Chicago to Wisconsin Dells

Segment One: Chicago to Wisconsin Dells. Four hours.

10 January 2010

We left at 2:35pm from Union Station, Chicago - fifteen minutes late. Amtrak trains are cozy; I could really spread out over two seats and stretch between rows. The train swayed, smooth and easy, as it rolled out of the Second City. I was reading By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño and remembering the country in between pages.

I’m looking forward to the many hours of travel time in between cities as much as I am the time in each city, truly.

There are a group of four Midwesterners on this train, two middle-aged couples. They make down-home jokes and have a strong accent. “Sure, you betcha!” they laugh. They are cracking open snacks - cheese, caramel corn, Wheat Thins and summer sausage - and discuss the merits and faults of each with an almost self-mocking air. The couples tease each other and one man waggles a fifth of brandy between his forefinger and thumb.

Wisconsin Dells

10-12 January 2010

First stop, my relatives’ beautiful, spacious home in the Wisconsin Dells, right above the Wisconsin River. I will be here from the night of the 10^th to the evening of the 12^th. The town holds about 2,500 people; the greater area’s population reaches 5,000. The Dells are the world’s largest water park; I remember finding it gaudy in summer and unseemly in winter. I was last here a couple years ago. The people who live here are friendly to a fault and very personable. It is easy to be a big fish in such a small pond, and difficult to be anonymous; not much escapes a small-town Midwesterner’s eyes and ears in the dead of winter. There just isn’t much to distract from the bleak, pristine snow; the old metal contraptions left to rust in backyards; the slush in parking lots and the white of down-home frozen potatoes with sour cream.

After a day going around with my aunt and uncle, I came to appreciate the Dells' intimacy. It sounds like working here for the summer would be entertaining - enjoying the freedom of being a temporary local with others.

When I slept on beaches, years ago, I heard the sea waves all through the night. After returning to Indiana, a few nights passed before I didn't physiologically "feel" them. Last night, I felt the rocking of the train while slipping into sleep on my relatives' futon.

Notes from the train (unedited).

“That woman looks like a roll of ones wrapped in a twenty.”

I am taken with one Latina who is looking anxiously out the window of the seat across the aisle. A tall Styrofoam cup of coffee sticks to her sweaty, fleshy palm. A 30-ish couple, overweight (though the woman could be pretty, with her thin painted lips and high cheekbones), sits in front of her window. The Latina plops into her seat, a little nervous and huffy.

People-watching will be some entertainment. I’m not generally annoyed by people like I gather most are – I don’t take it personally, who they are and how they act. Disappointment, exhaustion, fear, and stress; I’d like to have compassion for my sake and theirs. I’ve cried at the airport ticket counter and implored bus drivers to turn around.

I see a wolf passing through a field near a landfill just east of Chicago.

Hyde Park, Chicago: Statues like chess pieces – the knight and queen. Houses here are tall and thin, without porches or balconies. Turrets and towers create a modest motif in this part of town. Kids in this city sled off the mounds built for statues.

Home to Home

I am a 23-year-old woman who recently graduated from Indiana University, with a BS in Public Affairs (I always liked the implicit pun). A month or so before graduating, I was offered an AmeriCorps position in Durango, CO; the job starts this April. Until then, I’m essentially on a four-month vacation from work and school. I was mulling over ways to spend it, most of which centered around interesting ways to earn some extra cash around Bloomington (where I live), when it came to my attention that an acquaintance of mine needed a room for a month and a half after the New Year. Almost on impulse, I rented her my space and took the opportunity to plan a trip around the nation via rail.

I started contacting far-flung friends – people who lived on my dorm floor freshman year, family I’d never met before, co-workers who’d moved on, one who’d studied abroad with me, and even friends’ families in a couple cities. The feedback was wonderfully complete and enthusiastic. As I gathered information on who would be willing and able to host me for a couple nights here and there, I tracked the rail ties between cities and found I’d be able to travel completely by rail. Thanks to my hosts and my subletter, I’ll be visiting ten cities over the next thirty days (an average of three days per city) on all coasts and borders of the States.

Wisconsin Dells, WI

Seattle, WA

Portland, OR

Long Beach, CA

Tucson, AZ

New Orleans, LA

Birmingham, AL (?)

Charlottesville, VA

Washington, D.C.

Philadelphia, PA (?)

Chicago, IL

Pre-Trip: 9 January 2009

I left Bloomington, IN around 10:30 a.m., heading almost due north to my parents’ home in Bristol, IN. I stopped in Indianapolis to sell my bicycle and hopefully pick up my rail pass (which you have to do in person at an Amtrak station). I discovered that the Amtrak station in Indy is only open from 11:30pm to 6:00am. This, I think, will be the first lesson toward internalizing the fact that Amtrak is not as convenient or efficient as it markets itself. I resolved to arrive early to the station in Chicago the next day to pick up the ticket.

Day 1

I woke up at 6am in my old bed. Mom drove me to the South Bend airport, where I was to catch a commuter train to Chicago’s Millennium Station. The train ran late due to a broken wire; luckily, I had about a four-hour layover cushion in Chicago. I squirmed and settled in the plastic and vinyl chairs and watched the sun rise over the snowed-in rust belt of northwestern Indiana. I collected my rail pass and the first half of my segment tickets in Chicago without any difficulty. The woman behind the counter was so thin and disdainful her skin pigmentation lightened around her nose and cheekbones. She informed me nonchalantly that the Empire Builder (between Chicago and Seattle) had been down occasionally over the past couple of days due to conflicting uses of the tracks between Amtrak and Union Pacific Freight. It “…should…” be ok by Tuesday, when I plan to leave for the Pacific Northwest.