I woke up Sunday morning, December 18th, with good intentions. I had some work to do before attending a wedding for two neighbors, serving as one of two witnesses to this event that would have no other guests. Just as I buckled down to get to business, I received an unwelcome text.
I had a reservation on the Amtrak Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago for Wednesday, December 21, and I’d planned my work and errand schedule around that date. Now, I had a message saying that the train was canceled due to severe weather. My plans for work went out the window.
Scrambling to find a solution
When hit with this news, I immediately went into overdrive, my brain scrambling for a possible solution to this unexpected problem. This apparent roadblock. I do this all the time. Often, I anticipate trouble that isn’t even there yet! And I rush to try to fix it, scrambling for solutions and not trusting that they’ll come without a struggle on my part. The answers I come up with aren’t always ideal; they don’t always serve me well.
So, I opened my computer and started plugging in searches for rental cars. Nope. WAY too expensive. Then I began the hunt for flights. Oh, I didn’t want to fly. Not in the winter, and not with the anticipated storm. But I scoured my options, and my mom jumped in to help me.
Ticket prices weren’t as outrageous as I would have thought just before Christmas. But the last thing I wanted was to fly from Seattle to Chicago, which would take me right over the massive system that would be moving across the country. At last, I found a ticket that might work for a journey that headed south to Dallas before turning north to Indianapolis, if I could work out a couple of logistics. Though the flight went south, bypassing the worst of the weather system, I still wasn’t crazy about the idea.
Sitting with it
I quickly discovered that I could make it work, but I didn’t purchase the ticket. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to fly. Something told me to wait; sit with the option and give myself a little time before making a decision. I told myself that I would go to this wedding first and decide afterward whether to go ahead a book the flight.
The day was cold, with the wind picking up speed and clouds moving in. This wedding was outside, on the beach, or, rather, under a shelter at the beach. The wind was too strong to light a fire. The groom tried valiantly for several minutes. The five of us (bride, groom, officiator, and two witnesses) were left to brave the elements. By the time the ceremony was over, white stuff was tumbling from the clouds, sweeping and swirling to the ground. It was beautiful. It was cold.
In the middle of the festivities, I felt my phone vibrate a couple of times, but I didn’t look to see who the message was from until I was riding back to the park.
Getting my answer
It turns out that the message was from Amtrak. Apparently, they could put me on the train the next day, but I’d have to get in touch quickly, as only limited seating was available. You better believe I was on that phone right away. Fortunately, though I was on hold for about 20 minutes and my call was a couple of hours after I received the message, I got on the train.
Oh, the excitement of not having to fly! Oh, the panic over everything I had to get done before I got on that train. Not to mention the fact that I wouldn’t be able to finish all my work ahead of time. But I didn’t have to fly!
Sometimes, the best solutions come from sitting with the possibilities for a while. To trust enough to allow time for them to reveal themselves instead of always striving to put out fires that haven’t been ignited. In my rush to come up with an alternative, I didn’t even consider getting on an earlier train. By displaying just a little patience, I was rewarded with a far better solution than the ones I’d initially considered, and it was even more fortuitous than I could have imagined at the time.
Riding the rails
That evening, I shopped and packed. The next morning, I had work to finish before leaving, articles that were due that morning. I had more time than I thought. The train coming from Chicago was running a little late. I pushed my departure to a later time, planning around the latest possible ferry crossing before the new estimated departure.
I made it to the train station, only to have the train delayed multiple times, even after it arrived in Seattle. Though the train was in the station, they had to prep it for the next journey, a process that normally takes 3 hours. This night, it would take much longer than that.
Amtrak fed us while we waited. Subway sandwiches…go figure.
And this was the first beautiful thing on this journey.
I am generally vegan but accept that sometimes I need to be flexible and eat a vegetarian meal. When they announced that they had sandwiches for everyone, I went up to where three people were handing out the meals and asked if they had a vegetarian option (this was Subway, I knew vegan was out of the question), telling them I just wanted to know before I stood in line. They assured me they did, so to the back of the line I went—which was longer than it had been, of course. And I waited my turn.
The man in front of me approached the table, and the woman said they had turkey, ham, and veggie…oh, wait, we don’t have the veggie anymore, she said.
Are you kidding me?
The man made his choice, and I ambled toward the front getting ready to say something a little snarky like “I expressly asked if there was a vegetarian option before getting in line,” but I didn’t really get the chance. I’m sure the exasperated look on my face said enough because the guy I’d talked to broke into a huge grin and a chuckle as he motioned to another guy helping him, then passed a box to the woman handing out the meals. Apparently, they’d set aside a sandwich just for me. Because I asked.
I wanted to hug them.
Why do we often jump to the conclusion that things are not going to work out, instead of trusting that they will?
Pushing on through
I took my sandwich box, happy in the knowledge that people often do good when given the chance. As the night wore on, though, I grew frustrated. The train that had arrived from Chicago left the station, but we weren’t on it! And we had little information about what was going on. Eventually, it got late enough that Amtrak personnel disappeared.
None of us could find anyone to talk to, and when one woman called Amtrak, they had no answers either.
Grumble. Grumble. Faith in goodness reduced.
It’s SO easy to latch on to negativity, isn’t it?
At about 11 pm (this train was supposed to leave at 4:45 pm), I noticed an Amtrak employee out on the platform, looking down the line, and I knew the train was approaching. Hooray! We pulled out of the station at almost 11:30, but that was just the beginning of our challenges.
The trip was SLOOOOOOW going. We did not reach Spokane until midday the next day. After we pulled out of Spokane, the weather got a little tricky. The temperature plummeted. Really plummeted. At one point, it was -27, with a feels-like temperature of -56. Brrrrr.
We were supposed to go through Glacier National Park during the daylight hours on the way east. That didn’t happen. We crossed the mountains in the middle of the night. I woke up at one point, pressing my face to the window to see where we were stopped. The amount of snow was unbelievable. I had no idea how we were still making progress. But then I thought, wait, maybe we aren’t! Maybe we’re stopped because we can’t go any further.
But then we started moving again. And this little engine kept going despite the cold, despite the snow, despite the slow progress. I marveled at how we could press on. I heard about all the flight cancelations. People stuck in airports, unable to leave for or in transit to their intended destinations to celebrate the holiday. Yet, here I was, on this train moving onwards. I was so grateful I didn’t book that flight.
Discovering kindness
You would think with all the delays that people would be rather…grumpy. The truth is, they weren’t. Only the attendant handling our car was less than friendly. All other Amtrak employees managed to remain upbeat. I don’t think I heard any passengers griping.
They fed us the entire way. Beginning with bringing on snacks when we first boarded the train. We got pizza and an amazing, fresh spinach, walnut, and cranberry salad. We got breakfast every morning. We got Jimmy Johns subs. Oh, and when they first started handing out the JJs, the car attendant told me there were no veggies.
A woman came behind handing out mayo and mustard, and when she saw I didn’t have a sandwich, she asked why. I told her they said there were no veggies. She said, oh yes, there are. Then told the attendant to go down and get two veggie sandwiches (I think she was one of the conductors, so she had pull over the car attendant).
Next thing I know, she herself is returning, and she hands me two veggie sandwiches. When I tell her it’s just me sitting in this seat (I thought she’d asked for two because another passenger wanted one too), she glanced up at my seat tag and noticed that she’d misread it. Then she told me to just keep it…that it would save because there wasn’t any meat on it (it didn’t…because…guacamole).
On the last night, they were feeding us all dinner in the dining car (so far, we coach passengers had eaten either in our seats or in the observation car). They were serving beef stew. That’s it. No other options were presented.
I decided to go to the dining car and ask if they had a vegetarian or vegan option. The dining car attendant was super stressed (but wow did he manage to remain chipper when addressing folks over the intercom). He thought about it for a moment and then brightened and said that he did have a vegan Thai curry dish, but that I had to eat it in my seat so other passengers wouldn’t ask for it. Nooooo problem! This was the same guy who filled my thermal coffee cup with hot water every morning so I could make my own coffee.
I had a surprisingly tasty meal on my last night. But this wasn’t the end of the kindnesses I received. There were a couple more still to come.
Cutting it close
The next day was our final day. Technically, it was day four. I had booked a train from Chicago to Champaign, but we weren’t going to get there on time. I changed my reservation to the 4:05 train because we were due in at 1:30. Then I went to get my last cup of hot water, and I thanked the dining car attendant and complimented him and the other staff on their good attitude and the job they did taking care of us on the journey. Their faces lit up. Such a little thing on my part had such a positive impact on their day. It doesn’t take much effort to spread a little kindness, yet you get as much in the giving as the recipient does in the receiving. I know this is cliché, but it’s also true.
I managed to stay relatively unstressed during this long journey, but as the train got later and later, and it looked like I might not make the 4:05 train, my anxiety shot up. I found the conductors in the dining car and asked if they could contact the Champaign train to let them know that they had a passenger arriving who might be a few minutes late. Nope. Turns out that the train is operated by the state, and they don’t do that.
To make matters worse, I’d checked my big backpack in Seattle when it became clear that the train was going to be really delayed because I didn’t want to carry it around every time I had to go to the restroom. So, I asked the conductor if I could collect my bag train-side instead of at baggage claim. He had a better idea. He took my claim ticket from me and went to get my bag right then. Not only that, he told me a faster way to get to the platform I needed to get to that didn’t involve going through Union Station.
I was in the last car on the train, but I was the first person off of that car. I bolted down the platform as fast as I could with a giant backpack on my back, another on my front, and my bedding bag in hand. Oh, and it was something like -10 outside.
About halfway down the length of the station, a Red Cap car came up behind me honking its horn for me to get out of the way. The woman riding it asked if I wanted to get on and told the driver she saw me running and could he give me a ride too. He obliged. We were going to the same platform. He dropped me at the car for Champaign before taking her to the car she needed for her destination. I boarded the train with about five minutes to spare.
And I made it to my parents in time for dinner.
I think this post was as long as my journey from Seattle to Chicago! But I felt compelled to share because, to me, the experience demonstrates that good things can happen amid adversity, kindness makes life better for everyone, and sometimes you need to trust that you’ll discover the path forward without forcing or muscling your way through. Slow and steady isn’t a bad thing. Whatever your goals, trust the process despite the unexpected obstacles, unfavorable conditions, or delays presented.
Peace and love.
Des
I felt these days all over again reading your blog!