#which is the reason ive always heard to not drive across flooded roads

[mysongofpurpose]

August 29th, 2018; I Thought This Would be Fun

The floodwaters are coming. Food supplies are running low. We have lost all contact. I'm afraid sacrifices must be made. The Amish must go. All hope is lost.

Well, it wasn't quite that bad, but this train trip was a bit of a mistake. A bit. A few bits. Many bits. A whole byte. Many megabytes worth of mistakes. We pull up to the Toledo train station at 5am which by the way, looks like it hasn't been in operation since '95. Lady at the desk tells me I can't check bags for my international trip. At first, I'm confused. I'm a million and forty three percent sure that their website said checking bags was allowed on all three of my connecting trains. "Nope, I'm afraid you can't. Your third train isn't even in the system for checked baggage." Now, I'm in a bit of a panic. I am moving across the continent and have just been told that everything I've packed is not allowed to come with me. Then I'm told that I could potentially be allowed to bring those as carry ons if the conductor thinks it's okay. My life can now fall apart at the whims of a man that drives a train. I end up calling customer service and after explaining the situation, the man on the other end confirms that I can indeed check bags on my rides. "So why can't I check my bags?" "Sir, we stop checking bags 45 minutes before departure." Blah, blah, blah, blah. First off, I got here over an hour before my departure time and if the lady at the front desk didn't give me problems for the past 40 minutes I wouldn't be in this situation. Second, their train was running so late it wouldn't arrive until 8 and the earlier train set to depart at 5:25 arrived at 6:30. My train was supposed to leave here at 6:15. I was basically still over 45 minutes early. It all worked out since the conductor was a nice guy who took on the responsibility of taking everyone that would be on the two hour late train and let me put my boxes in an empty car. I thought my problems were over. I couldn't be more wrong.

We arrive in Chicago. At this point, I am running on three hours of sleep that for some reason, I spent imagining people stealing my stuff. It ended up being three hours of phasing through different degrees of consciousness. Long story short, the only thing stolen was my sleep by myself. On the Chicago to Seattle train, I end up sitting next to these three guys that were also on the Toledo train. I try to get my rest and soon I'll be in Seattle and it wil be all merry and 44 hours will be over in a jiffy. Wrong.

At 8pm, in the middle of Wisconsin, we stop. It had been raining for the past few hours and cell signal was getting very very ~~very very very very very~~ unreliable. Offline mobile games were getting boring and watching rain roll down the windows wasn't very entertaining either. It was then that I realized that I was promised WiFi. They told us the trains had WiFi. They told us wrong. We did not have WiFi. Nobody had WiFi. I bet these farmers didn't even have WiFi. Luckily, as soon as we stopped though, signal picked up again and remained at a mediocre rate as long as we weren't moving. I got to know the guys I sat with a little and it turns out we enjoy a lot of the same things so we just played games on our phones for a bit. Then I had dinner with my mom and sister. Now I learn that when they said they had food on the train, it was not like plain food that was covered by your ticket. It meant you had to choose between their highway robbery concessions stand that charged $2.75 for a small bowl of ~~ramen~~ cup noodles or their corporate robbery dining car that served wine and luxurious foods on plastic plates then charged you $25 for a small steak. Everything else on my plate was also public school system serving sizes. Now usually I like my meat medium rare, but I always get them more well done than medium so this time, I ordered rare. I thought I was smart. I am not smart. I ate my extremely rare steak. It tasted okay at best.

I went to sleep at 2am. The train had still not moved.

There's been a lot of Amish people getting on and off throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota. I've never seen them in person besides a few on road trips and the like. I'm not too sure what their lifestyle is exactly, so I'm curious as to how much modern stuff they have incorporated into their lives. Turns out trains are fine for them. So are notebooks and pens. As are personal Digiorno's cheese pizzas. Those hand sized goodies may be found at Amtrak concessions stands for a cheap cheap price of $7.25. The Amish seemed like kind people. I saw one of them chatting it up with another passenger. They kept to themselves and definitely were not as nosy as I was though. It was definitely interesting to see how the modern world incorporated into their olden ways. I always drew my pilgrims holding turkeys and not family sized bags of Doritos.

Since I slept so much at odd intervals out of boredom, I was awake at 6. I spent most of my time in the observatory car staring at trees that never moved when I wasn't sleeping or playing on my phone. At around 11, the crew announced that we all get a complimentary lunch due to the delay. I sat with my three new aquaintances and we all had a measly amount of beef stew and rice. It tasted okay and was free so I'm not complaining. Halfway through the meal the train finally started moving again. Then it stopped again shortly after. We had sat in the same place for 16 hours. My layover in Seattle in only 9 hours and I'm pretty sure the train to Vancouver runs only once a day so it looks like I'll be spending an extra day. Nobody really knew what was going on, but I heard stuff about tornado warnings, flooding, laying new track, and something about repairing a bridge. I spent the rest of the day getting to know the three guys.

At one point, I found out they had these little goody bag sort of things similar to airplane snacks. The best part? They were free. I've been mainly sustaining myself off these things. There are two small cookies, a small bag of pretzels, and a miniscule amount of trail mix in each pack. I think I've had seven. Besides those, Ive also had two large Twix bars, a cinnamon bun, and this weird rolled up pizza pretzel thing that tasted a lot like a rolled up half cooked slice of pizza. At the discounted price of a dollar, it wasn't too shabby. I bought the Twix and cinnamon bun because they've got the most calories per dollar spent. I can only eat so many free pretzels before I get sick of them. I've tried not to eat and drink too much because the bathrooms are nasty and passing the terrible food I've eaten does not sound good. It's not looking so hot after getting stuck on the train an extra 16 hours though. Right now, I developed a bit of a cold because I dressed for the terribly humid Troy weather we had when I left then got completely blindsided by the ridiculous amount of air conditioning on the train. Now I usually am not one to be cold, but I am cold. To top it all off, a stomach ache has settled in. It kinda hurts, but isn't really the "gotta go" kind of ache. Main suspects are the rare steak, half cooked pizza, and full pretzel diet. Hopefully this goes away overnight.

Another thing I've noticed is that everyone's starting to smell. I know, it sounds horrifying. It isn't necessarily a terrible smell, but the lots of living things have been here kind of smell. I would say live livestock, but those just smell like poop. Maybe more of a lots of dogs sort of deal? It's a bit like a locker room exxcept for the reeking of old sweat ordeal. Actually, the best comparison would probably be a full laundry basket except every article of clothing carries a different persons fauna and odors. I can definitely feel that I am releasing a little too many aromas than to my liking. It really doesn't help that all of us spend a majority of our time sitting and laying in these seats. The 16 extra hours are also not helping in any way. Honestly though, it's not as bad as I made it sound.

All in all, a long distance train ride is not something I'm looking to try again. Especially with a rail system nowhere as developed as Europe and Asia.