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Yesterday began a long journey to Florida with my husband’s ROTC class. The distance from West Virginia to Florida is much greater when you take a train…our interesting choice. There are 19 kids, mostly 11th graders, and 3 adults, mostly still young enough to agree to do this. Traveling by train is quite an experience. You move quickly through the backyards of America. I’ve noticed that the land around the railroad tracks is used like some giant junk drawer…all the stuff that someone used at one time and doesn’t want to get rid of because they might need it again, except that the junk is like cars and steel and building material. The people that choose train travel are unique as well. There seems to be two groups of people. The first are fun loving adventurous people who like to take the road less traveled. I, of course, count our group in that number. The rest are, well, weird. People that fly on planes have nice coats and read books and know things. The second group of train travelers doesn’t. They have to be told to be quiet and to put their trash in the can and they have tattoos of things on exposed parts of their bodies that differentiate a PG-13 move from an R rated one. Late at night large groups of them sit in the lounge car and drink Budweiser from a can and play cards with complete strangers. Our trip took us through the night, which involves no sleep unless you spring for the $100, more per night sleeper car, which we did not. They give you a “pillow” that is stuffed with the swabs from the ends of about 6 Q-Tips. Fortunately, my daughter Kirsten left a BuckWheat Travel Pillow behind when she divested herself of all earthly goods while leaving for the mission field. I wasn’t going to bring it because it was heavy and kind of stupid but at the last minute I threw it in my carry on. Praise God for that! It gave me something substantial to drool on while I fought for sleep. Amtrak makes lots of stops along its route through out the night, picking up passengers. It allows smokers to get out and have a few puffs at each stop as well. This is probably a smart policy as smokers can get a little grumpy without their fix and some of the people are scary when they’re not grumpy…so please, go take a quick smoke break! In a few hours we will be departing the train in Cocoa Beach and this will all be behind us until Saturday when we head back home. I’ll think of you all as I lay by the pool! |
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Posted by Kirk
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