Dreaming of A Great Train Ride

My train trip to see my dad and sister this last week re-enforced my desire to travel around the country by rail. There is something special about sitting back in a fairly comfortable seat with your feet up on the leg rest, and watching the world glide by. There is no need to frantically look for the nearest rest area. It is unnecessary to estimate when you need to start looking for a gas station . Hungry? Thirsty? There is the little shop downstairs that sells various foods and beverages if you are so inclined. And at meal times there is always the dining car.

Every trip I take, I tell myself that I will avoid the dining car because I think it is a little pricey. I just don't understand $9.00 for a glorified hamburger, handful of chips, dill pickle, and a glass of water. But every trip I succumb to dining not because the food is wonderful, but because I thoroughly enjoy visiting with the three strangers I'm seated with. Yesterday, I had a great time talking with a young man from Southern California who teaches a junior high special education class and loves it. Like my own kids and nephew, he gets excited about touching children's lives and making a difference. In the end, the meal price is worth the opportunity to meet great people and hear their stories. The so-so food is secondary.

Then there is the scenery! Getting off the beaten path opens doors to people and places I would never have the opportunity to experience. On my trip, I was transported across miles and miles of endless, pristine forest land. There were no super highways, no visible back country roads, no roadside litter, no power lines, and very little other evidence of human life. If it weren't for the occasional rail maintenance areas, tunnels, and signal lights, it would have been just wildflowers, evergreens, birds, lakes, streams, and a train full of people each experiencing the magnificence through his or her own life experiences.

In addition to the forest was the farmland with its fields of alfalfa, hops, oats, and other grains. There were horses, sheep, goats, cattle, and the occasional dog. There were farmers mowing their sweet smelling hay, moving their gigantic sprinklers, and stirring up dust as they readied fields for winter wheat.

There was something missing, though--children playing outside. Where were they? At summer school? Out of town? I came up with a couple possibilities. The first was they were held captive inside by electronic devices. The pull of iPads, smart phones, computers, and television can be extremely difficult to overcome, even for farm kids. The second was that these farm were being run by the grandparent generation, not the young parent generation. But that is conjecture. All I really know is the only children I saw when clickety-clacking through two states were the ones on the train.

And the people! There is the older gentleman with waist length, gray hair who looks like he has spent most of his years in the sun, the twenty-something young man with dreadlocks, music streaming into his ears, and a text book of some sort under his arm, the young woman huddled under a blanket and cuddling her fussy child, and the well dressed, manicured woman reading from her e-book. Who are they?  What are their stories?

As I said at the beginning, I would love to travel the country by train. I would love to see the flat land in the central states, the autumn leaves in New England,  the expansive ranches of Texas, and the colorful desert of Arizona. I want to sleep in a train berth, see the night sky without the glare of city lights, see birds and native plants I haven't seen before, and I meet people and hear their stories.

And, I want to write about the sights, sounds, smells, of this great country. I want to express my impressions and emotions as the vista outside the window changes. I want to see, meet, experience and write about  the amazing people God has created and loves. In the process, I want to learn to see as he sees, and love as he loves. Am I being unrealistic? Maybe. But I would love to see what God would do with the experience.

Dreaming of a great train ride,
Jan