November 13, My Last Day In The USA

After a good night sleep in my roomette and a nice breakfast I'm sitting in the sightseeing car although by now we are back in corn-country and the water. A little while ago we left Kansas City on the Missouri. Soon the train will travel over the Mississippi river, this time on the last remaining double swing span bridge on the river; the top level for cars, the bottom for the train. This morning the whole family of Amish is there, mom, dad, and several grown-up children getting exited and when the bridge comes they all rush to the window to get a closer look laughing and rejoicing at such a simple thing like riding on the train over the Mississippi river. Now that I think of it, I'm there for the same reason! I love bridges and rivers!

At lunch time I sit with Gerry and Martin that I had met the night before. I have to squeeze in near a huge man who starts to chat with Gerry and in a few words introduction is done. They talk briefly about when they were there and where, but to my relief the conversation quickly changes to family, money, kids, property, and every day stuff. Vietnam Vets. Martin and I are listening, and just so to be polite we pretend to be interested in the conversation. Beside myself he seams to be the other lonely tourist travelling to Detroit just for the fun of it. The others have things to do, mostly family business: some one is getting married, some son just got married and the trip is done to meet the new wife, some are off to a funeral, others to visit friends they have not seen in a long time or, there is a high school reunion. One could ride the train and fill note books upon note books with stories.

My Grand Circle Trip ends at "un-eventful Galesburg". I decide to read up about the city: "Galesburg was the home of writer and historian Carl Sandburg and the side of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate at Knox College in 1858. It was also the home of the first anti-slavery society in Illinois and and important stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War."

As I grab my suitcase a couple of hours later, I can't help but staring at the beautiful poster featuring a speeding Amtrak train through red cliffs and tall cacti advertising the Texas Eagle: Chicago-San Antonio-Los Angeles!

November 12, On The Amtrak

I'm back on the Amtrak bounded for Chicago. That means a bed, lunch, dinner, breakfast and a last lunch before arriving at Chicago Union Station. This time I'm on the Southwest Chief that runs daily from Los Angeles to Chicago. At Albuquerque where I board it, the train stopped long enough for the passengers to get off and look at the Navajo art set up right beside its opening doors. While the artists where setting up, I went to check it out, had a chat with 2 sisters selling hand made jewellery and bought 2 pairs of ear rings for my daughters in Canada knowing that they would never wear them. One doesn't even have her ears pierced. I ended up wearing them myself, sometimes 2 in one ear lobe, it looks very Indian.

The trip on the night bus from Las Vegas to Albuquerque took 14 hours; the crowd on the bus was not unlike the one I had already experienced: 2 extremely annoying girls talking and swearing all night long, lonely men, mostly black a couple of young people that looked like tourists. I suspect we drove through nothing but desert because when light came and I woke up after having slept a little, we drove through a desert for another 3 hours. Which one was this? I suspect one of the most impressive desert in the US, the Painted Desert with its beautiful, red cliffs. Albuquerque seams to be at the end of the desert, yellow city, buildings made out of sand stone, a very practical Greyhound/Amtrak station with super friendly staff. I was tempted to stay and check out Santa Fe, but when I realized that the train bounded for greener fields was just an hour away, I decided that maybe I had seen enough desert for the time being!

The train has just stopped at Raton, the last stop in the state of New Mexico. About half an hour ago the sun set in a cloudy sky behind the Rocky Mountains to the West. We are way East of the Rockies but they look beautiful in the distance. Here too the pattern is familiar: boarded up homes, humongous junk jards. One town in particular caught my attention. It was surrounded by junk: old cars, scrap iron, mountains of tires, lumber. But the train stopped to let out a very pretty girl, high heels and all!

After Las Vegas, NM the train heads into the Great Plains, yellow grass as far as the eye can see, and as a young man sitting in the Sightseeing car explains: "Yep, all the way to Mexico." I can't help but repeat to myself what I just heard. "All the way to Mexico... and of course all the way to Canada". But where is the water? This land is so dry, does it ever rain? Bison country. Lonely farms, some abandoned, one or two cows here and there looking sometimes just like little specks on the horizon. Among the passengers taking in the sights before it gets dark are an elderly Amish couple. For a while I listen to their old German, I can make out a few words. "Guck mal", says the woman, "an lonely kuh". That's how empty the American Prairies are!

November 11, La Vegas

The bells are ringing in Las Vegas when I check out from the hotel I've stayed at. I just bought a ticket on the evening bus to Albuquerque, NM. The lady that sold my ticket looked like a nun, dressed in blue with a gorgeous cross on her chest. It doesn't take me long to find out why the bells are ringing: it's Nov. 11, 11 minutes after 11! I wonder if those ringing bells are real!

On my way to a cheaper Internet cafe than the one in the hotel lobby, and as I wonder about "The Working Nun" at the Greyhound station, I walk right into the Remembrance day parade. At first it looks pretty harmless: a handful of very old veterans marching behind a slow moving van with more very old veterans. Then I see the first high school bands: girls swinging their school and their American flags, the marching band, young man and women in uniform marching to the beat of the drums and then comes the shock. Kids, boys and girls with guns! High school bands after high school bands, and the same pattern: first the girls bearing flags, then the band followed by the guns. Wait a minute I need to ask someone why the kids are carrying guns! I look at the people lining the sidewalk with their little flags, children with their parents and grand parents, ladies wearing T-shirts that say: "Proud Military Mom", old, sad looking men wearing their war medals and dusty uniforms, more marching veterans, this time younger looking and carrying a sign that says: "Freedom Is Not Free". I feel totally lost. Finally I see a lady walking her dog. She does not seam too interested in what's going on, and so I summon up the courage to ask her why the kids are carrying guns. "I know", she says, "I don't like it either, I hope those guns are not loaded". Then she tries to explain that in some high schools in America the kids enrol in a pre-military program, maybe at some schools, not at all schools...She i not too sure....I decide to leave but not before I watch hundreds of motorcycles followed by some beautiful, old cars and the closing truck with bails of hey and carrying the little miss Las Vegas princess in her sweet dress, surrounded by children carrying a flag that says: "Children Of America Support Our Troops".

After the parade I decide to try to cheer up by visiting one of the many wedding chapels on the streets. I read that there are more than 200 wedding chapels in Las Vegas. The first one is a bit disappointing, very white! I try another one and another one but they all look the same : white interiors, white benches, white and red or pink artificial roses, little white cherubs. These wedding chapels look more like funeral chapels to me! Las Vegas has a slum that I wanted to check out, but all of a sudden I feel tired of America. The last thing I see in day time Las Vegas before I immerse myself in the world of the Internet is a sign on a very vacant lot that says: "Motel Ambassador, Thanks For The Memories".

The Mojave Desert

November 10, The Grand Canyon

The passengers have just gotten off the mini van that took us to the Grand Canyon and we are standing there looking. As I stand there holding taightly to the railing, I look down, down through the layers of white, grey, pink, purple rocks, I feel slightly dizzy, but that must be because we are at 7000 feet above sea level. It could although well be because I was born in a deep valley surrounded by high mountains: I get a feeling of upside down mountains and for a split of a second I don't know if I like it. Then I start to walk. We are on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with a great view of the North Rim; with a bit of immagination I can see the river down below snaking through the canyon. It's a breathtaking view and te colours are fantastic, but as I walk I realize that my dream to hike the Grand Canyon one day has just evaporated! I am so dizzy that I feel I have just lost all desire to walk down this upside down mountain! At the visitor centre, I look through the telescope with a sign:" Is there a river down below?" What looked like a path at the very bottom of the canyon turns out to be the raging Colorado river. Neat! Near the telescope a man with a park uniform and a beard down to his chest is telling people how he likes to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon at night, and only at night. It's especially beautiful when the moon shines. He tells people that he hiked it just once during the day; it was so hot that he almost killed his family! Another reason not to want to hike the Grand Canyon, ever!

The leisurly walk takes about 2 hours and it's back on the van for our long trip back. Travelling with me are a young Japanese couple, an elderly couple from New England visiting Vegas because it's cheap and not because of the casinos and another couple from Buffalo. On the way to the canyon our driver-guide gave us information on the many places we drove through. First there was the Eastern Mojave Desert, a picture stop at the Hoover Dam where a new highway is being built to allow heavy traffic through the region. Works on an impressive high bridge above the canyon were in full swing, and when I said that it was beautiful the driver said: "Yeah Silvia, this will be the next bridge for you to bike on". I was glad to encounter my first Joshua trees, "arms" stretched to the sky like in a prayer; pinyin pines followed by ponderosa pines, Utah junipers and banana yucca. All strange but very beautiful trees and plants. At Kingman we stopped to look at an old steam locomotive that used to run between Kingman and Santa Fe. The young Japanese lady seamed more intrigued by the fact that the pecans fom a near pecan tree were edible, and I showed her how to crack them with a rock. It would have been a great trip if it had not been for the lack of silence. 5 movies were showed during the trip: 2 had to do with our trip, one was about the construction of the famous Hoover Dam, the other about the canyon , but then there were 3 silly movies and not a moment of silence. Pity. One passenger had expressed the desire to see the stars in the desert, but there were no stops once the night set in. I couldn't help but smile: at least from the Greyhound bus the night before I had seen the stars over the desert.