I woke up this morning around 10:30 according to my cell phone, but turns out that's because we switched time zones. On a plane, you don't change your watch until you land, and then you do it all at once. That doesn't feel appropriate for a train. We're far too close to the land--nor are we moving fast enough. One hour at a time is how I'm doing it. This means that my trip of 80 odd hours is really three hours shorter. Score!
The prairie showed up overnight. Literally. I didn't expect to be seeing much in the way of scenery right off the bat yesterday, my friends from Seattle have given me a healthy apprehension towards eastern Washington. It may be a rural, backwards, boring country, but it is a beautiful country. I think I said this, but it's like Maine with bigger mountains.
Today we hit the prairie. And the thing people forget about prairie is, there' s a lot of it. Looking out on it by train has a hypnotic power. The occasional farmhouse. Mountains in the distance. Not like mountains back home, not a mountain range, but literally about three very large mountains in the distance. The occasional lone farmhouse. Trucks, a van and a camper in the yard. The smattering of grain houses. We pass a dirt road that lies straight as a razor, as far as the eye can see. We pass it at a 90 degree angle. We're probably headed just about due east right now.
A woman talks of traveling to Washington, seeing the White House. An older woman tells her not to go to the senate building, "unless you want to get sick." The first woman qualifies, she wants to see the White House, not necessarily anybody in it.
I think what I'm only now realizing is that people really believe Washington's corrupt. And not in the things are far from perfect way, but in the something must be done way. And regardless of whether they're a majority or not, at least 45% of people out there truly don't care for Barack Obama. Obama probably doesn't need to win this lounge car to win the White House. I don't even think Amtrak gets electoral college votes. Truth is, these people I'm listening to probably didn't vote for Obama the first time, and Obama didn't need them. I'm riding through Montana. Every four years Montana votes republican for president, and the world keeps spinning. These people I'm eves dropping on certainly aren't bad people. These values voters. These red blooded Americans. Obama's father was from Kenya. He never saw the mountains of Washington, or the prairie of Montana. He never slept through Idaho. The President of the United States is the president of this. The President of three day train rides from sea to shining sea. The President of 1st street and 3rd avenue. The President of America. And when Obama won the country without winning Montana, without a word from these ridged values voters, they lost. In a sense they lost more than the election. They lost their country, they lost the democracy when the majority of Americans wanted a foreigner--foreigner in the best, and utmost American sense--in the White House.
The value voters can have Montana. There's certainly enough of it to go around. Jeez. If you lined end to end every sub Subway has ever made, I don't think it would cover Montana. If Pinocchio had to read Mein Kampf, his nose would not stretch across Montana. If every interesting fact about a place counted for 200 miles, I don't think Montana could cross itself.
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