And so it came to an end. It flew by like a blur, like this picture of the passing Amtrak train you see above. Today was the last day I wrote on the train, the last day I got to spend gazing out the window and thinking and reading and thinking again and listening to people's stories. As I'm typing this, it's dusk, violet dusk in the snowy mountains that we're rumbling through. There is no phone service, no signs of life save for train tracks and occasional service lights. It's been an amazing journey, but let me start from the beginning before I get carried away into the thicket of emotional farewell. 

It was a bitter-sweet departure from Chicago. A bitter-sweet welcome onboard the Empire Builder. A bitter-sweet glance out the train window. The last leg of my Amtrak Residency adventure has commenced today. I'm going home, I'm going back to Seattle. Two more nights and one more day, and on the morning of March 31st it will be over. Why did it end so fast? Good things have a knack for flying by before you can blink.

I'm back in Chicago! And it's freezing here, with snow patches sitting in every shadow and cold wind nipping on your ears and your hands getting numb if you don't wear gloves or mittens. This, this weather after the hot sand and the succulent palms and the tanned people of California? The contrast is palpable. If I was flying on a plane, I wouldn't have been so surprised by it. I'd feel the striking difference, yes, but I wouldn't have witnessed the gradual change that was happening behind the window. It made me think of travel centuries ago, when it took weeks and months to cover distances we now speed through in hours.  

I can't believe my residency is coming to an end. It feels like it only started, and yet tomorrow I will be in Chicago and after a couple days there will get back on the Empire Builder train and head home, to my beloved rainy Seattle. The plan was to write the whole first draft of TUBE, my new novel, while on this trip, but I will probably write only a third. It is impossible to ignore the views, the sights, the people, the excitement of travel, and so I was writing only for about 4 hours each day, reserving the rest of the time for gathering new stories.  

Haunted trains! Have you ever heard of haunted trains? I did today, from one of the very own Amtrak train attendants. But let me start from the beginning. Get ready for haunted stories and some rather unsightly life stuff concerning neglected children.