Trains are noisy, and I was too awake to fall back asleep after using the bathroom. Pulling out my laptop I finished writing the Day 1 entry, then played a little Bard’s Tale.
A week earlier I had decided that a couple of games on my MacBook Air wouldn’t be a bad idea as an option on the long train ride. So during one of my evenings at home I did a search and downloaded Minesweeper, then clicked on the “Role Playing Games” category in the App Store. That is when I saw the app I recognized called The Bard’s Tale. For those of you not luckily enough to grow up in front of a Commodore 64, this is one of the most popular RPG’s during the 80’s. I remember playing it when I was ten, and have played it on nearly every computer platform since. Its right up there as one of my favorite RPG of all time. The app cost me $10, was a newer version of the game, but included the original trilogy. When I had went up into the attic to find the duffle bag I was going to use to pack the food I stumbled on some of my old maps that I had downloaded for the game. Happily I stuffed them into the laptop carrying case.
I took a nap around 5:30am for an hour or so, and woke when the train pulled into Spokane, WA. Ally calmly slept on through my moving around.
Spokane was a service stop, so we were at the depot for nearly 45 minutes. Walking around the train was weird, having gotten used to the swaying back and forth, so I used the stillness to go buy cup of coffee for $2. I was temped to make my one using my heating coil and instant coffee I brought, but decided to save the experience for another day. I was again playing some Bard’s Tale and relaxing when we pulled out of the station around 8:30am.
We began passing scenic landscapes of large lakes, endless forests, and slow moving rivers. It also didn’t take us very long to cross the Idaho panhandle and enter western Montana.
An attendant passed by taking a tally of number of passengers, and I got the ok to move Ally and I to a pair of seats with tray tables at an upcoming stop. It’s current occupants were getting off at Whitefish. I was excited about the chance to compare the two different sets of seats. I happily finished getting my Bard’s Tale characters to level three, a successful milestone, and started thinking about food.
I got the Food Duffle down and had a couple pop tarts, some pepperoni, bbq pringles, and some carrot sticks dipped in a ranch dip from the Popey’s chicken dinner. Ally had a soda and a packet of pop tarts before going back into a relaxed, dozing state. One of her activities was to take a picture of each state we have going through and writing the state’s name on the picture.
I relaxed with some Bard’s Tale, read some of my Jack Whyte series, and waited for Whitefish.
Whitefish seemed to be a popular spot because a lot of the people around us got up and left. This gave Ally and I the choice of where and we chose the best of the best: Further away from the Observation Car door, full set of windows, and tray tables. We got our stuff settled, our green Amtrak marker above our heads, and were chugging away from Whitefish by 1:30pm.
I spent the day listening to Douglas Adams read The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to me, tinkering with my phone, talked with Ally, watched the scenery, or played Bard’s Tale. I love the relaxed traveling of the train and doing a little of everything all day.
I had planned on eating dinner in the dining car, but missed the lady walking by to get on the list. By the time we walked down to check they were full until 9:30pm, with an additional 12 people on the waiting list just in case. Ally and I went with Plan B and headed downstairs from the Observation Car to the Cafe: mini pepperoni pizza for Ally, angus cheeseburger for me, both of which were cooked in a microwave. By the time we had finished eating the forests of Western Montana had been replaced with the grasslands of Central Montana. I was reminded me of much of north eastern Oregon.
Ally and I had a snack around 10:00pm from the overpacked Food Duffle. I had overestimated how much food we would need, especially since you don’t do much more than sit all day. Looking down at my step counter on my phone indicated that I had walked less than 1700 steps.
Our car hadn’t gained many people during the day, so the set of seats across from us were still empty at 10:35pm when Amtrak turned off the lights. I grabbed my fleece sack, smaller fleece blanket, and pillow, and tried to find a comfortable position in two empty seats. It was more comfortable then doing so in one seat, but more is still a relative word. A sleeper car would be even more comfortable, and the pinnacle of comfort would be a bedroom cabin. A sleeper runs you nearly 4X the price, but includes all three meals each day. I doubt that when Shar and I do this or a similar trip, we’ll end up getting a sleeper. Even splitting the cost it would run us $700 each.
So I struggled for awhile and ended up in a modified diagonal position leaning against the window.
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