usa rail pass. third segment: chicago to grand rapids.

life has certainly thrown me for a loop this week...let's play a little catch up.

last friday (christmas eve), after spending 2 days hanging out in pjs with my niece, my brother took me to a metra station to get into downtown. after about 2 minutes of browsing through the raunchy romance novels that they had at the station (random, i know, but i love those romance novels!), they announced that the train was going to be about 20-30 minutes late which was going to put me getting into the station a little too late...

kyle came to the rescue and drove me into downtown to union station. i was able to grab a burrito and be on time for my train. i had a small world moment when i ran into my friend mark from the corps of engineers as i was walking to my gate. life is good like that sometimes.

i ended up sitting next to a really interesting guy from memphis who, after a few years of pursuing the music life, is now doing archaeology work. pretty sweet! i made it home just fine to hugs from my family before quickly going to bed.

on christmas day, i awoke with the news that my grandmother in denver (who had been very sick) had passed away. merry christmas. we opened presents, ate a bit of lunch and then my mom and i took my dad to the airport. the next few days were just kind of a blur. i stayed in my pjs most of the time and went on a few jogs around the neighborhood. i did manage to meet up with my friend matt from college. we went ice skating in downtown and got dinner and drinks at some of my favorite places in grand rapids. that was delightful.

airport picture my aunts went gaga over.

but, early early early that next morning, my mom and i flew back to denver for the funeral. the service was nice, and it was good to see family i hadn't seen in quite a while, but the circumstances were less than desirable.

on the bright side, i might be inheriting a banjo which i spent quite a bit of time tinkering around on. it may or may not make its way to california!!

on our way out of denver, a big snowstorm blew through the area...but we didn't have any delays, thankfully.

i've spent new years relaxing around town. i met up with kate for a delicious lunch at san chez cafe, saw tron in 3D with my parents and plan on an early night.

happy new year!

here are some highlights from the family photo session...

dad, me, mom and aunt leslie.

mom and aunt leslie!

my camera has a smile detection mode.

sassy cat. that's the cat's name.

usa rail pass. second segment: colorado to chicago.

eventually we all got on the train just past 2am on wednesday morning. boy was that a long wait in the train station. i kept myself entertained by rotating my activities: knitting a scarf, reading a few chapters of a book, playing a few rounds of free cell or pinball on my laptop, and checking to see if anything more enticing magically appeared in the vending machines. lather, rinse, repeat.

trash heap in nebraska.

i fell asleep pretty soon after i got onto the train. i stirred a bit at sunrise but realized that it was too much effort to try to get some pictures on an overcast day in nebraska. also, my head felt like it was in a fishbowl since my ears didn't want to pop from all of my congestion.

i spent the majority of the day in the lounge car, knitting most of the time. sometime in the afternoon, i struck up a delighful conversation with my new friend rob from utah. it was fun to talk with someone my age and definitely helped the afternoon fly by at a quicker pace. rob had a book of sudokus, and surprisingly, i got through a few of them.

my pack on the metra.

olivia playing around with tigger.

i ended up getting into union station just past 11:30pm...a mere 8 and a half hours past my scheduled arrival at 3pm. i rushed over to the oglivie transportation center and hopped onto the last metra out to the suburbs. my brother picked me up at 1:30am, and i slept a few hours on the couch before being woken up by my adorable niece, olivia. we spent the morning playing around until i decided to go to the walk-in clinic to get my sickness checked out.

i walked away with two types of ear drops and a sinus rinse. goody! the rest of the day was spent playing with olivia, eating some pizza and hanging out with some of kyle and ivonne's friends.

i spent the rest of my time in chicago hanging out in my pjs playing with my niece. i did manage to play some rock band (keyboard, yea!) with my bro and his family which was fun. here are some photos of olivia:

olivia and kyle on skype with my family in colorado.

olivia was fascinated by candies from my aunt brenda.

yea! playing with yarn at an early age.

using daddy as a chair. haha.

usa rail pass. first segment: california to colorado.

union station in la. saturday, december 18.

last saturday, i started my train trip across the country. weeks ago i bought a USA Rail Pass and set up my itinerary. i packed up my life for three weeks in my mid-size backpack and a messenger bag. then, after a rousing going away shindig for kate and stephen, i headed out with a few others down the mountain. it was a rainy, icky day in southern california, but i ended up being dropped off right at los angeles union station. i really liked the station. it had a comfortable waiting area, the ticket guy was helpful with my rail pass and all of my tickets, and there was even a movie being filmed right in the station. i didn't get any pictures of it, but as i walked by to board my train, there were people dressed up in really terrifying bear costumes (okay, maybe just terrifying to me, i'm sure it's some sort of children's movie).

sunrise in new mexico. sunday, december 19.

i learned from my last long distance train trip to bring a blanket and a pillow, so at around 9pm, my tummy full of a veggie burger from the snack bar, i curled up in my seat and fell asleep. i woke up at about 2am, knitted and read for a while and went back to sleep. i woke up again at 6:30 to see a beautiful sunrise.

i decided to splurge a little bit and enjoyed lunch in the dining car. i sat next to an old man headed towards boston and a navy guy heading from san diego back home to detroit. the old man left after a while, and i enjoyed some pleasant conversation with the navy guy. as we munched on the last bits of our sandwiches, we both ordered chocolate chip cheesecake with blueberries on top. it was delightful.

car wreck outside of lamy, nm on december 19, 2010.

all through southern california, arizona and into new mexico, the train was relatively on schedule. then, at around 2pm on sunday, our train hit a car at a small mountain road crossing. you can read the news story here. that put us at a standstill for about 5 hours. the driver, a 28-year-old man, was pulled out of his car within about half an hour experiencing shock and a possible broken leg. thankfully the outcome wasn't worse. i was surprised to see that everyone on the train stayed calm. amtrak had to call in special investigators and a new crew before we could go anywhere...which took a long time. i got restless at the 4th hour of waiting and bought myself a personal pizza and half a bottle of wine to enjoy on the rest of the trip

view of pikes peak from my aunt and uncle's backyard.

my uncle rick was originally going to pick me up at a stop closer to colorado springs where he and my aunt leslie live, however, he ended up picking me up in las vegas, nm. he drove 4 hours to get me, which meant a 4 hour drive back. i slept most of the way and was greeted with hugs and kisses by my aunt leslie and my grandma gini who is visiting from kansas for the holidays.

during my time on the train, i learned that my grandma sara in denver had taken ill and needed emergency surgery. so much drama in the family!

the flamingo tree!

my days in colorado springs were refreshing. i slept a lot, ate some delicious food and enjoyed seeing my aunt, uncle and grandma. we even decorated my aunt and uncle's aluminum tree in all flamingo ornaments.

on tuesday, uncle rick drove me up to denver to see my grandma sara in the hospital and to catch the train. grandma is doing alright...all things considered, but hopefully she'll get stronger day by day. uncle rick and i enjoyed some thai food at a restaurant near the hospital. curious about the train, i called amtrak and learned that the train into denver was running 7 hours late because of harsh weather and a derailed freight train.

so here i am, with another 4 hours to go. it's a good thing i still need to finish my christmas presents.

here are some more photos!!

grandma gini and i.

construction fence in albuquerque.

somewhere in new mexico.

welcome to the double club.

yes. i pulled what is called a "double" this week at high trails. meaning, i worked a cabin shift AND a field shift. i was originally scheduled to work only a cabin shift and splititng a field group with another instructor. but the other instructor got sick, so i ended up just working the whole week.

my cabin group was alright. i had a super cabin...with 18 girls. i get paid more for that since our normal student:instructor ratio is below 16:1, but i felt a bit like i was herding cattle all week instead of being a cabin instructor. i didn't really connect with the girls, except for the girls who stayed near my bunk. those two were really awesome! i had some high maintenance girls as well as some who just took a long time to do everything...which wasn't ideal.

my field group was also alright. there were some really great students and some students who didn't want to be there. we definitely had our low moments and our high moments, so overall it evened out.

wednesday i had a bad day at work. to start off with, i slept through my alarm in the morning. my cabin group needed to be at breakfast early to help set up. sooo...i had 15 minutes to get them up, dressed, and through the bathrooms before they needed to be at the dining hall. i conquered that AND started the meal early. the rest of the morning was fine...cleaning our cabin (we won the cleanest cabin!) and getting the girls ready for the day. 

when i met my field group, however, it got off to an interesting start. one student had to poo right away, but didn't want to go outside. then that same student started to get really, really homesick and was faking being sick in order to try to go home. along the hike, one of the students dropped one of the water jugs and cracked it, so we had to get rid of the water earlier than i wanted. then the homesick student started to get REALLY homesick...crying every 10 minutes, not wanting to eat lunch or drink water. luckily one of his teachers tagged along for the rest of the day so i could continue teaching. right after lunch, the other water jug was dropped and shattered leaving us very limited water supply for the rest of the hike. the day got better though as the students got more and more engaged in the classes. we went down to the creek to wander around, but after i got all of my students across the creek, i slipped and fell in getting my shoes soaked (the one day i didn't wear waterproof shoes...). so i had to spend the rest of the day with no more water and wet shoes. needless to say, i had to have a little cry to let out my emotions from the day...

despite the sweat and tears, the week ended well. we got snow on thursday evening which was fun...but the students weren't quite prepared for the cold weather. a lot of their shoes got wet making the hike a bit miserable and whiny. nothing some fun and energetic camp songs can't fix though! 

i'm now heading out on my epic train trip back home. more to post on that later!

oh, i'm a gummy bear.

yes, i'm a gummy bear.
gummy bear!

that was the cheer for my field group last week. they were a little silly and ridiculous, but i had fun with them. they were very curious and fascinated by all of the knowledge i had to share with them. at times they were a bit on the rowdy side, but nothing that got out of control.

on wednesday i drove down to san diego to visit my friend amy. we had a wonderful time exploring the city. we visited la jolla cove, ate at a delighful cafe just off the shore, wandered around balboa park, enjoyed ice cream and a wonderful shop in the south park neighborhood, and finished off the day with sushi in downtown. pretty great!!

the staff ugly sweater party was on friday. that was a blast! a band even came and played in our living room. pretty great.

i've been spending the day cleaning my room, getting ready for the week and also making sure all of my ducks are in a row for my epic train trip! should be a great week : )

sad face button man.

i went thrift store shopping yesterday for the staff ugly sweater party and one of the stores had a bag sale: fill up a trash bag with whatever you want and pay $5. we went to town! that's where i found a basic green sweater with a button-stick-person sewn on the back. the button man has a sad face...it's pretty great.

but my week was good. the only time the sad face man could have described my week was yesterday. and yesterday wasn't even too bad. i woke up to find that someone had eaten my brussel sprouts and i didn't get to go contra dancing because the weather wasn't very great.

i only worked for 3 days this week as a cabin instructor. my cabin was pretty good, but it was hard for them to appreciate the camp experience for 3 days (which is really only 2 days).

in other life news, i've started jogging! i've never really been much of a runner, but running on trails is a lot of fun.

here are some things i've realized about myself since i've been out here:

1. i own a lot of boots. 6 pairs: snow boots, hiking boots, moon boots, cowboy boots, rain boots and my trail shoes (which are boots).
2. i wear a lot of spandex. i now have about 6 pairs of leggings. i wear them all the time.
3. i eat a lot of brussel sprouts. my friend kyle now has his "robin" meal which includes brussel sprouts.
4. greek yogurt is really good.
5. i also really enjoy cleaning stoves.

that's it for now! until next week...