"North By Northwest" this is not ...

As of right now we are traveling three hours behind schedule. Last night, our train got stuck behind a bunch of freight traffic. So now, ETA is about 10:15 instead of 7:15 am. Shucks, I wanted to be at the front of the line so I could get all of my check in over with. Oh, well. I imagine that airports are having delay issues too, what with the weather that’s expected to move across the Midwest.

So Chicago was a bit of a bust. Kevin showed up around 11:00 pm on Saturday night when the train stopped in Pittsburgh. I slept through the whole thing. When we got off the train in Chicago, we also ran into Andrew. As we were heading through the station, Maggie, Kevin and I separated from TT, TT’s friend and Andrew. We found a locker for our stuff and headed out into the city to find something to do. Well, we probably should have stuck with Andrew and TT. They went to the art museum. We walked around for three hours. We didn’t bother with going up the Sears Tower because of how cloudy it was. And nothing else was open! I mean, it was about 9:00 am when we got there. But, even by 11:00 am, restaurants weren’t open yet for lunch. Local eateries weren’t open, chain restaurants weren’t open. Nothing. In fact, some places were closed for the whole day. A word of advice: Don’t visit Chicago on a Sunday. I mean, even all of Lansdale is open on Sundays. How a major city could practically shut down every Sunday is beyond me.

So, after walking around the city for about three hours, we just said, “Screw it” and headed back to the station to get our stuff out of the locker so we wouldn’t have to pay for extra time.

While we were sitting at the gate waiting for the train to Denver, we saw a guy reading the AmeriCorps handbook. He turned out to be Nathan. And as we were boarding the train, a girl named Katie was in front of us, who also happens to be doing NCCC. Our group now totals eight members (but still, no one else is in the Earth unit, wtf?). So we all found seats together for the ride over. Everything has been pretty cool so far, minus being three hours behind schedule. Everyone seems to be getting along really well. Last night, Maggie, Nathan, Doug and I went to the dining car for dinner. I had a veggie burger, mmm! It’s been a while since I’ve had one, I forgot how good they are. So that was a treat. During dinner, we put Doug on the spot and had him explain some of the insider details about the NCCC experience. He admits that some things about the Denver campus and the Winter Cycle may have changed since he last served in 2005. But I think we all felt a lot better about what lay ahead after hearing what he had to say.

Ugh, we just stopped again. It’s 8:35 am. Ah, there’s apparently a freight train in front of us that’s “in trouble.” We have to wait for a relief crew to unstick it. I actually have no idea where we are right now. The last train station stop I recall seeing was McCook. I haven’t seen anything identifiable since then, no water towers with names or anything. Plenty of cows, a few small towns here and there (the kind that make a big deal about getting a traffic light at an intersection). The snow seemed to disappear for a while, but now it’s back, at least on the ground. After we left Chicago yesterday, we were riding right into a snowstorm around South Bend, IN. It was coming down really hard, total white out for a little bit. Right now, I actually can’t tell whether there’s snow approaching or if it’s just really foggy. (9:05 am – I just heard Doug say to someone that we’re in Colorado.)

Something amusing about our group of eight: it seems that almost everyone packed their cell phone chargers away in the bag that they checked for Denver. At least I’m not the only one who did it. A sign of things to come? Hahaha.

I’d really love to take a shower right about now. I’m not so desperate that I’d go outside and rub snow all over my body. But I would wash my hair in the sink if it were only large enough. Boo. I guess I’ll have to deal with greasy hair for the rest of the day. At least I clipped it up.