©2014 Ted H. Schaar
21. Montana
|
White
May
Woke to snow in the hills and fields of western Montana.
Just passed through a small town that appeared to have non-tribal casinos. Dumpy little places advertising keno and poker. This section of track is particularly bumpy, and we're being tossed and jostled more than usual. Over the past little while, for the first time, the landscape is beginning to look like Wisconsin with trees and brush along the fence lines. Strangers
Continue to meet
interesting people in the dining car.
At breakfast we sat with an African-American woman who looked 25 but told us she had 21- and 17-year-old kids. An oil industry employee traveling to a job also joined us. He said petroleum workers often use Amtrak because it offers the best rates. European
tourist
One day we had lunch with a young man from Germany who loves
America
and traveling by train. Spoke nearly perfect English and
had
visited this country numerous times. He was employed in
a
successful family business and appeared to have plenty of
money.
His jovial personality and kind demeanor made me wonder, as I have so many times, how his ancestors were taken in by the despotically evil Adolph Hitler, who brought them destruction, death, disability, and shame. |
Lead cars are visible at the head of the bend.
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