Just boarded the California Zephyr in Galesburg, Illinois. This train is headed all the way west to San Fransisco ( actually Emeryville). Of course, I'll be deboarding at Denver Union Station at approximately 7:30 am tomorrow.
My 9 hour layover in the charming City of Galesburg is now over. A long layover like that sounds brutish to most, but because I have friends here and because I visit the local shops and museums I have no trouble at all passing the time.
My only regret was that Amy wasn't able to join me on this trip. I promised her that on my next speaking trip she would travel with me. Everyone in Quincy, Galesburg and Morton are excited at the prospect of meeting her.
As testimony to the overbooking of passengers we were assigned seats, something I have not encountered in the many years of traveling this line. So, now I will have a seat-mate! Oh, well. It's just another opportunity to meet new people.
It must have rained a lot here in Central Illinois as it appears that only about half of the corn/bean harvesting has been completed considering the first week in October is almost finished.
Seeing miles of Sun ripened corn and bean fields gives me a twinge of homesickness for Illinois, my original spiritual homestead.
The bleach blue sky with billowy egg shell painted clouds hugging the horizon... all of these picturesque, pastoral landscapes takes me back to years gone by.
It is during these trips where I most keenly feel a vague sadness as I come to grips with the passing of time along with a gnawing unease that I don't fully belong to either the West or the Midwest.
I think that by watching the long string of depressed little towns that pass by my window with their many shuttered store fronts and run-down houses contributes to my own melancholy.
Then there are the abandoned clapboard farm houses which once dominated these rural neighborhoods which now are nothing but empty shells only inhabited by barn swallows and the occasional solitary owl.
It's a bit odd to think that the next time I travel back to Illinois I will be bringing a wife with me!
We have just arrived in the little thriving and charming river town of Burlington, Iowa situated on the west bank of the grand ole Mississippi. Only 800 miles, give or take until I can be in my baby's arms again!
BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
October 4, 2016- Tuesday
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