“My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people
I never thought I’d need so many people” (David Bowie)
I have a confession to make that might sound strange to some of the people that met me through work: I typically find it hard to strike up a conversation with people I don’t know. This kind of sucks, because as The Smiths explained so well “Shyness can stop you / From doing all the things in life / You’d like to”.
So while the main, “official” motivation for my trip might have been to visit cities and art museums that had long been on my to-do, spending a month on the road on my own was also a way to challenge myself and get out of my (dis)comfort zone as well.
Luckily, Americans are in general more social than the average European and I feel that as the time on the road passed things became slightly less difficult (or maybe it just gets easier as you go West?). In the end, all the serendipitous encounters, the stories I picked up along the way and the unexpected, random acts of kindness ended up making for some of the best memories from this trip.
Like the 3 friendly guys that started chatting with me at the Radkey concert in Chicago and that quickly made me feel like one of the gang (and kept feeding me beer too 🙂 ).
On the other hand, I wonder what kind of impression did I make on the girl that was sitting with her friends next to me in a bar in Portland. Did I look particularly sad and lonely as I sat there on my own boringly playing with my phone? Neither she nor her friends spoke to me, so I was quite surprised when the bartender told me – after they had left – that she quietly paid for my Old Fashion too.
In Chicago, I was looking for the closest dry cleaner to get some shirts washed, and Google pointed me to a place 2 blocks away from my hotel. After going around the block twice without finding it, I ended up entering the fancy apartment building and asking the concierge if Google had got it wrong. Turns out, Google was right after all: the building had an in-house dry cleaner which was however also open to external customers. He sent me up to the 9th floor, where the old Greek owner ended up not only doing an excellent (and cheap) job with my shirts, but when I told him I was Italian he also had quite a few good stories to share about his best friend, an Italian immigrant who became a very successful businessman and who had recently passed due to complications after catching a pretty nasty flu.. They had quite a few crazy adventures together in their younger days, often in rough neighbourhoods in old Chicago, occasionally rubbing shoulders with people that may or may not have been mobsters.
While I can’t claim that my ride on the train was as eventful as that of Gene Wilder in “Silver Streak“, my time on the California Zephyr definitely provided some great material in this department.
Most people ride the California Zephyr for the experience of the trip itself, rather than to simply get to a destination. The humanity that populates the train is so diverse and peculiar, and the combination of being confined in a close space (without showering) for 2 and a half days mixed with the anticipation and the emotion of being all part of an epic journey certainly generates a special sense of camaraderie among the passengers that makes the trip even more enjoyable.
Rich British tourists who have been all over the world share a table with the college graduate on a budget that is travelling West for the first time in his life. A girl who moved from Siberia to Mississippi to study chats with the guy who fell from the roof when he was a child and has been afraid of flying ever since.
I have a great time chatting over lunch with the writer following along on a “mystery trip” to Utah that her best friend has planned, while in the other car Lance, the “redneck from East LA” (as he introduces himself), has cornered yet another of his fellow passengers with his story about the truck he has to pick up in Sacramento because the driver walked out on him. Lance is one of those characters that – unlike me – will talk to anyone anytime, and after a short while he has made friends with pretty much everybody on this train. The constant chatter can be quite annoying, but when you stop and listen, he does have some pretty amusing stories from his time in the military travelling around the world to his current life on a farm in Wyoming running a freight company.
He definitely has the Amish guys on their way to pick up their parents in Mexico under his spell, and they can’t seem to get enough of his stories. He also has the eye of the hunter and easily spots wild horses on the top of the mountain. To me those just look like bushes far away in the distance, but I point the camera in that direction and take a shot anyway… Later on when I look at the picture I zoom in and “I’ll be damned!”, there they are, 4 mustangs on top of that hill.
Another thing that makes the California Zephyr experience memorable is seeing the passion and pride that the staff take in their work and all the effort they put into making sure we enjoy our ride to the maximum. Andre has spent the last 6 years working in the restaurant on this line. He takes me on a private tour of the sleeping cars and it’s great to chat about the differences between trains in the US and in Europe with him. His genuine friendliness is contagious and I love the familiarity with which he yells “Francescoo” every time he passes by my seat in the observation deck, giving me a high five with a big smile on his face.
Sitting up in a corner of the empty observation deck car at night somewhere in the middle of Nebraska I enjoy listening to the conductors sharing their best stories. My favourite is the one about “The Russian”, a man who regularly boards the first available train that passes by (without a ticket). A few days ago he was spotted in Lafayette, Louisiana. Someone else had reported seeing him in Omaha. Before that he had made it all the way to Denver before getting caught and gently asked to get off the train. He sometimes tries to disguise himself or hide, but he has become such a well-known character among the conductors, who think he does it mostly for the kick he gets from “breaking the law”. I can’t help but sensing a hint of affectionate amusement in the way the conductors talk about this modern day freight-hopper, a somewhat welcomed distraction from the monotony of going up and down the Midwestern plains on a train day in and day out.
The vibe on the Coast Starlight is certainly different, a bit weirder and certainly less “social” than on the Zephyr. The only “friendly” type is the “Snoop Doggie Dogg” wannabe, high as a kite and giggling constantly in a very high pitched voice: his friendliness is however mostly reserved for the female passengers on the train, who get to hear over and over again how beautiful they are, and how he’s now getting his life back on track after a few years in jail. He is starting his own business and dreams of a good woman to love. The ladies are not that impressed by all his sweet talk, but he seems harmless enough and I move to the observation deck to see the sunrise over the Cascades.
The table behind me is occupied by a young girl in her 20s who is having a raw onion and ginger root for breakfast. The 60 years old man sleeping next to her turns out to be her husband, as she points out – visibly annoyed by what is obviously a recurring question – to the group of middle-aged women with whom she was previously discussing the benefits of her diet. The ladies for their part are mostly eagerly waiting for the cafe downstairs to open, so that they can start their day in the best way with some cocktails.
I end up sitting between a group of middle-aged men from different parts of the country intent in sharing their respective experiences and opinions on the importance of making one’s kids get a taste of the belt every now and then to keep them from making bad life choices. The most progressive one is strongly against hitting them on the face, as that’s apparently bad for their self-esteem.
At this point, as it is not even 7am and Portland is still 8 hours away I decide that meeting new people is great, but sometimes hiding behind a pair of giant headphones is not such a bad idea after all.