Somerville, Mass. - A decent hour according to my body clock

Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois.


Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts.


Tomorrow,  Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine.


You may notice my trip is not done yet. But I did make it across the continent, so suck it.


Thank you for reading. If you haven't yet, start at the beginning.

Not Quite Boston - 8:41 PM Wednesday

So very close. I don't know how close, because we were delayed for a while by cows on the track (or something) a while back. 

When I boarded in Chicago, the first attendant I talked to told me, with urgency, to go past everyone to the very front of the train. The way he said made me think this was some insider info wherein the front of the train had the best seats and he was only telling me about this wonderland. Accordingly, I went to the front car where about ten people were already smattered among the seats. Then a woman came and told us these seats were being blocked off for people they'd pick up along the way, so I went back two cars to actually quite nicer seats. Then this same woman told me this was the car for people going to Buffalo (though considering the fact they were surprisingly upbeat). She let me stay, though. And sure enough, this morning the car emptied in Buffalo. Somewhere between Buffalo and Albany it repopulated, to the point where I was pretty sure one of these times there wouldn't be enough double seats for everyone, and somebody was probably going to sit the non-threatening me. But that never happened, and again the car slowly emptied. And now there are maybe a dozen of us. 

It's dark out again, though unlike North Dakota it's clear we're we're going through civilization this time. We just passed a Panera Bread. I hate Panera Bread. Panara Bread isn't a restaurant, it's a place for people who drive Volvos to meet people who drive Subarus. 

They have a few Panaras out west. Some things you can't escape, even by traveling however many miles I've traveled. In some ways, western civilization has become homogenous. This makes it pretty easy to up and move 3,000 miles away, but pretty strange to actually travel those 3,000 miles. Panera Bread sucks. Why is it everywhere? 

But it's not all the same. The west coast is not the east coast. This seeming homogeny just requires us to think a little harder about what makes us unique in the big, wide world. I think it's better this way. This way, I don't tell people about the strange fast food of Maine, where you order fries and they ask if you'd like a burger with that. This way, I have to rack my brain a little. And then I tell people how my town acts out the Walk to Bethlehem every year, with a live baby. Like Panara Bread, the Walk to Bethlehem is weird, sort of dumb, and you can't imagine it being real until you see it. But unlike Panara Bread, it ain't catching on. Things like that are significant differences. They're interesting; they matter. When I'm more optimistic, I think that for easy shit like soup, the western world does it all the same way. Uniformity is just easier sometimes for soup. But it's in the details that we keep our culture. It's in the stuff that ain't catching on. Oregon's got theirs, Maine's got theirs. I certainly haven't seen a lack of novelty in my travels. 

Massachusetts - 5:58 PM Wednesday

Just saw three cars with Massachusetts plates in a row. That's probably because we're in Pitsfield, Mass. I know I've heard of Pitsfield, but I can't place it mentally. Better than Whitefish, Montana though. Nothing against Whitefish, but Pitsfield definitely feels closer. 

East of Albany, New York - 5:09 PM Wednesday

Three days ago I hadn't quite left PDX yet, but I was making one of what was eventually three trips from my dorm to where my travel buddy's cousin was picking us up. Keep in mind three days ago it was 2:12 PM, not 5:12, because of the magic of time zones. My friend texted me while I was cooking myself some ramen noodles that there was a picnic happening, and since graduation was earlier I figured it was one of those, the college pulls out all the stops and throws a bitchin' picnic, picnics. 

Instead it was a few friends of mine out on the lawn with a couple sandwiches. I felt bad, because I was really disappointed in the lack of awesome food. But to them it probably just looked like I was disappointed in them, which wasn't the case at all. They did have day-old Fred Meyer cake. 

That cake is probably headed back west right now in the septic tanks of the Empire Builder. Do you have any idea what it's like to use train toilets for three days? It becomes normal. Normal! And not bothering to change clothes, and getting strange looks from commuters as I brush my teeth in the morning? I've stopped shaving. Fun fact, I'm getting blonde stubble. 

I shouldn't complain. I've had two seats to myself for the last six hours. I found a David Cross audiobook on my iPod which I never purchased. Tonight I'm sleeping in a bed.  

It's official: I'm in retrospection mode. Not quite four hours till I roll in to (I always want to say land) Boston. That's like 1/20th of my trip remaining, 5%. It's over. I'm done. I'm glad as hell I did it, but I'm also tired as hell. 

Still Rolling out of Buffalo - Moments later

And why do girls get to wear sweat pants? The girl next to me last night from Chicago wore sweat pants, and pulled it off. She just looked like she wanted to be comfortable. When I wear sweat pants, I look unemployed. No, worse than that. Unemployable. Why can't I be comfortable? 

For the last three days, I've been wearing black pants, a blue-and-white stripped button-up shirt, with a plain white T underneath that. I'm fairly comfortable, but I also presentable. Train-presentable, at least. At about 16 I decided I wanted to dress respectively. I thought it would be easy. It hasn't been. I don't want to jump ahead of myself, but I believe right before I left Lewis & Clark I may have had a major breakthrough. 

See, the thing is my wardrobe is in a state of flux between boy and man. And I dress myself consistently half asleep, which means if something is in my closet, I will eventually wear it. Even if I hate it. Like this shirt I got at a Foreigner concert I worked when I was like 15. Foreigner, as you may or may not know, was a big rock band some undetermined number of years ago. They had some hits, I even still have probably five of their tracks on my iPod (And I guess it's just the woman in you that briiings out the man in meee) but I don't like them(I know I can't help myself, sooomething something something). Or rather, I don't like that I still kind of sort of (and if feeeels like the fiiirst time) like them (it feeels like the very first time). Sometimes. But I don't intend to advertise to the world that I like them through my apparel. If I told people everything about me through what I wear, nobody would read my micro-blog. I'm not one of those ironic T-shirt guys either, and even if I was this particular shirt is long sleeved, and I don't like long sleeve Ts, and even if I did this Foreigner one is a little big. So right there, four reasons why I don't like this shirt. But as long as I own it, I'll wear it.

Can you guess what I did? It rhymes with Lie ruminated fit moo hilarity. 

I donated it to charity! 

Listen close. Do you hear that? It's the ecstatic cheer of a poor, fashionless, proud Foreigner-loving man who just found a new favorite shirt. God it feels good to give. 

By the way, those song lyrics in parentheses represent "Feels like the First Time" coming back to me as I thought about Foreigner. That song is everything I love and hate about the band. Want a good laugh? I just now realized the song is about sex. Don't ask me what I thought it was about. I didn't think that hard in middle school. 

Rolling out of Buffalo, NY - Wednesday 9:19 EST

I wonder how big a lake has to be before you can't see across it. It's similar to that point where water is too deep to touch bottom: any bigger, or any deeper, makes little difference. On a map the Great Lakes look bigish, but certainly not Great. But they are. They're mini-oceans. I've realized my train is called the Lake Shore Limited first because it tracks the shore of the Great Lakes, and second because leg room is limited. I think the Great Lakes are what keep the midwest from reverting to incest and Rush Limbaugh. They've got their own little oceans tucked away. 

I'm rolling out of Buffalo, and for the first time this trip I have two seats to myself. Having a travel companion, like I did through Chicago, is one thing. Having a stranger to your left is something else. Especially trying to sleep. 

My problem is I don't look threatening. My first hint of this came in adolescence, when I realized my unique charm within the demographic of women with daughters around my age did not extend to girls around my age. Further proof came when, cashiering one summer, an older woman literally reached across the checkout counter and tousled my hair mid-order. If you think there is even a 0.01% chance that a cashier you annoy may gruesomely kill you and cut off your skin, you do not tousle the hair. Clearly this woman found me quite docile. Last summer around one third of New York's 2.7 million seasonal tourists handed me their cameras asking for a group photo--in anywhere from broken to incredibly-formal english. And finally, every time I'm on a bus, a subway, or a plane and seats begin to fill up, I'm the first guy people choose to sit next to. 

So it was last night, when despite my jacket covering the aisle seat, a young woman asked if it was taken. I paused before I answered, hoping I suppose she would just disappear if I didn't say anything. But she didn't. And the seat was in fact available.

If you can believe it, I actually tried to look unapproachable. I didn't do anything too blatant, rather I just sort of pinched in my eyebrows and looked straight ahead--I was going for "dumb person working on basic math." I should've muttered bible verses. 

East of Chicago - 10:45 PM

The Lakeshore Limited - or whatever this train is called - isn't as nice as the Empire Builder. Window seats, however, are much nicer than aisles. And it's only 24 hours untill I roll into Boston. 

So I'd like to come back to Chicago. My friend assures me there's more to it than the three blocks between the Amtrak station and the commuter train hub. The three blocks I saw were nice, though. In fact, my limited impression of the city is quite favorable. It's funny how you can get a feel for a place almost instantly. I fell in love with New York walking across it with luggage (and a prayer) on a 95 degree Memorial Weekend Sunday. After driving around Seattle for a while, I only knew it wasn't for me once my feet hit the pavement. Chicago's a proper city. You can just tell. Any city that would object and then ironically own the label of "Second City" to New York has to have something going for it. 

In Chicago I was approached by three men asking for change. That doesn't happen much at my small, liberal arts college. I had with me a grocery bag of too much damn food, but I shooed them all off. Now, most panhandlers won't take unpackaged food. Though I could have given them something sealed. This is besides the point, though, because I wasn't thinking about what they would or wouldn't take when I was shooing them off. I was thinking, don't give an inch. Don't smile, don't make eye contact. Do not be cruel. But do not be kind. You are young, you don't have much money generally, but you have a decent amount on you; you weigh 145 pounds. Do not lead this guy on. You can't help him. 

A little food wouldn't have hurt him, either. Last summer in New York I never had anything on me. In one memorable instance after explaining how I hadn't had lunch a homeless man offered me chips. Pretty quick I learned that once you engage them, it's hard to disengage. Keeping your distance is smart, but it's still hard.