Nardo Goes West, Part Three

The next leg of my trip was the longest (not counting my flight back from Seattle). The Empire Builder left Chicago and Carlo, one of the attendants, came around to take my dinner reservation. I had the option of dining at 5:00, 5:30, 6:45, and 7:15 PM. I picked 5:30. While they do try to make people stick to the schedule, space often open up. They tell you if this is the case. There are also announcements for the last call.

I chose the 5:30 option for my first dinner on Amtrak.  It was still daylight while I made my way to the dining car. My roomette was on the ground level, so to speak. In order to get most places I had to take the stairs up and cross over the train cars. My bathroom and shower were on the same floor as me, so I didn't have to go to far to get to them. But in order to eat, drink, or use the observation car, I needed to climb up and down the stairs and sneak my way around people and corners. It's like being in a ship while still being on land.

The stairs I took every day, they also offer a decent view,
when nobody's trying to use them

At the top of the stairs was complimentary coffee and orange juice.
This cup was filled by me, it wasn't just standing there
waiting for someone to come pick it up.

Dinner, along with other meals, is taken in the dining car. It's cramped but Amtrak does its best to make the experience like a restaurant. There's silverware, wine, and napkins folded into little florets.

The menu is limited. They have salmon, chicken, steak, seafood cakes, and a vegan pasta dish. There was a butternut risotto as well. I wanted to try the chef's special, which was a kind of gnocchi with kale. However they were out of it the whole time I was on the train. Soft drinks are complimentary, along with the food itself if you're in a sleeper car. You have to pay for alcohol. People bring their own food on board. It's a popular option in the coach car. I saw families eating snacks and dishes they brought in Tupperware. There's also the cafe area under the lounge car. You can't really buy food at the stations we pass through. The Empire Builder either gets in too late, stays too short, or stays too long at towns with too few places to shop.  

For my first meal, I had the land and sea. I guess it's Amtrak's answer to the surf and turf. You get a steak and a seafood cake that blends together several different creatures from the briny deep. I believe it mixed in crab and shrimp, with some kind of fish. I preferred it to the steak, which I found a little chewy. I had iced tea to drink, which is also complimentary. For dessert I had a flourless chocolate cake. It was good and dense. They also have a caramel parfait, a fruit and cheese plate, cheesecake, and vanilla pudding with no sugar added. I mention that last detail because our waitress brought it up every time when telling us about our options.

In all likelihood, you'll be eating with other people at your table. It doesn't matter how much seating is available. Every time I got to the car, I was put into the nearest opening where people were already sitting. I must've been one of the few Easterners on the train. I was probably the only person who came all the way from New York. It was a common question, not just where I was from originally, but where I got on board. Chicago was the main answer for most people, but a fair number got on the Empire Builder in St. Paul and Fargo. Several people came on at Milwaukee too, including my first mealtime companions. 

They were from Michigan's Upper Peninsula and older than me. Nearly everyone on the train was, or they were much, much younger. That's fine. You meet people you normally wouldn't otherwise this way. Especially people from the Midwest. We talked about our respective communities and trips we've taken around the country. They were Packers fans and I told them about how my father was a fan too (he's also a shareholder). We noticed people taking pictures and video of the train along the way, which I didn't expect. I know there's all kinds of people in this world, and some of them are Railfans. Normally they tend to be into either freight trains or older locomotives. It was surprised some of them also like to take pictures of Amtrak trains. They're nice, but they all look alike with no interesting livery. Now the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe on the other hand...

It was my first experience with Wisconsin, which was all I really saw that day. We didn't hit Minnesota until the sun set, so it was either too dark to see, or I slept through the sights. I never realized how big, green, and wet Wisconsin is. I guess I thought it would look like Illinois, much drier and flatter. Maybe that has less to do with the natural geography and more to do with how human have used the land. Either way, I saw lots of hills, waterways, trees, bushes, and waterlilies. We passed through the Wisconsin Dells, and it reminded me of Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks. 

Columbus, WI, which is basically the stop for Madison

Socialism in Wisconsin! Eugene Debs lives!

Where we paused on the Wisconsin/Minnesota border for a smoking break

With no internet, people interacted more. Not just at dinner, but through the cars, including in the coach class and in the observation areas. Men in mullets laughed together while Mennonites sat together and watched the world going by. I saw a man with a tricorn hat and a big feather sticking out of it. Below them all, families played card and board games.  Other people just talked. Everybody's got a story. In the lounge car there was a woman from LA who was a waitress but aspiring to be a trainer, which is a variation I hadn't heard before. Usually it's an actor or screenwriter (in NY it's an actor or a novelist). One drunk woman came down into the lounge and hammed it up, lamenting she missed her stop in Toomah and had to figure out a way home from La Crosse. 

With no internet, I had no need for my headphones. Note the efficient use of a coat hanger.

A lot of pundits and thinkpiece writers like to lament the bubbles we've sorted ourselves into, and yet none of them seem to have any idea of what to do about it. They love to point and wag their fingers at the people living on the coasts for refusing to interact with people in Middle America. Of course, they love to live in those same bubbles and never get out of them, unless they're writing about Iowa state fairs before the Presidential caucuses. Even when they do that, they just take the bubble with them, putting people under the microscope wherever they go. On the train you have to sit down with people, look at them, share space with them, and listen to what they have to say on their terms. There's no interrogation, only conversation between the bread rolls and the dessert. If you really want to get people in this country talking, you don't have to bring back the draft as some have suggested, just get people to take long train rides together. If they can't afford it, subsidize it.

Then again, the bubble is probably overstated. Outside of La Crosse I saw "Go Gay or Go Home" sprayed on an overpass. The only thing that stays the same are the differences between people I guess.