Home Contents ************************** From Kansas to Raton. Raton, New Mexico. Next time you see a poorly painted building on a model train layout, remember this picture. One of many conductors ofer the past eight days. From Raton to Albaquerque. Farhad makes a phone call. A bad picture of a really odd house in New Mexico. Taking rock out of the ground in Albaquerque. This railcar has seen better days. A new conductor. Loading baggage. Our cook. Trading with the Indians in Albaquerque. A New Mexico lightning storm. Go to June 17th.

Day 8 June 16th, 2007 Kansas to a New Mexico Thunderstorm It was foggy in Kansas when I was awakened at 6:30am by a train attendant telling me that the lounge was opening and I had to get up. That was no problem, I wanted to be up anyway and watched through the windows, where the corn of Illinois and Missouri had become wheat in Kansas. I had the Tuscan Omelette for breakfast. It was the same omelette I had on my way to Montana in 2005, but it wasn't as good. I don't know if it was just I was expecting too much or if it was just that the last time I had it was on my Trip of Wonderful Meals. The chocolate milk, on the other hand, was perfect. The waiter lined the "glass" with Hershey's syrup and poured the milk from two feet up, mixing it and foaming it all in one shot. It's the kind of trick only years (something like forty years in the business - he'd been doing this for the Southern Pacific before there was an Amtrak) of experience can teach you. I ate alone, but it took the waiter so long to get around to picking up my empty plate that I was joined by a couple from Chicago on their way to Las Vegas. It was their first real train ride and they were loving every minute. We crossed the border into Colorado at around 8:30 Mountain Time. I spent much of the morning talking with a lady from New Jersey. She was traveling all the way to Los Angeles, and had even been on my train from New York. We talked about all the usual stuff: Where you are going, where you come from, train opinions, etc. We also talked about the east coast, California and house prices. Her son, Farhad (which could be way off), came over and she left to get some sleep in their compartment. He had all of his books - studying to be a doctor - but it was too noisy in their sleeper to study. We talked for a really long time about train travel, and this trip in particular. Being from New Jersey, the Colorado desert really kept him entertained. It's interesting to see the different things that interest people...Lisa Marie from Florida facinated by silos, Farhad from New Jersey captivated by the desert, and me from the central coast of California with a million pictures of the Chrysler Building. At 12:30 local time we rolled into Raton NM and the Boy Scout occupation army got off the train. The train would be empty for a while, but not for very long. I was typing away on my PDA just outside of Albaquerque when someone walked by and said "Hey, you get Internet on that?" There were a couple of houses outside so I thought "what the hell" and plugged in my network card. Sure enough, somebody out there had an open network and I hopped on the internet to send a quick email. In Albaquerque the train was occupied by the Boy Scouts again, but this group was a lot quieter than the last one. They were heading for LA to spend some time on Catalina Island. I guess summer is the season for Boy Scouts. It started getting dark once we left Albaquerque, and for several minutes we were treated to a lightning storm in the distance. I had my last dinner on the train with John and Linda, the same people that I had breakfast with in the morning. We were briefly joined by a guy who sat down, discovered they were out of the chicken pizza and salmon, and decided to walk out saying how unacceptable it was for them to run out of stuff and he would write Amtrak a letter. He said that he does that often and gets as many freebees as possible. One of those people that was born grumpy, I guess. So John and I spent the next several minutes talking about him behind his back. There are definintely two kind of train travelers...those that should be on a train and those that shouldn't. We spent a lot of time talking about Chicago. They liked hearing a traveler's positive opinion of the city. At this point we were running three hours late and I was making plans for my missed connection in LA. I really wanted to come up the coast on the Coast Starlight and not the Pacific Surfliner. I guess I'd have to wait and see in the morning. I fell asleep that night somewhere in Colorado and didn't wake up until we were in California. Go to June 17th.