Train in the Distance

(Note: This entry describes the events of July 25, 2007)

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it’s true

As I sat waiting for mechanical carriage that would sweep me up and whisk me westward to fun and adventure, the Paul Simon song ran steadily through my head. This was only the second long train ride of my lifetime, and my first experience riding the rails through the American west. While traversing the countryside behind a locomotive is no longer the glamour activity it once was, it remains a more cost effective mode of transport than airplanes when visiting northern Montana and is much less tiring/stressful than driving long distances over the plains.

We boarded the train in the dead of night in St. Cloud, Minnesota, a confusing experience because of the poor signage found at the station and the mute nature of the station’s employees. Dad and I amused ourselves talking to fellow travelers and debating which side of the station we were supposed to park on. Eventually, like a vision from a gritty sci-fi novel, the Amtrak train rolled through the station and greeted us its mechanical whirs and whooshes (If you’ve ever ridden Amtrak, you know it looks like something straight out of Blade Runner, at least from the outside). Once on board, we hurriedly found our seats and did our best to securely store our gear, squeezing and cramming our bags into racks and overhead compartments. Our moment of panic over, Dad and I settled into our seats and did our best to doze and rest. The train rolled steadily westward, rocking us to a fitful night of sleep on the Great Plains of America.

The next day, I passed the time in the lounge car reading books and writing notes in my journal and on the laptop. Dad and I munched on Pop-Tarts and apples and sipped coffee from the lounge car, enjoying the views out the floor to ceiling windows. One of the great advantages to rail travel is time. Time to catch up on all the reading and written correspondence that ordinarily gets brushed aside. Time to really think about what you want to write, what you want to say. Time to think about what you are reading and really savor the experience. Seemingly endless time.

Eventually, we began to long for the solidness of real ground beneath our feet and began tracking our progress with my GPS, anxiously anticipating our arrival in Cut Bank, Montana. Before too long, the tiny screen of my GPS revealed Cut Bank approximately 45 miles away, and before we knew it, Dad and I were grabbing our gear, leaping out the door, waving goodbye to the conductors, and making our way over to the blue Chevy Impala rental that would serve as our base of operations for the next two weeks.

A gritty oil town on the American frontier, Cut Bank is bisected by two prominent roads: Main St. and Central Ave., making it an easy place to navigate, even for first-time visitors. Dad and I found our hotel, prominently marked with a gigantic penguin, and made final preparations for our drive into the park the following morning. Our adventure had begun.