The Empire Builder Strikes Back

Back on board my train, and eastward bound once again! I was quite frankly worried about Marias Pass. Although it is the lowest point at which one can cross the continental divide between Canada & New Mexico, it is still up at 5318 feet, a good 1500 feet higher than Essex. Well, I didn’t even notice it – maybe a day spent acclimatising at Essex helped. That hurdle out of the way, I relaxed and enjoyed the trip down the eastern side of the Rockies, and out onto the high plains of eastern Montana.

I now see why it’s called ‘Big Sky Country’. Just acres and acres of gently undulating prairie grass as far as the eye can see, and the great dome of the sky overhead. And so it remained through into North Dakota, and presumably well into the night as well, punctuated only by the occasional town, and more often by the many prairie skyscrapers (grain elevators), located trackside at regular intervals along the route.

The highlight of the afternoon for us nobs in the sleepers, was a wine and cheese tasting session in the dining car. We sampled four different wines from Washington state, and four cheeses from Minnesota. All very nice, but I was gutted at not winning a very nice bottle of Shiraz, by failing to guess the Conductor’s quiz question as to which famous Rock Group he had in mind, of which all four members were dead. The answer was of course – Mt. Rushmore!

I seem to have developed a habit of being seated with elderly retired couples for meals, and I had three very different ones on this leg. Most of the conversations tend to be fairly superficial, as one would expect, however my dinner companions proved a little more interesting. They were from Boston, and had retired to North Carolina. They were quite obviously better educated that most I had met to date, and reading between the lines, Paul had obviously enjoyed a successful and lucrative career in business &/or finance. We somehow got talking politics (which I had promised myself I was going to stay away from on this trip), and I learnt quite a bit about how the political climate has changed here in the last year or so, and some of the challenges facing the US as the world economy is evolving.

I think he appreciated my views as an outsider, and I tried to be tactful. He even agreed with my assertion that America as a country is very much like a teenager in comparison with Europe – thinks it’s 10 feet tall and bulletproof, is full of testosterone, and has that sense of insecurity that a lot of us don’t grow out of until we reach adulthood.