[PRCo] Re: Montana Travelogue

Tue Jul 28 16:24:55 EDT 2009

It is one of our most beautiful national parks ... and a link to the  
lovely Canadian Rockies.

On Jul 28, 2009, at 3:04 PM, John Bromley wrote:

> I went through Glacier, end to end on the Going to the Sun Highway,  
> grossly
> mis-named that day, in October 1981 on my way to a business project in
> Calgary.  The park was officially closed for the season but the  
> road was
> open.  Light rain and fog.  No one was home.  From the time I  
> entered at the
> lower end and went out at the upper end, not a single car was seen  
> in either
> direction.  I parked in the middle of the highway for pictures  
> (Kodachrome
> works well in clouds).  No reason not to, it was so quiet I would  
> have heard
> another car miles away.  Had to watch out for animals of course,  
> many seen,
> none hit.  Never found a quieter spot in my life than Glacier that  
> day,
> imagine 3 hours in a national park and not a soul about.
>
> As I was leaving the park to take US 89 north to Canada, the sun  
> came out
> and a car drove in.
>
>
>> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> Reply-To: Pittsburgh Railways Group <pittsburgh- 
>> railways at dementia.org>
>> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:50:09 -0400
>> To: Pittsburgh Railways Group <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Montana Travelogue
>>
>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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