(July 26, 2016): On the Train to Glenwood Springs, Colorado
The next adventure begins.
We will cover many more miles than the last adventure,
generally in greater comfort, until we don’t.
At the centerpiece of this journey is a long hike along the ancient
Camino de Santiago/Way of St. James in northern Spain. We will begin that piece on or around
September 6 and expect to be walking until mid-October.
That portion of the trip will be a physical, mental, and
spiritual challenge. We will walk from
St. Jean Pied de Port on the foot of the Pyrenees in southwestern France, cross
the mountains into Basque Spain, then walk 500 miles to Santiago de Compostela,
the traditional goal of the pilgrimage.
We hope to walk another 70 miles to the Atlantic Ocean at Finisterre.
Along the way, we plan to stay at the various albergues
(pilgrim hostels) or refugios (pilgrim huts) provided by various volunteer
and religious groups along the way. These are generally no-frills dorms used by
the many thousands of people who come from all over the world to take this
walk. We are interested to meet these
people, but hope that the lack of privacy, the noise of snoring (including our
own), and general hubbub does not mean we can’t sleep. As we know from trying to camp in the heat
after a long day of cycling, bad sleep means a bad adventure.
It will be an exercise in simplicity. We will carry very
little, about 15 pounds each. We have
lightweight, but fully supported backpacks.
We have been practicing—a bit—with them.
We have gone on a few trips using just the materials we are taking,
honing the pack, eliminating and adding clothes and personal items. I am trying not to make the same mistake we
made with the cross-country bike trip.
We were carrying gloves, hats, and fleeces we would need in October when
we started out in July, when we were facing temperatures near 100̊F.
We dumped them halfway through Washington.
I successfully fought the desire to pack ankle braces and
elastic bandages. But somehow, I still
have a few pounds of personal items like moleskin, aspercreme and other “I know
this is going to hurt” stuff.
Prudence? Fear?
I am trying to have enough trust that I will be able to get
what I need—in Spanish—when and if I need it.
However, the “we might” and “we could” and “what if” functions in my brain
are well-trodden paths . “It’ll be fine,” and “deal with it when and if it arrives” are
more unfamiliar functions.
Traveling light and having faith: those are two watchwords
for this journey. Plus, learning about
the state of the world from the people we encounter. We are poking our nose above the fence of our
everyday American lives. What’s
happening out there?
While the sojourn across the country was, in many ways, a
journey away…from work, from our middle years, from the home-centered identity
which had held us fast for so long---this is a journey to. To? To…a deeper conversation with God, a
broader fellowship with the world, a new way of earning a living. Or so I think. Who knows what the journey will actually
bring.
I didn’t know I was finding a way to leave Matrix for good
when I started on the bike trip. But
that is what the trip brought me. I
thought I was just going to re-boot my relationship to work. Wrong.
So here I am, sitting in the exhibition car of the
California Zephyr. Looking out over the
vast expanses of corn that are the hallmark of America’s midsection. In my sight, a young Eur-Am family, two strawberry
blonde boys bored by their father’s attempts to entertain them with a card
game. To their left, a retired couple;
the husband’s shirt is nearly identical to Wes’ grey green Hawaiian
blouse. They stare inconsolately at the
Amish father and son, who came to sit at their table and now fitfully snooze
across from them. They are both wearing
blue shirts and black vests. Their hair
is cut into a Dutch-boy bob. The father
has a 19th century patriarch grey beard (no mustache, cut low on the chin and
straggling six inches down to his chest.)
Patriarch dad announced to uncomfortable retirees that they are from Canton,
Ohio. He speaks loudly with a pronounced German-ish
accent. His son is baby-faced and pink
cheeked, with a prominent long nose. At
fourteen or so, he is as beautiful as he ever will be.
I don’t know if they are Amish. They could be
Mennonite. There are many, many of them
on this train heading west and they surprise me. The women wear starched white caps over their
hair, and all are wearing long skirts.
Their affect is 19th century, until I see one with a digital
camera taking a family photo in Chicago Union Station’s Great Hall. Or I see a pair of blue aviator sunglasses
perched on the brim of black felt hat.
Or catch a glimpse of flip-flops under a capacious gingham skirt.
Behind them, a middle-aged Afram couple is playing dominoes. Both are wearing sweatshirts; she has a line
of white ringlets running down the middle of her head, in sharp contrast to
smooth black hair above her ears. I
suspect it is a hairpiece. She looks a
bit like a gilded age skunk.
Behind us, a Euram family crams into two benches surrounding
a table. For a moment, the two sons
joined my table. Resplendent in bright
orange t-shirts, I noticed the gaggle waiting at the gate. I asked the boys if they were part of
group. The younger, about 10 years old
with helmet tan colored hair, stared at me wide-eyes. His older brother (?), more confident at the
age 13, tells me they are a family going to see their aunt in Denver. I ask if they are going to a family
reunion. They don’t answer, and soon
scoot away to cram in with two women and two girls.
The diner car attendant is a comedian who regularly comes on
the loudspeaker to announce “pineapple forests” or the “mountains of Illinois.” We are joined by a mother and daughter. She is slight, with a shag haircut, well
sprinkled with grey. Her daughter has
shoulder length hair, lightly curled at her shoulders, dusted with scarlet dye
over her black base. They are originally
from southern China. Mom is visiting her
daughter, a purchaser for Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, and they are on their
way to San Francisco. Mom is an 80-year old
pediatric nurse who looks about 65 years old. While she has a narrow face, her
daughter’s face is quite round, but they share in common a long nose with wide nostrils. They often laugh, and their noses crinkle and
eyes nearly disappear in their delight.
 |
| Heather and Wii Chee |
Mom is visiting from Yangjiang. A few years ago, after her businessman
husband died, the daughter, who now goes by the name of Heather, brought her
namesake mother, Wii Chee (?) to live with them in Troy, Michigan. However, Wii Chee doesn’t speak English,
doesn’t drive, and was isolated and bored in suburban Detroit. So she moved back to China but comes to visit
for long stretches of time. She will be
here for 5 months on this trip. Heather’s
husband was to have been traveling with them.
A businessman in Troy, he was called back to China after his mother had
a stroke. He has been back three times
and recently missed his youngest daughter’s graduation from high school.
Heather came to US as the lone female engineering student at
the University of Nebraska. She worked
as an engineer for some years, landing in Belleville, Michigan and working for
the automotive supply company Borg Warner.
She disliked engineering, and found her way to becoming one of three
purchasers of steel for Ford. She has
been doing this for 15 years and loves it.
She is only purchaser with a background in engineering, which gives her
an advantage both in and out of the company.
Neither son nor daughter, both born in the United States,
were interested in following their mother’s interest in mechanical
engineering. The 25 year old son is
studying medicine and the daughter will go to UM to study business. Wes points out that it quite common for
grandchildren to follow the employment patterns of the grandparents. When Heather tells her mother, the older
woman’s eyes widen, then she laughs and laughs, saying she never noticed that. We
visit and visit, about cars, kids, and steel, until they are called to dinner.
Seated for dinner later, we sit across from two sisters
Martha and Margaret, both college professors on their way to San
Francisco. Martha is professor of Latin
in the Classics department at SUNY-Buffalo, while Margaret is a professor of
history at Las Cruces, New Mexico. We have a long talk about the price of
college and the indentured servitude
students now enter. Martha tells of a
graduate student in her department who entered the program with $100,000 in
debt and has now accrued another $50,000.
We can’t conceive how he will ever pay for it.
I remember when the US thought an educated populace was a
social good. Margaret tells that she paid $50 a semester at UC-Berkley. The tuition is now $10,000 a semester. Martha remarks that we just aren’t making the
investments we need in students, road, or infrastructure. And then we are off to the races politically…
The next morning we have breakfast with a couple traveling
to San Francisco. Denise a small
energetic woman with short hair and a straightforward manner; she is an
American-born radio astronomer at the University of Cork, Ireland. Paul has brownish shaggy hair that he
regularly sweeps away from his face, and a strong body hidden in baggy nerd clothes.
He was raised near Cambridge, England and recently retired as a communications
engineer for British Rail. They met on a
development study trip in Ecuador, where they spent six weeks in close quarters
and have been inseparable since. We have
long conversation about alternative energy, of which they are knowledgeable and
passionate. When we part, Paul laughs,
saying their previous conversation with fellow travelers had been all about
llama breeding.
Our final encounter is with a young couple in the first
flushes of their love affair. They are
in the early 20’s, on their way to a town outside Sacramento. She is full modern-day hippie: purple
headband, tie-dyed shirt, star encrusted leggings, multiple stone
necklaces. She is carrying a variety of
whole and organic foods. In between snacking
on celery and hummus, she draws several versions of a mandala she would like to
get as a tattoo on her forearm. He looks
a bit like a full faced Brad Pitt, with long dark blond hair, startling grey
eyes, and an easy, slightly crooked grin.
They snuggle and touch constantly.
When the train enters one of the 27 tunnels on its way through the
mountains, they kiss and giggle. He has
just returned from working as welder on very high end racing sailboats, where
it wasn’t unusual for the boats to cost more than a $1m dollars. She has been working a sort of Upward Bound
camp near Durango, Colorado. They boarded
the train in Chicago and are trying to figure out what’s next for them. He tells me Colorado is adding 14,000 new
residents each year. That means
construction jobs and a chance for him to get a good welding job.
They are more interested in each other than anything else,
so we leave them to go watch the hundreds of rafters, kayakers, paddle
boarders, and fishers in dories making their way down the Colorado River. A remarkable number sees fit to moon the
train.
When we arrive in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, we are very
happy to get off the train. 33 hours on Amtrak is infinitely better than the
sardine torture of modern airplane rides, far less draining on body and car
than a 3 day drive across the country, but we didn’t sleep well and our backs
are complaining.
We climb off the train and stand blinking in the 100 degree
heat. The first step of our amazing journey is complete. Now off to the adventure of a family wedding.
