Going Home

     It was one of those days…or, more accurately, it was one of those trips.  It all started when my best friend Bailey and I decided to go to Seattle by the Amtrak train.  It was all set that we would be able to stay with Bailey’s cousin, Karina, and since both of us had a fear of flying, the train worked perfectly…or so we thought.

     Don’t get me wrong, aside from being two hours late getting to our destination, the trip out went well and we had the time of our life while we were in Seattle.  We did the touristy things, went to Pike’s Place Market, the Seattle Center, Pioneer Square, the Locks, the troll under the bridge, and we even drove into Vancouver, Canada, and took a Ferry at Horseshoe Bay to a little island.

     Our last day in Seattle we’d gone to all of our favorite places and then had packed up so we’d be ready for an early morning start the next day.  Karina dropped us off at the train station on her way to work and Bailey and I found seats and settled in to wait for our train’s departure.  Our train was the first one scheduled to leave, and the station was starting to fill up with passengers.

     Departure time came and went.  Five minutes passed, then ten, fifteen, and finally at the twenty minute mark, our train was called for boarding.  Most of the cars on the train are two levels.  The bottom level has a place where you can put your bags on a metal rack, then about half of the car is set up for passengers, and the bathroom is set up at the other end of the car.  There is a door-sized opening in the side of the car about at the midway point that houses the winding stairs that lead to the second level.  The upper level is where you want to be, and the further you are from the bathrooms below the better as they tend to emit an odor as time passes.

     Excitement started to creep in as we took our seats.  We’d been gone for eight days and we were ready to get home and unwind from the trip.

     There are two cars to keep track of when you are getting on the train.  They are the observation car and the dining car.  The reason they are so important is that this is where you need to go for food.  The observation car is set up so the lower part of the car is set up as a snack shop where you can buy sandwiches, chips, and assorted snack food, and there are a few places to sit as well.  The upper part of the car is mainly glass with the seats facing the glass walls of the train so that you can view the scenery.  The dining car is where you would go for a restaurant style meal. 

     The first leg of the journey home didn’t go too badly, just mainly a matter of getting into Emeryville, California late and then rushing to get in line to get on the train we needed to get us home, the California Zephyr. 

     The California Zephyr is a name that I still remember today, thirteen years after the trip.  I can’t remember the name of the train that took us from California to Seattle, except I think it had coastline lounge or something in the title.  So, why would the Zephyr stick out in my mind?  Well, it has to do with our journey getting home.

     From Emeryville, we traveled through Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City, Grand Junction, Fraser-Winter Park…and then it happened, just before the Moffat Tunnel.  It was night time now, about eight p.m., so it was starting to get dark, but you could still see.  The train stopped.  They worked on it for several minutes and as they worked, the world outside grew darker and darker.  When the train finally jerked forward, the moon and stars were out but it was dark enough out that you couldn’t see what was around. 

     I’m not really afraid of the dark, at least not most of the time.  I will scare myself periodically by watching a show on TV or movie that makes me jumpy, but most of the time my imagination will behave itself and I’m okay.  I am, however, afraid of closed in spaces and heights.  This tied in with where we were on our route.  The next thing we were going to be doing would be to go through the Moffat Tunnel.  It was six miles long and once we were on the other side, we would have crossed the Continental Divide.

     We entered the tunnel and now it was pitch black, not even the moon and stars to afford us relief from the darkness.  I could feel my heart beating in my chest as my throat felt like it was closing up.  Panic was setting in.  My hand reached out to the glass of the window beside my seat.  I was oddly comforted by the vibrations I felt from the glass.  After all, as long as I could feel the vibrations, we had to be moving, right?

     Time seemed to stop as I sat there silently praying for the train to continue moving forward and I had to remind myself to breathe.  First breathe in, now breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

      My muscles felt tight and I realized my other hand was clenching the arm rest of my seat.  I tried to loosen my grip, but just then the train rocked and I forgot about my muscles so that I could go back to praying, bargaining with God that if he got me out of that dark tunnel I was going to start going to church on a more regular basis and I would be the kind, sweet person that he wanted me to be.  I would do anything he asked if he’d just get me out of there safely.  When the first hint of light from the moon and stars became visible once more, I felt an enormous sense of relief. 

     If we thought our troubles were over after that, we were wrong.  At one point, the train had to stop because our engineer was unable to take us any further.  Like truckers, after so many miles or hours, he needed to have down time before he was able to continue.  We were in the middle of nowhere and had to wait for Amtrak to get us a different engineer.  To compound that, the train had run out of food.

     This caused concern because Bailey’s diabetic and we had no food for her to eat.  She needed something to eat as she was starting to feel shaky.  I went to the dining car and explained our circumstances, luckily the guy who ran the snack shop had two sandwiches left.  I bought one for Bailey and she was able to get her blood sugar back where it needed to be. 

     Eight hours after our train was due to arrive, we finally pulled into the station.  A ninety minute drive and I was home.