Day 2- May 21, 2006- en route

Doug falls asleep somewhere around Ohio. I think about waking him when the sun rises, unseen, just a layer of pink lining the horizon. I don't. The man behind me has been emitting all sorts of gas the whole way here and it's a wonder we slept at all. The girl sitting next to him takes off for some other part of the train when he starts asking questions. I feel bad for her. I have been there.

Somewhere in Indiana I dream that all my friends are caravaning through farmlands on their way to a movie shoot. Mike's got a pickup truck and I'm in the cabin with him discussing camera angles.

The train is 3 hours late getting into Chicago, which cuts into our time between one train and the next. We (on Doug's suggestion- to be fair) check on the progress of our suitcase at the customer service desk. Lo and behold, it was sent to the wrong place, and an older man with glasses as thick as my grandfathers leads us to the train to retrieve it, saying hello to the crew on the way, feeling very important.

We find the suitcase- thank goodness- and bring it on board with us, meaning that I'll spend the next two days with my feet propped up on it in my own makeshift leg room.

I spend all of Wisconsin eavesdropping on a conversation in the seats in front of me. A New Zealand kid- he says he graduated college a couple years ago, but he looks 18- and a middle aged woman from Minnesota, who's got an accent thick as the mother from Bobby's World. He is travelling the country for three months, she is suggesting places to go. I smirk to Doug at the conversation, but secretly it makes me feel lost because I can't identify with the American or the traveller and I guess I want to feel both.