oh look, another cornfield.
Day 8 The second part of the train ride to Portland was made up of pretty much conversation with other people or looking out the window at the mid west’s many cornfields. My bike ride is down the west coast with a diverse landscape that changes town by town but I have read about people who have cycled from the east to the west. I’m pretty sure I’ll never take on that challenge 2000 miles of cornfields can get a touch repetitive. I’m willing to bet that if you go onto Google maps and drop the pin in Montana, five times out of ten you will land in a cornfield. There is something about Montana and never letting go of your cars. Almost all of the farms have their own scrap yard at the side. I asked someone on the train about this and he explained that in the farm lands of Montana people use their cars until they drop apart and don’t move any more. He said all the farmers would never take a car back and part exchange it for a new one. They just prefer to leave it out back to rot away. Extreme hoarding if you ask me. I’ve noticed that they do it with their barns as well. Skeletal frames of what were once fine barns now ravaged by the unforgiving Montana wind. We had a 2 hour train jam as there had been a derailment that had meant all the goods trains were now backed up and waiting for the track to open. Luckily we got to it as the work was completed unlike some of the goods trains that had been there all night.
I was seated next to Na’dene from Sacramento California after she got on the train in Montana. She had been to see her husband as he worked on the oil field as a pipe fitter. She gave me some tips of places to see while on the coast. The Hearst castle, Pier 39 in San Francisco and the Elephant seals southbound the city. As we continued into Washington the landscape changed from fields to mountains. I asked her how far from the coast she lived as she mentioned she loved the ocean and lived on the coast. She said that she was around 2 hours depending on traffic. So basically from now on when I’m asked where Wolverhampton is I can not only say it is the birth place of Robert Plant out of Led Zeppelin but I can also say it is on the coast.