or wherever in this beautiful northwest corner of Montana. When all of us were seated, it was clear that there were just enough seats left for passengers expected to board in Spokane -- the train was full. I was sitting with a lay minister from Missoula, Montana, on her way to a family wedding, so we had pleasant conversation. Across the aisle, two young men from Russia were settling in for the night. In the next seats ahead of us, an older German couple and their adult son conversed about their day. There were others from places where train travel is more normal than it is in the U.S., and they seemed to be taking the funkiness of American rail travel in stride. And the train seems to have some regular riders who live along its route and want to be connected to other places on it. One family from North Dakota always goes to the coast of Oregon for the month of August, and they always take the train.

I had a good time riding this train, despite the fact that no matter how well I think I sleep on an overnight anything, I always need a nap the day after in a real, flat, bed. In the morning there were fabulous views of the Cascade mountains east and north of Seattle and then of a sun-drenched Puget Sound, with its islands, framed by the Olympic mountains across the way. I don't know when I will have the excuse to do it again, but the arrangement of my family members through the Northwest makes it likely this will not be the only time.

I guess I'm writing to recommend seeking out times to ride the train. This one was a sociable sort of travel, with a chance to exchange friendly chat with random people. There is much more room on a train than on a bus or an airplane. You can walk around. There's the experience of the passing landscape. Although car travel provides advantages of luggage space and passenger comfort, in the cocoon of the car, you meet no one. And I'm thinking that the matter of meeting no one as we travel is a really important loss to us culturally. So when you travel, maybe even if it's not about taking the train, do take a chance on finding ways to meet people along the way.

Fires Over the Mountain

Here in Northwestern Montana, it's fire season, and at the moment there are more forest fires burning here than in any other state. We are to the west of the tallest mountains, in a beautiful flat valley where rains do fall from time to time through the summer. This is a place where agriculture is being displaced by a kind of sprawling urban development, though farming far from gone. I walk borrowed dogs, waving at people driving their pickup trucks to work. It's possible to forget about the fires, mostly, though not for the families of smoke jumpers and other fire workers who are all away, doing what they have to do in the summer.

In our valley, it's really hot in the afternoon, then cool at night and very pleasant through the morning. And the weather is really all we need to know about, because this is a family with a new baby, just seven weeks old. I'm with them to get to know my new granddaughter, Melody Rose, who is a healthy, hungry, baby, determined to teach her new parents how to care for her. They are all doing fine, but no one has slept more than a few hours at a time for the last seven weeks.

The fires are far over the mountain, out of sight, out of mind. Then comes the news that one of them has closed the main east-west highway, U.S. Route 2. And with that news, the thought that my departure on the train might be at risk, since the tracks run very close to the highway. The Amtrak computer advisory line assures me everything is fine; the local Amtrak's official voice recording assures me the same. But the fires suddenly have a presence for me that they had lacked in the days before, and today for the first time, I notice the light haze in the air and the slight smell of smoke.

Fires, actual and metaphorical, are with us all the time. It's worth taking some time to be aware of them. But we had important living to do, being Melody's family, so it would have been silly to spend much time attending to them. What's the moral of the story? Something about balance, I'm guessing, and developing the judgment to be sure what the right balance is between paying attention to the larger realities and the more intimate ones. Not the one right balance that is true for everyone, but the individual right balance that is true from within.

Hey, It's Olympia

There we were, my nephew Ben and I, enjoying very creatively prepared food and excellent wine in a well-appointed restaurant. Like the other customers, we were dressed casually in jeans and whatnot. Today, it was more striking than usual. The waiter had on a colorful fringed hat to help with the celebration of Lakefest going on outside. Dishes from the special Lakefest menu arrived as if for ambulatory eating -- my blackened wild salmon with mango slaw arrived on a plastic plate, and I noticed a couple nearby receiving sandwiches on paper holders -- connecting us to the spirit of the fair. In reminding me not to dress up, Ben had said, "hey, it's Olympia." And indeed it is, a place where dressing up is just really not on anyone's list of things to do, but also a place where good food is an important part of what's going on.

Continuing my survey of public transportation options, I had declined to rent a car at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. Since I arrived really late, the only option was the airport shuttle, which drove the hour-plus to Olympia and efficiently dropped its six passengers on our respective doorsteps. I'm staying downtown in the middle of everything, so we can walk to many things we want to do, but when we wanted to see a current movie, a car was necessary. We can see old movies by walking. Actually, there is a good bus system, and I'll bet we could have gone to the suburban movie by bus. And since Ben has a car, we chose his favorite sushi place a little out of walking range, over the one (perfectly good, he said) right near the Lakefest and my hotel.

When I leave, I'll take the regular bus to the Seattle train station (walking to the bus station), then go by train to Northwestern Montana. Trains are supposed to be very good in terms of greenhouse gases per rider per mile. But I can't forget that I did arrive on this coast in an airplane.

I did make a contribution to the Nature Conservancy to offset the carbon emissions involved in my airplane ride from the East Coast to here, and I'm planning to do that now with all my flights. More trees can't help but be good, and maybe I'll support alternative energy, too, when I take these heavy CO2 airplane rides. When I looked into what's called "carbon offsets," it wasn't at all clear that every enterprise in the offset business was actually going to do something helpful. One commentator wrote, "let the buyer beware!" So I went with trees from a known source. The plane remains the best way for me to get to see my children, alas!

But truly, using less is what we have to do. We can only go so far with alternative fuels without alternative environmental damage. Already it's clear that wind energy is not so great to look at. And that ethanol creates a moral problem about using farmland that could be devoted to food for hungry people. Nuclear power is just as bad as it was when we thought about it a generation ago. All these are alternatives to walking more, using our bicycles, taking the bus or the train, living closer to work, that sort of thing. So let's walk. And plant trees.

A Bit of Culture Shock

So I've been home now a little over two weeks, and I'm getting used to driving everywhere and sitting in the office and being part of ongoing relationships again, but it's a bit of a shock. This includes the matter of taking my meals at home, something I didn't expect. On my travels, I could have a satisfactory breakfast for 2.50 Euros, with delicious coffee, better than what I make at home, and a chance to hear the hum of other people's lives, even to chat with some of them. Then, at 2:00 or so in the afternoon, I'd have a nice dinner for something like 10 Euros (more in Madrid and Barcelona, of course!), again with the "people" benefits of being in a restaurant, and no dishes to wash after. A bit of cheese and fruit later in the evening, and my food day was complete. Clearly, I can eat for less at home, but it feels lonely and troublesome. And that 2:00 PM meal does not exist here.

Driving everywhere: I live in town, where I can walk to work, walk to many shops -- the drug store, the bank, the library, a lovely pastry shop, a greengrocer, a small supermarket, several restaurants -- but the "real" supermarket, the health store, places to buy clothing, the airport, they are all only available by car. Or by this quirky local transit system, if you have lots and lots of time and a really good sense of humor. And there are places I want to go for fun where the car is really the only choice. In Europe, I even took the train to the trailhead for my backpacking trip.

Of course, the Europeans are inventing suburbs where cars are really convenient and stores are designed for people to drive up to them, but I think it's time for all of us to be thinking about going the other way. It's ironic, I think, that the closest location of my bank is a drive-through, whose automatic teller can be used by foot after hours, but you're not supposed to approach on foot, just by car. So when the humans are there, they can't wait on you if you're not in a vehicle. I've resolved to bring the walking and transit riding to my life here in the land of "live free or die," not to be a prisoner in my wheeled metal shell.

There are physical and spiritual benefits to being in the world without that shell of a car, I'm thinking. I wonder how it will be?