Chicago to Seattle, Big Sky Country

I leave Chicago on the Amtrak Empire Builder on a Tuesday morning. I am due to arrive in Seattle on Thursday, so that's three days across the country. I've stocked up on gourmet essentials like herb peppered goats cheese and water crackers, organic cherry tomatoes, Côte D'Or Belgian dark chocolate biscuits, in part for the journey, in part for the trading potential (on sound advice from Matt).

I can hear Brian's voice carrying down the carriage; he's the first to instill what would become a growing sense of a train community on this trip. But I don't know this yet. I don't even know Brian's name is Brian.

We are rambling through the outer suburbs of what I will call Greater Chicago and I overhear Brian introducing himself as he moves his way down the carriage, "from Oregon", he is saying, "... love is all there is."

Is he preaching? He doesn't sound like he's preaching. His first impression is that of a strange ensemble. There's a huge contrast between his words and what I will describe as a disarming voice conducive to gentle laughter somewhere in a low octave.

"No I'm not a Muslim", I hear his reply to someone's ambitous question.

"I'm Christian, but I love all people." His voice now seems slippery in its confidence. I turn in my chair to see him. He has a round face, small teeth of a smile I'd be hesitant to trust and dark, wet-looking hair slicked back into a pony tail. A plastic toothbrush, still in it's plastic wrapper, sticks upright and askew from the top left pocket of his grey suit. He is standing, but rests his bulk comfortably against the side of an empty seat next to him, legs outstretched across the width of the corridor, shiny black shoes crossed at the ankes. I can see his hands held in the air. They look poised for long and ample discussion. "I have a bible myself.. here", Brian's widespread hands barely pause in his delivery and, before I learn where 'here' is, I've projected my attention outside to the passing residential shapes of Chicago suburbia.

* * * * *

It's much later when I hear another raised voice, and know that Brian is involved.

"Every country and every nation, there are good people and there are bad people. You cannot say that Muslims are bad...", and I tune out once again.

* * * * *

I've been asked if I'm from Washington D.C.

"No, I'm from Australia."

"Ahhh... Good Daaaaiii", my neighbour says, "Australians make words longer", he feels reason to explain to me.

"We shorten the Good", I say. "G'day", "as in Gudday mate." See?

He's enthusiastic, "Yes!, Gudaaaai!"

"The Australians eat the words!"

I smile at his perceptive description and scribble in my notebook.

* * * * *

I'm seated at a communal table in the dining car and introduce myself to my dining companions. I am the youngest by several tens of years, and I've entered the tail end of a political discussion.

"Bush has never been voted in," the gentleman opposite me [I have forgotten his name] is making a point.

"The first time he was appointed-," he begins.

"The second time there was lots of hanky-panky," his wife finishes for him, leaning across his table setting for the golden tabs of butter.

I smile at her indignant use of the word 'hanky-panky'.

I ask Dusty, spelt the name badge pinned on our waiter, in which carriage I would find the evening movies played in. "Is it the lounge car?, upstairs or downstairs?, where am I?," I question all in one. [I am sometimes wont to do this, fire questions in illogical unision.]

"Upstairs and downstairs," he says.

"Depending on the movie?" I ask, monotone, like a witty quipp, and the delivery of my line prompts riotous laughter from the table. I don't understand my own joke, can't bring to ask again and later must investigate the movie car for myself.

5 hours on the train and I've spent US$12 on wine.

"Have you seen that train movie with Cary Grant?", Davi, sitting next to me, proffers. I hadn't.

"It was nothing like this," Davi says.

* * * * *

It is sometime after 1am when I wake in my chair and gaze out the window at a distant full moon cast over a frozen landscape. Plains of white dissipate into a blurred horizon. I force myself to stay awake to savour stolen images whilst I imagine the train - and the world - sleeps.

Montana; they call it big sky country.

Photographs

[From the top - Dakota snow; Big sky Montana at 1am]

Obscure Tangents

Julie the Amtrak God - "This piece reminds me of my method of picking my next train destination by asking the agent where I could go with the remaining currency I have left for that country."

Matt Donath