[PRCo] Re: Montana Travelogue

[Schneider Fred]

So solly guys.   Meant this to go to Dennis personally.   Didn't mean  
to bore you all.


On Jul 28, 2009, at 2:50 PM, Schneider Fred wrote:

> I've been to Glacier at least twice ... I would have to look at the
> dates on the slides ... might be three times.   I know I stayed at
> the former Great Northern Railroad lodge at Essex twice, once with
> Bruce Bente and once with my wife (2007).   Only once have I been
> able to drive through the park on the Going to the Sun Highway.
>
> The first time with Bruce we rode one of the Jammers.   Since we
> could not go through the park, it became an impromptu tour.   The
> lady driver made it up as we went.   When lunch time came she said
> there was an official place where she was supposed to take us to
> enrich the coffers of the politically correct people and the other
> choice was an Indian owned restaurant on the Blackfeet Nation east of
> the park that she believed was much better.   We were told to vote on
> it.   We went to the indian restaurant.   When I spied a rainbow and
> yelled.   She stopped and some of us poured out to photograph the old
> White with the rainbow.   It was one great day.
>
> The next day they had the highway open so Bruce or I (don't remember
> who) drove my red VW Passat over the top).
>
> Then in 2007 I took Marie there, staying again at Essex with a room
> facing the tracks.  Surprisingly, I'm the one who would like to see
> the trains at night and I slept through it.   They kept her awake.
> Again the road over the top was closed.   We could only get up to the
> heavy stone work in your picture on the west side.   The ranger we
> talked to said the damage over the winter was worst in his lifetime.
>
> I guess my problem with travel is that I have come to appreciate
> being close to the ground and seeing what is there ... the Ukrainian
> restaurant in Manitoba, the little US 66 museum in Oklahoma, the
> spring desert flowers in Arizona, even the sudden impromptu chartered
> airplane flight just to photograph farms in Nebraska ... and you
> can't do that when you're locked into an Amtrak schedule.   I've
> traveled an estimated 1.25 million miles in my life by car on two
> continents plus rail and bus on three continents.   My folks taught
> me the art of just getting in the car in the morning and aiming it in
> the direction you wanted to go.   It matters not what you see, only
> that you enjoy your self, find beauty, and learn from the experience.
>
> I also have to admit that I've been spoiled.   I know what it was
> like to ride on the Southern Railway in pre Amtrak days when the food
> was cooked in the diner and served on China.   When I told the waiter
> that the steak was not done like ordered, he scooped up everything.
> I protested.   I said the vegetables were fine.   He said, "Please,
> Sir.   Give me a chance to make everything perfect."   It was perfect
> the second time around.   I remember the Erie-Lackawanna's crispy
> corn fritters on the Lake Cities.   I also rode the Wabash Banner
> Blue and the Santa Fe's Texas Chief.   The Pennsy paled by comparison
> to them and yet we would love to have the PRR back today because it
> was so much better than Amtrak ... at least the Pennsy knew how to
> get you there on time and the food was at least passable even though
> I could easily find better restaurants.
>
> I've had delicious white fish on British Railways and superb veal on
> German Federal Railways too.   On the other hand, I also remember a
> German lady trying to run people out of her diner because they only
> wanted a beer at 3 in the afternoon ... theeese vagen ees for meeels
> only.   Ve serve beer mit meels.   You cannot sit here and not order
> meel.   Of course there was no one else wanting to eat at three
> o'clock ... stupidity is everywhere.
>
> I have been insulted on Amtrak by a club car attendant who told me to
> put my food back in the case because he didn't open for another two
> minutes.   And then when he did open, he had the unprecedented gall
> to suggest I put money in his tip jar.   I suggested that if he had
> worked for the Southern under Claytor before this was an Amtrak
> train, he would have been fired for his attitude.   Oh yes, there was
> also the Amtrak conductor last summer or the summer before who had a
> Japanese tourist arrested for taking a picture out the window in
> Connecticut.   The poor visitor was a subversive?
>
> I've crossed the United States enough times by auto that I have
> forgotten the trips.   Most were from the east coast.  Some were from
> home to the west coast.   Some I went half or two thirds of the way
> across.   In some cases I flew to California, met my friend Don Duke,
> and worked half way back  (Los Angeles to El Paso to Tucumcari to
> Albuquerque and back or Los Angeles to Seattle and back or Los
> Angeles to Reno to San Francisco and back).  I've driven across
> country three times in the last five years.
>
> Unfortunately they are normally radial to home or up the west coast
> or along the Gulf Coast.   Sometime I would like to start at
> Brownsville Texas and drive north into Manitoba to get a feeling for
> how the plants change with latitude and temperature instead of simply
> elevation at the same latitude.   I've been in all those places along
> the route but I need to have the route hammered into me.
>
> My most recent trip cross country excursion was March and April
> 2009:   I put (get this) 9898 miles on the car driving from Lancaster
> to Little Warshington, Indianapolis, then along the abandoned Indiana
> Railroad to Louisville, Owensboro (I collect cities of 50,000 or
> larger and that is one I had to add to the list), Evansville (another
> city of 50,000), Cairo (the most down in the mouth city I've ever
> seen), New Madrid MO (the earthquake museum), Bentonville AR (had
> breakfast with a high school classmate), Albuquerque (rode the new
> commuter rail line from Belen to Santa Fe), Four Corners (had to
> honor a friend who wanted to go there to piss in four states on one
> bladder .... no I didn't ... you don't really do that with 20 indians
> selling merchandise), Canyon de Chelly AZ (fabulous), Phoenix (the
> new light rail), Tucson (the heritage trolley and the air museum),
> Organ Pipe Cactus National Park, San Diego (a chunk of the light rail
> I never rode), Escondido (the diesel light rail to Oceanside), Perris
> (the trolley museum), Los Angeles (a buddy and the construction of
> two light rail lines), Death Valley National Park, Las Vegas (had to
> ride the monorail and have dinner with Ken Josephson and visit
> Boulder Dam), Grand Canyon (Bruce Bente had never been there),
> Sonoma, Phoenix (more light rail and drop my friend who was with me
> since Phoenix), over the mountain on the old road to Lordsburg and El
> Paso, US 95 across Texas, Big Bend National Park, more of US 95
> including Judge Roy Bean's shack, the southern tip of Texas including
> the girls in bikinis on the beach at South Padre Island, Galveston
> (the trolleys have not moved since the hurricane), New Orleans (the
> trolleys were running), Mobile (another for the 50,000 rule and a few
> pictures), Selma AL (to have dinner with a high school buddy and
> celebrate passover in the synagogue in Montgomery with him and his
> wife), Savannah (ride the bi-diesel trolley), Charlotte (photograph
> the light rail), Charlottesville (social call on William D.
> Middleton, a friend of 46 years) and home through Big Washington and
> Baltimore.   I used up a digital card on the Nikon D90 and about 20
> rolls of Fuji Astia in the F100 Nikon.   (By the way, I have well
> over 90% of the cities of 50,000.   Most of those I'm missing are
> suburbs of major cities, mostly in Los Angeles or Houston or Dallas-
> Fort Worth.)
>
>
> On Jul 28, 2009, at 1:03 PM, Dennis Fred Cramer wrote:
>
>> We traveled from Pittsburgh to Whitefish and back via Amtrak.  Four
>> days on the train and six days in Glacier National Park.  There are
>> a few transportation pictures throughout.
>>
>>
>> http://sites.google.com/site/dfctravels/montana-2009
>> Dennis F. Cramer
>>       Trombone
>>
>>
>>
>
>