Whew this is way better than a plane. I’m not packed in like a sardine, I’m allowed to get up and move, and I’m not worried about being bombed.. We’re currently sitting in the lounge on the train to Whitefish, Montana ( hooray). There is a cute little Amish couple sitting at the table booth right behind us, and they make me happy. He has the very bowl like haircut, beard and glasses, and she has the cute little bonnet and fully covering dress, his undershirt is the same color as her dress. The Amish are the only exception to the no matching rule, and only because they are adorable.I don’t know if it is illegal to take pictures of the Amish, but I just did, so you all can enjoy their cuteness as well.
Today is Autumn’s Birthday, she is the big twenty-five. Our day didn’t go as planned, but has been wonderful all around regardless. We ignored our alarms, and slept in until almost ten AM. Once up we leisurely got ready, and made plans to possibly go to an afternoon showing of Robin Hood after a morning yoga session. YOU WOULD NEVER BELIEVE, BUT AUTUMN ASKED ME TO DO YOGA. The first half hour was full of grumpiness, lets just say not on my end, lots of I hate downward dog, and upward dog, and chaturangas (otherwise known as chimichangas.. helen), but once we got into the balancing stage, tree pose and down to the floor she was nice and zenned out you could say and normal pleasant autumn. We had some good laughs at her attempts to do several poses, and the lameness of her Yoga, but I still love her. After yoga we realized it was already almost 1pm. Yes, this is how slow we are. SO we made a yummy birthday brunch of black bean burgers on english muffins, with what I think was escarole I bought from the farmers market, and some sautéed asparagus. (p.s Autumn just told me the Amish don’t like their photo taken because it is considered a graven image and preserving what can’t be preserved.. woops)
After breaky Autumn went to Safeway to buy some soil to replant our edamame plants. They are looking pretty weak, and I really want them to grow! Whilst out and about she met a homeless man named Steve to whom she offered to buy a ham sandwich. Unfortunately, Steve wanted a rheuben, but safeway did not carry them, so he then asked for an egg salad sandwich, which they also did not carry, and finally he asked for a grilled cheese. Autumn came back home to make him a grilled cheese only to realize we did not have bread, so we made it on an english muffin. We then had to have the conversation about having grace and just loving on the homeless population here. Sometimes it can be really hard, because it seems like they are so ungrateful, but then again we are so ungrateful about so many things who are we to judge. It really makes people like Matthew, and Moglie so great to get lunch or dinner or whatever for, because they are so polite and grateful it just makes us want to really get them exactly what they would like from wherever verses someone who is asking me for a specific odwalla juice or vegan food from whole foods, and doesn’t want anything otherwise. ( I don’t have money to buy myself odwalla.. and I’m working 2 jobs, what in the world. )
SO anyways, after the sandwich debacle we “rushed” to clean up our apartment, pack our bags, both shower, make hummus and also slide in an impromptu dance party ( actually our second of the morning, seeing as it was Audi’s b-day.) All of this was attempted in un hour. yes, one hour. We needed to be at the max stop by 3:45 to ride to the train station to pick up our tickets 30 minutes early and leave at 4:45.
3:45 we are still packing our bags, autumn is drying her hair and for once, I am ready to go. It was madness.
4:00 We are running down the hall and out the door, when I see the mail man arriving with our mail. I make autumn wait, whilst she is freaking out, so we can see if their are any birthday cards for her. To her delight there was a b-day card from both Ashley williams and our grandmother.
4:05 Running down columbia with a backpack, my camera bag, and large cooler. Autumn is trailing behind me with a huge duffel and my purse. It is hard to run so we decide to speed walk instead. I am brushing past people saying, “excuse us, professional speed walkers training.” We are now noodley from laughter. As we come upon 6th ave we see the MAX line going by. I dart out in front of traffic, thanks for stopping portland drivers, and across the street to the MAX stop. Autumn is still across the block, as per usual. I get to the doors just as they are closing and shove my arm in. I have to stand in the doorway to keep the doors from closing again and autumn finally arrives, along with a few other stragglers. When we plopped down to catch our breath, Autumn told me she had yelled, “get the tickets!” as i caught the max. Isn’t she adorable, she wanted me to leave her and get our tickets and just race as fast as she could to union station. She would have never made it. Thank God we caught the MAX. Met a nice man on the train named C.W. He said he took the train to Pasco often and that it was a comfy and beautiful ride. I definitely agree with him. The sun has just started to set and the sky that once was bright and creamy with yellows and orange has now turned to a periwinkle blue with shades of cotton candy pink. I think clouds are one of my favorite parts of nature, how thick and full they can look or whispy and light.
Back to the beginning of the trip:
4:15 We arrived at union station only to find out our veterans advantage discount from my Dad isn’t valid unless we have the card with us, even though we have already purchased our tickets online. After an additional $ 50.00 to pay we have our tickets and our waiting to board. We are in the second train car and pick the very front seat of a Row, yay for computer outlets. We set up all our bags and reach into Your cooler for some water and come out with some orange gunk on our hand. Uhh-- what is this?? No, not really... crap.. it’s our hummus. it must have gotten smooshed in the run to the max line, because the lid has been shoved down into the container and it has exploded onto all our other goods. .. lovely. Normally not a big deal, but Audi went a little heavy on the garlic this batch and you can smell it from a mile away.. and it is saturating my skin. After several trips to the bathroom to rinse our cooler contents and get plenty of paper towels, the crisis is taken care of and we can meet the people nearby. Our seat neighbors are from China. We start talking to one of them and find out they are on their way to Harvard to speak at a conference on linguistics, and also education reform. He is very talkative and really nice, asking lots of questions. He is 24 and his English name is Robert, but his real name is Zou Shun Peng and he is traveling with his father, who is also speaking at the conference. His father’s english name is Jean Couch. He told us the first english name he picked was Robot. lol. His professors told him that americans would think he was unfriendly if that was his name and told him to change it to Robert. he gave us his card with his email and phone number in case we are ever visiting Beijing. It’s so strange to be so unaware of how everything works in the rest of the world. he is so up to date on everything about the states but I had no idea some of the stuff going on in China. He is an only child, because of laws restricting family size due to over population. That is so sad to me, to not even have a choice in having multiple children. I couldn’t live in China. Sadly, because of customs at the airport we do not get to try amazing chinese dried beef. He brought some with him, but it was confiscated at the airport. He seemed really sad about it, as were we. He did give us a Yen which is pronounced Yuwen. They are adjusting to a huge time zone difference and are in much need of a nap so while we are up here blogging to all you lovely friends and family they are catching some ZZzz’s and should be joining us us a bit for some cards. Robert asked if we played earlier and was surprised to hear us say we played capitalism.. lol. socialism he called it. After he had fallen asleep I packed up the cards we had gotten out only to see they were made in China. I tapped Autumn, and we both had a laugh. Visitors from Chins need to check what they are buying, pointless to buy something in America that was really from China, which 80 % at least of our things are. It was really nice and made me appreciate even more what a beautiful place we live in seeing him so excited about the scenery. I definitely take all the green around me for grant it a large majority of the time, so it’s nice to just sit on the train and soak it all in. So far by train is my travel method of choice. It’s lovely to have no where to be with my bestie in the whole world and beautiful scenery rolling and changing alongside us. The clouds went from fresh whipped Chantilly to shadows in the dull blue night sky. Out the right side of the train we can see a storm in the distance that must be pretty torrential, because we can see the rain dumping out of the charcoal grey blobs and lightning bursting between. The only other lights are an occasional cabin or home and the few mills or power plants we chug by. “ Look at those pretty lights!” autumn exclaimed. “ Thats a power plant my dear” I responded. “Oh” she said “ Yes, but they’re pretty lights.. it’s kind of like it’s a barge!” (For Courtney Seigler, being excited about a barge, only to find out it was a trash barge.) On that note I will leave you all for the night. I’m swaying back and forth with the train and Autumn and I have just snagged a corner booth in the lounge to finish watching Jane Austin’s Mansfield Park. We also have a version of Persuasion we haven’t seen yet and Amelie. Oh how I love the train. Happy Birthday to Autumn, the best sister I could have dreamed up.
p.s. i just received a response text from Grandma jeanine. Yes you read correctly, the infamous grandma jeanine is now texting. We text her to let her know we were on the train and on our way. She responded: “ Good, sleep on your money. see you both soon. love you.” I thought I had read it incorrectly, but no, I love my grandmother.
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