Well folks, it is finished. Finals are done, the bags packed, our graduates congratulated, and the parties partied with gusto. Today dawned the morn of my departure – of course beginning with a leisurely cup of coffee, quickly followed by a frantic hurrah to get everything packed in at the last possible second (because it is apparently impossible for me to get things organized in a timely fashion…it’s a goal of mine to make that happen at least once before I turn 30). However at 11.25, on the dot, I sat in my train seat, ticket in hand, all luggage accounted for and all limbs in semi-working order. Let me just add that this would not have been at all possible if not for the gracious souls that drove me, hurried me, fed me and hugged me off this morning…gah, I shudder sometimes to imagine where I would be without them. Either in my fully unpacked, intact room or in Wisconsin somewhere on account of boarding the wrong train.
Side note: Board with confidence after having double – no triple-checked your boarding pass whenever embarking on a journey via railway.
Having settled down with my book, delighting in that familiar feeling of adventure that chugging trains or humming airplanes stirs up in me, my heart stopped altogether when I heard the conductor announce:
“Ladies and gentleman, we have a full train to Chicago today, so if you will make sure that luggage is stored…”
Chicago? Oh no.
As it turns out, the train, on its merry way to Chicago, IL, stops in Bingen, WA. Naturally.
I was spat out of the very glamorous, overnight, Chicago-bound train after roughly an hour, at a little shed with not a human soul in sight. All was quiet, save for the wind and the occasional freight train that clamored by. I sat there alone on my rolley-suitcase, in my cowboy boots, thinking about what a dramatic picture it all made when all of a sudden, the aubergine-hued Rubesh minivan containing cousins of all ages showed up to my rescue. What does one do with a gaggle of Rubeshes after a successful save-the-lost-aunt mission? Mexican food, of course.
And so my travels this summer began. May all the moving too and fro to follow be equally as eventful.
Now I am home and basking in the glow of all that is off-roading, shooting guns, coffee with my wonderful family, the littles, Poncho the cat, celebrating birthdays left, right and centre, Mongolian food, mojitos, sleeping in and glorious stars.
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