Three Nights on a Train

The train will not find you. You must find the train, its pulse, its way of being beyond obvious rock and sway. The train’s pulse is deeper than movement.
If you listen, you will hear the song of the train, and when you find the song, you will find the engine, the heart, the blood, the pulse. 

You ride the train. It is the Iron Horse Without A Saddle: silent, strident, gentle, strong. Everyone must stop for the Iron Horse. The Iron Horse owns right of way.

The Journey:
​CALIFORNIA: San Diego, Los Angeles, Fullerton, Riverside, San Bernardino, Victorville, Barstow, Needles; ARIZONA: Kingman, Williams Junction, Flagstaff, Winslow; NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque, Lamy, Las Vegas, Raton; COLORADO: Trinidad, La Junta, Lamar; KANSAS: Garden City, Dodge City, Hutchison, Newton, Topeka, Lawrence; MISSOURI: Kansas City, La Plata; IOWA: Fort Madison; ILLINOIS: Galesburg, Princeton, Mendota, Naperville, Chicago; INDIANA: South Bend, Elkhart, Waterloo; OHIO: Sandusky, Elyria, Cleveland, Alliance; PENNSYLVANIA: Pittsburgh. 

From San Diego, California to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Three trains, two and one half days, three nights, me at a window seat, marveling. 

The southwest is shades of dark to light and everything in between of brown, green, black, pink with very little white. The white is ancillary and too obvious, out of place, except for snow covering mountains in the distance.
 
I witnessed

• naturally formed rock gardens
• liberated cows choosing feeding grounds miles from home, lifeless drying whole carcasses of cows that did not return scattered through underbrush
• a sea of bare trees, felled, split, broken and beautiful.

 
I thought of my camera in my bag, yet found myself relaxed beyond need, perfectly peaceful and serene that the camera became an afterthought.
 
I witnessed

• rock formations resembling lizards and alligators
• poverty
• real farmers with working farms
• a painted and bedazzled assemblage of strips of wood cut into shapes of windmill spikes, seemingly out of place but someone created it, someone placed it there
• small trees in clumps that looked like petrified buffalo
• blonde wild ponies scampering through brown grass

 
If creative people are not careful, they will find themselves bereft of ideas and unable to create with highest authority. This is called being all used up. This is the time when artists must fill the creative well. Three nights on a train became another filling the well opportunity for me and I am grateful. 

Three nights on a train is not luxurious. Shame on you Amtrak, the train needs a thorough steam cleaning front to back, top to bottom. The bathrooms are wiped down but never really cleaned, obvious muck. But I’m a camper and allowed myself to think of the train as a moving campsite. I listened to that small voice prior to my departure date and brought along Clorox wipes, also body wipes, snacks, water, pillow and other comforts and decided to enjoy the experience. I’m glad I did.
 
I still have a romantic notion about trains. The clean train I’m looking for is out there somewhere. I’ll find it. Nature is already there, waiting for me.
 
Well, that’s it for now. God has refilled me, can’t wait to get back to work quilting, writing, painting and whatever is next. Happy Quilting! or whatever creative project you are dreaming of and working on.