[title type="h5"]
Wednesday, August 26, 2015.
Boxing The West With Trains, Part 5. You Can't See The Mountains For The Burning Trees.[/title]
The Empire Builder--the only classic transcontinental Amtrak train I have never yet traveled upon--is reputed to be the the most scenic of American trains. Crossing two-thirds of the country from Seattle or Portland (you have a choice) to Chicago, It carries more passengers than any other long-distance Amtrak effort. It crosses rockier and taller peaks than any other line except, perhaps, the California Zephyr.
I leave that determination in the air, because we will not see the best that the Empire Builder has to offer. The train got off on the wrong foot last evening by leaving its originating stations two and a half hours late. This is because the incoming trains were hamstrung by many miles of track reconstruction in western Washington. Kind of like what's going on with the St. Charles streetcar back in New Orleans.
And there's another problem. Smoke from the many forest wildfires burning in this quadrant of the West transformed the mountains into ghosts--grey profiles whose covering of trees cannot be picked out in detail. I knew this was coming. While I was bussed around by Colleen and Mark yesterday, they pointed out Mount Rainier and the Olympic Range, you could only see the profiles of the mountains, not the full reality of them. This would persist nearly at least as far as the Dakotas. You not only saw the smoke, but you could smell it. One of the train conductors said that it was much worse a few days before, when you could hardly breathe, and you could conceivably smoke a brisket on the nose of the locomotive.
The passengers endured many hours of sitting in the beautiful Seattle Station. The train had to be serviced and its staff replaced before it could leave. It wasn't an intensive recharge--the windows had not been washed, for instance. But we are all happy to be aboard and to get moving at seven p.m.
The first call to dinner is made forthwith. My dinner companions are a couple of retirees from Portland who are on their way to Chicago. She reminds me in her haircut and dialect of my high school friend Bill McCarthy's mother. They overreact when I tell them what I do for a living comes out. The rest of the trip, they introduce me as a celebrity, which puzzles all the people to whom they say this.
During the night, I blow an opportunity to check off one more state from the list of those where I have walked. The train makes only one stop in Idaho, at three in the morning. Passing through a state on the rails doesn't count. I make sure I don't make the same mistake in Montana, where the train stops several times in the early morning.
I have a great night's sleep on the Empire Builder, and awaken to a sunny day, but one whose sky continues to be is greyed out the smoke. Even after the sun is three hours up, it's still orange from the the thick atmosphere. The mountains are indeed towering, but they remain shadows against the sky.
So I look down instead of up, and find that we are more often than not in the bottoms of gorgeous gorges, cut through the rock by the splashing streams that usually are right outside the train's windows. Enough sunlight filters down to make this an arresting view that goes on for a few magnificent hours.
[caption id="attachment_48722" align="alignleft" width="270"]
My touchdown point in Montana.[/caption]We are just west of the Continental Divide when the train stops at Whitefish. All the smokers empty out onto the platform to take a few puffs. I take a picture of the Whitefish station sign, to prove that I have stood on solid ground in Montana. I check the state off my list, and get back on the train, so as not to be left behind. It has happened to somebody during my journey. Being left behind (or "duffeled," as Paul Theroux called the tragedy in his great train-travel book The Great Railway Bazaar) is an expensive disaster for a train traveler.
[Time Capture: Saturday Morning, August 29. I am having a terrible time writing the above and below. I am in the combination lounge car and diner on The City Of New Orleans, whose tracks from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi are no better than the last time I came this way. In the short time between my fingers' attempts to strike a key, the movement of the car shifts so sharply and so often that almost every word has a typo. About an hour ago, I took a shower on board during the stop in Greenwood, just so I could get that slippery task done while the train was still. End of Capture; we now return to today's diary.]
Whitefish is the last stop before we cross the Continental Divide in a few hours. As the train approaches Glacier National Park, the peaks begin to look worn, decline to high but rounded hills, and finally become prairies. All this happens in the time it takes to eat dinner. I am joined by the same couple with whom I dined yesterday evening, with the addition of a young blonde woman--a girl, really, to my eyes. She has just finished a tour of duty working at Glacier in a wide variety of capacities. After first establishing my place in world by saying that my wife Mary Ann did the same sort of thing in the Grand Canyon when she was this girl's age, I tell her that she is the first person I've ever seen whose complexion actually glows, in the way that fashion ads and television commercials suggest cosmetics can make happen for all women. It is more likely that it came from working in Glacier for a long time. I will not see any of these people again.
[title type="h5"]Thursday, August 27, 2015.
Crossing The Prairies And Falling Further Behind.
[/title]
I have not mentioned the diner's food lately. The same menu that was present on the Sunset Limited and the Coast Starlight also obtains here on the Empire Builder. I keep coming back to French toast for breakfast, the panneed chicken with onion gravy for lunch, and the steak with the red wine and peppercorn sauce for dinner. But tonight I note that I have not sampled the roast half-chicken on any of these trains. It is something I have always enjoyed on trains going all the way back to the beginning of this hobby. I get it tonight, and except for its being a little dry (I guess they don't have time to brine the birds beforehand), it serves my hunger well.
Once the landscape turns into rolling flatlands in various golden shades, I recall a similar scene from my first train odyssey in 1978. The California Zephyr--which I have decided will retain the title of Most Eye-Filling Rail Run of my life--passed through scenery like this from Ogden, Utah through most of of southern Wyoming. I had not seen its like since then, and I am happy to do so for much of the day today.
And then it gets dark, and we enter the worst part of the construction zone. A lot of slow motion, and lot of bumps and grinds. From my laptop I fire up several hours' worth of a music show called "To Your Good Health," a CBS Radio show from the early 1940s sponsored by Squibb. In addition to calming you down with easy music, it asks you to use Squibb tooth powder. I like this show because most of the music is performed by a very good chorus. It plays all night for me as the Empire Builder (named for James J. Hill, a railroad magnate in the early 1900s) bangs along.
Unfortunately, not long after I fall sleep, we make the first of four stops in North Dakota. Before I awaken, we are past the last one in that state. And North Dakota remains unchecked on my list of states whose soil I have stood upon, along with South Dakota. They are the only ones left.
[title type="h5"]Friday, August 28, 2015.
Late, But Who Cares. A Scary Cab Driver.[/title]
When I awaken at six-thirty we are where the train should have been at three in the morning. This is perfectly fine with me. My itinerary is well buffered, with a full free day and then some in Chicago, where I have a hotel room waiting for me tonight. Almost everyone else with a connecting train there will miss it. But Amtrak will put those people up in a hotel. But will they be able to get a sleeper on tomorrow's running of the train they missed? Even though it cost me, not having to worry about all this is worth the expense.
The main points of interest along today's rails are more urban than wide-open spaces. When we pass through Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Mississippi River appears much wider than I remember from past trips. (One of which took me to Lake Itasca, where you can walk across the Mississippi in a few steps.) It's almost as wide as the river in New Orleans, but not nearly as deep.
Also bigger than I recall is the city of Milwaukee, where the old, tall brick warehouses where manufacturing was accomplished in the days when everything sold in America was made here. What becomes of all these huge, abandoned edifices?
The train makes up a little time, but when it arrives in Chicago Union Station it's more than four hours late. I chose my hotel for its proximity to the train station, but became self-conscious about asking a cabbie to carry me only five blocks. Indeed, he wasn't happy about it. He hauls ass around the corners, almost laying peels. I tip him well, but I was so uneasy about the situation that I almost left one of my bags inthe trunk. I am acting more and more like an old, careless man every day. But then my mother told me throughout my childhood that I am absent minded.
I check into the hotel, take a shower, and watch the last half-hour of a show about an impossibly good-looking lady cop. That is followed by the news on WLS-TV, on whose morning show I was a guest a few years ago when my Hungry Town book were new. One of their segments, coincidentally, is about the ten-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It's nice to see that people in other places still care.
I am also very much relieved to see that the stock market freefall of a week ago has largely bounced back, and that another financial disaster is not yet in the offing.
I want to stay up and watch Jimmy Kimmel. I have not seen his show, nor those of the new generation of late-night talk and variety shows. To me, Johnny Carson and David Letterman still set the standard. I know how impossibly out of touch that makes me.
[title type="h5"]Friday, August 28, 2015.
Hanging Around Chicago.[/title]
It's amazing that I sleep no better in a hotel than I do on a train. Which is quite well. I'm up at seven, watch the CBS morning news show with its serious yet beautiful female reporters and essential old guy. Another piece about Katrina turns up.
[caption id="attachment_48720" align="alignright" width="270"]
The Berghoff in Chicago.[/caption]I take a shower, then descend to the Elephant & Castle, a British-style pub in the hotel. I have a very good American breakfast (an egg scramble with cheese, bacon, potatoes, and onions, with hollandaise) for all of ten dollars, with juice and coffee, yet. I return to the hotel room, write until it's time to check out, and grab a taxi to Union Station. I feel better about that today, because the hotel doorman says I would be a fool to lug three bags five blocks--especially since I would cross the Chicago River in the process.
In the station, I go to the Metropolitan Lounge--the waiting room for first-class Amtrak passengers. One of the services there is to store luggage until train time, leaving me free to explore the city. I have a lot of time for that: the train doesn't leave until eight o'clock.
I walk on Jackson Boulevard all the way to Lake Michigan. As I wend my way back, I stop at Macy's, which to me will always be Marshall Field's. I walk back and forth in front of The Berghoff, Chicago's oldest restaurant, and one of the few German restaurants anywhere these days. I decide against stopping there for lunch. The breakfast is still with me. I head west in the direction of Greek Town, but that suggests a heavier meal than I feel capable of devouring.
[caption id="attachment_48718" align="alignleft" width="321"]
Union Station, with the former Sears Tower--once the tallest building in the world--in the background. [/caption]I walk along the river, listening to the narrators on the tour boats that pass every two or three minutes. I also see an interesting restaurant called River, but it won't open for dinner anytime soon. A bit of rain falls, but not enough to make me rush in any direction.
I hook my route around Union Station, and find myself across the street from Al's #1, purveyor of the best casual eat in Chicago: the Italian beef sandwich. It looks like a roast beef poor boy, with long-cooked slices of beef with a light but copious gravy. But the flavor is different. Its unique deliciousness comes from the sweet and hot peppers, cooked down in the gravy in a lusty way. No lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, mustard, ketchup, or pickles. You can have cheese if you want, but the consensus among my Chicago friends is that cheese on an Italian beef is wrong.
I like almost everything about a beef ("a beef" is how you refer to it when ordering or in conversation, unless you are explaining the concept to someone; use the word "sandwich" only if you want to be marked as a tourist). The concept has only one problem: the bread. It looks like New Orleans French bread, but it's spongy and soft, even when you limit the gravy component.
[caption id="attachment_48719" align="alignnone" width="480"]
A beef.[/caption]
Another consensus is that the best beef in Chicago comes either from Al's #1 or Johnnie's. Both have been around a very long time. Long enough for the word "iconic" to have settled on them. Also long enough for rituals. In Al's #1, a photograph shows the proper stance to assume while eating a beef. The old guy demonstrating this leans forward in front of the counter along the wall, and rests on both elbows while holding the beef in both hands and chomping down.
I am very happy to have found an outlet of Al's #1 two blocks from the train station. It gives a good starting or ending point for an eating visit to Chicago. It's not much on looks; think about a favorite poor boy joint, and you've about got the picture of Al's.
Al's #1
Chicago: 601 W Adams Street
312-559-2333
Speaking of atmosphere: the neighborhood around Union Station has come a long way from what I remember the first time I visited here in 1978. Much of the downtown then was covered by old, underused warehouses and industrial plants. In the past twenty or thirty years, I notice a distinct change, as dozens of those old piles came down to be replaced by spiffy office buildings. This pattern is heading west, and leaves few of the older buildings intact. But quite a number of historic properties remain.
When I stopped in Chicago twice during my first long train trip in 1978, I would not have felt safe walking around in the neighborhood of Al's. Now those neighborhoods are chic and full of restaurants, shops, and arts spaces. I had thoughts of moving to Chicago back then, and if it had looked the way it does now, I might have done so.
Back to the station to kill the last two of the free eight hours in my schedule today. I see Donald Trump give his stand-up comedy routine for my first time. The guy is hard to shut up, isn't he? That was followed by Anderson Cooper, who recalls Hurricane Katrina, using the footage I distinctly remember watching hour after hour, lubricated by martinis, on the day after the hurricane hit and the flooding began. Cooper was at his best, chiding government officials for not knowing how bad the situation was, let alone doing much about it.
I almost want to stay in the station to watch the whole program, but right then the The City Of New Orleans was ready to take passengers, many of whom are, like me, headed home. There's an irony in there somewhere.
The train leaves on time at five after eight. I am amazed that not only do they open the dining car for dinner, but they do so before the train starts rolling. I've never seen that before. Then something else unusual happened. One of the dining car's waiters recognizes me, having watched the Lost Restaurants of New Orleans many times on Channel 12. He gives me special treatment all the way to New Orleans.
Another nice surprise: one of the entrees on the dinner menu is Creole jambalaya, made with chicken and sausage. It's the first meal I've had during these two weeks that was not in need of copious amounts of pepper. Amtrak doesn't have many theme menus on its trains, but if any train should have special food, The City of New Orleans is the one.
The moon is full, adding some dimension and texture the endless fields of corn along our dark, southbound odyssey. I listen to some more of the dozens of Squibb shows in my laptop. And I remember my many past rides on this train. The first time was so long ago that the train still bore the name "Panama Limited." When I watched the Panama Limited to go by as I walked home from school, I knew I would ride that train myself someday. My father--who I don't believe ever rode a train, let alone a first-class train--told me that I would have to become a wealthy man first. I didn't see a problem with that, and still don't, even though the qualification is not yet achieved.
The next thing I know, I awaken as The City of New Orleans is being serviced in Memphis. I take my good old time heading down to breakfast, where I get French toast, sausage, grits, and--talk about culture shock--a cheese blintz. I am joined by a man who doesn't say a word for about fifteen minutes. Then he starts in on the story of his life. It's pretty interesting, but the politicians he hung with in his career are not among my favorites.
I try to do some writing, but the train rocks so much so continuously that I can't strike the keys accurately. When we get to Greenwood, Mississippi, I jump in the shower before we get going again. Showers on trains are good, but the possibility of slipping must be confronted.
Last call for lunch is in Brookhaven. I have a salad with grilled chicken, and a sugar-free vanilla custard. I tip my fellow Orleanian waiter and thank him.
When I get back to my roomette, I find that the air conditioning is not working. That used to happen all the time in the 1970s, when the new technology of passenger railcars had not yet been perfected. But it hasn't happened lately. They move me to another space in another car.
I have spent during this trip almost a hundred hours in tight spaces exactly like this. I sit back and ruminate over it all. The first thing that comes to mind is smashing my finger in the upper bed's handle on the first day. The finger still shows a brown mark, but it seems to be recovered. That event seems as if it had happened months ago. It's only thirteen days.
This is probably an undertaking I am doing for the last time. As if to prove that point, I unknowingly leave a tie decorated with steam locomotives and railroad tracks. I always wear it at the beginning and end of every train trip. Now it is traveling America by itself, tucked on the floor underneath one of the couches in a sleeping car.
As the train goes into the longest railroad curve in the world (along the western shore of Lake Pontchartrain), I get to talking with the two people in the opposite roomette. They are from Memphis, headed to New Orleans to celebrate an anniversary with lots of food and drink. I give them some advice, and then they tell me all about Memphis food.
That conversation goes on for awhile, and I forget to call Mary Ann to tell her when the train will arrive. Which will be--and how did this happen?--an hour early. She has not left from the North Shore yet. How was she to know? She hates going to Union Passenger Terminal, and suggests that I drag my bags over to Willa Jean, John Besh's new pastry and breakfast restaurant across from the Rouse's downtown. The place is very busy. I ask if I may park my bags with them if I have only some coffee. They welcome me heartily.
Then MA is there. Do I want dinner? No, I tell her. I have been eating much too much. We go home. She still thinks my train obsession is ridiculous, but she sees no problem with my indulging in it as long as she doesn't have to join me.
It takes me two and a half hours for me to catch up with my email. At least I have finished one backed-up job as I get ready to resume my beloved normal routines.
[title type="h3"]Back To Part 1, Backstory: A Box Of Trains[/title]
[title type="h3"]Back To Part 2, New Orleans to Los Angeles[/title]
[title type="h3"]Back To Part 3, Hanging Out In Los Angeles[/title]
[title type="h3"]Back To Part 4, Los Angeles to Seattle[/title]
