The Moon. That's what it seemed like. This entry covers the second day of our trip, going through North Dakota and Montana. Click below to read the entire article.
I didn’t know we were going to the Moon on this trip but that’s what it looked like when I woke up. My brother had similar thoughts but he was thinking Mars. The sun was just starting to come up. It was still over the horizon. My eyes were still in a sleep mode. As they tried to focus on what was outside the windows as it zoomed past, I couldn’t figure out if we were on land, next to a big lake with some whitecaps, or if we had taken a detour to the Moon. After a few minutes my eyes began to work a little better and I decided that we must still be on the planet Earth because I didn’t think that anyone had erected fence lines on the Moon yet. We were in North Dakota. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so flat with nothing around it for miles. There were little ripples of sandy dirt and grass. I guess that’s what made me wonder if we were next to a lake. As the sun popped over the horizon, things changed from shades of gray to a more colorful appearance.
Boy! Did I sleep or what? That question I had in my mind yesterday as the trip began was answered now. “Yes. I can sleep pretty well in the coach seats.” I think I woke up one or two times during the night for maybe a minute or so but I went right back to sleep. My knees were a little stiff but they loosened up pretty quickly. Other people were starting to wake up and stir around a bit but it was still fairly quiet. Everyone was respecting the sleeping habits of those that were snoozing for a few minutes longer. A little later the Dining Car Steward announced that she would be taking reservations for breakfast and that breakfast would be served shortly. We didn’t rush to get our name on the list. We did eventually decide that we would have breakfast in the diner. I made my way to the diner to get on the list. The steward said it would be about 30 minutes before we could be seated. That was fine with us. We were in no hurry. We still had over 24 hours on this train so 30 minutes was nothing.
As speculated, we were called to the diner about a half an hour later. The four of us made our way through the 2 coaches and the observation car and finally to the diner. We were seated in about 2 minutes or less. The Dining Car Steward was very friendly. We review the menu and our order was taken quite promptly. I ordered the Railroad French Toast. It was only a few minute before we were served. It was a different experience, eating breakfast while the countryside zoomed by at nearly 80 miles per hour. The service was quick, the waiters and staff were very polite and professional, and the food was good. When we paid we left a tip for the servers. The Dining Car Steward was very thankful for the tip. We knew that the Amtrak employees did not receive their tips directly. They received their tips with their pay and it is taxed as regular income. Our Steward said that most people don’t leave tips. They just assume that the tip is built into the price of the meal or that the service staff is paid at a level that they would not expect tips.
The next several hundred miles were rather uneventful. We passed through several small towns, not even slowing down for some of them. The weather was really nice, a few clouds here and there but mostly sunny. The prairie was generally flat for miles with a slight slope here and there. I was talking to my brother about how rough it must be during the winter. I could imagine a foot or more of snow on the ground and a cold wind blowing out of Canada and not a thing to stop it or slow it down.
Along the way we often see a house out in the middle of nowhere. Sometime there were groups of five or maybe ten all together. We wondered why anyone would pick that particular spot to build a home. We guessed that it was a farm family but we rarely saw anything that looked like farm equipment and buildings. The one thing that seemed to be common around most of them was the junk cars. It seems that every one of those home had at least one or two old cars in the back yard. I guess that they probably wear a car out pretty quickly since it’s so far to “civilization.”
As mid afternoon approached we began to see a few hills. As flat as the area was, the first hill was visible for 30 minutes before we got near it. I wonder how the pioneers felt when they first saw that same hill. At 80 miles per hour it took us 30 minutes or more to get to it. It probably took them three or four days to reach it in their wagons. After about an hour of the small, gentle hills we got into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. By the time we got to Cut Bank we were into some really scenic terrain. The view was great on either side of the train but the south side probably had the most scenic views along this portion of the trip. The station at Glacier Park is very nice. It has a rustic look and the entire area is a post card just waiting for you to take the picture. We continued on around the southern border of Glacier National Park to Essex and the Izaak Walton Inn, then on to Belton / East Glacier Park. You can find Belton on the Montana highway map but you won’t find it in the Amtrak timetable. Amtrak calls it “East Glacier Park.” The next stop was Whitefish, Montana. Shadows were starting to get a little longer when we arrived and the sun cast a golden glow over the area. The station was probably the most interesting of all of the stops along this route. It made you think you were in an Alpine village. The train stopped there for about 25 minutes but just before we arrived the conductor announced that we would have time to walk around and he reminded us to stay near the train. “If you fail to re-board and the train leaves you, you will be able to spend 24 hours in Whitefish at your own expense and Amtrak would gladly pick you up the next day and take you to your destination, provided you had your ticket.” The town looked very tempting and no doubt, on previous trips through the town, passengers had walked into town and failed to get back to the train before it left.
We continued on towards Stryker, Libby, and into Idaho. Somewhere in that area I fell asleep. I’m sure Idaho was nice but the only thing I saw as we passed through the state was the inside of my eyelids.