Wow, wow and we haven't even made it into the mountains yet, I can see them in distance and they are all snow capped. We are just now pulling into Denver, Colorado. MaryAlice had such a good time driving through the midwest, Illinois and Iowa and as it was getting dark I think we crossed into Nebraska. You can see for miles and miiles and miles, first the flat fields of Illinois, then dthe little tiny rolling in Iowa. It was daylight when we crossed over the Mississippi River, there are very historical towns along the river and we saw some really old beautiful buildings. When you look out and see some trees you know that there is porbably a house there as well, protected by the trees and surrounded by rich dark farmland. Mary is our porter, and she is really funny, and boy does she keep us all in line. That is a good thing because we are on the train for a long time and we all have to take care of what we use. We slept good last night, I stayed up a little later watching the little more than a quarter moon shine so bright in the sky. We were out in the plains states, hardly anything around. I could see lights twinkling in the distance, and sometimes I could see the back side of something, then off to sleep. The train did some lurching, a big rock back and forth every once in awhile, I would just roll over and fall back to sleep with the rolling rolling rolling.
MaryAlice is liking being away from her day to day. She is very mellow, and she just keeps watching the scenery going by and smiling. I know that she misses her friends, and she is also excited to be able to see her friends tomorrow. Wow we just rolled by the Denver Rockies Stadium, it is really really big. And they have white blossoms on trees, these are first flowers that we have seen. We started out late from Chicago, but we are now going to be leaving Denver on time. It feels funny to be on the train when it is not rolling along. You have a lot of time to think when you are on the train, but I am happy about not really thinking about anything. I know that MaryAlice is enjoying remembering of the landscapes as we pass by, she is definitely feeling like a midwestern woman, at breakfast she sat with a guy who had just moved to Vernon County Wisconsin from Illinois. Vernon county is where MaryAlice lived when Sasha was born. They talked about the area, there was another guy that had a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin, he talked about Viroqua and LaFarge being "hippy towns" MaryAlice said she was one of those hippies a long long time ago. Funny who you meet on the trains.
I am getting excited about the ride today, we are going to go through lots of amazing scenery. MaryAlice was laughing to herself this morning when she got a text saying there was a winter weather warning 3-6 inches of heavy snow in Patten, then almost right away there was another text that warned about a head advisory and to be careful when doing strenuous work outside. We went from heat in our rooms to the air conditioner, it is 71 degrees at 10:57 Mountain time with a high of 89 in Denver. It will be hotter going west. The good news is that it might moderate some by the time we get to Sacramento.
It is very nice to be able to just enjoy where we are, MaryAlice got a little antsy yesterday when our train was almost 2 hours late in departing, but once we started rolling along, she go much more mellow. Now we are just enjoying the journey. There are a lot of bad things happening, and we are storing up to help with being more resilent and to be able to do what we can when we are back home. I am going to go with MaryAlice to the No Kings Demonstration at the State Capitol of California....there are going to be a lot of people and it will be a great place to show who we are and to let people know that we will fight for our democracy. For today I get to be on the train, there is one more overnight and then we will be rolling out of the mountains and into the valley Sacramento bound.
I hope that you all will have a good day. I am hoping that MaryAlice will remember to take some pictures. I will post some pictures a little later. Thank you for coming along with me, it is trip that is for sure.
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