Mr. Harris' Wild Ride -- Part THREE

In which The Harris Family arrives in DC, Dan skips any reference to the events of his vacation in Olney, Maryland, and the story picks up on the return trip to Toledo as if no time had passed whatsoever:

If you recall from the previous entry of this story, Jeff, Nazy, and Katie all deboarded in Pennsylvania, never to be seen again, and the train continued on towards our final destination in Washington, DC. Specifically the Baltimore Train Station (more on this later).

All my new friends were gone, and a tired aching settled in, so I headed back to find my parents sleeping. I stretched out on the two seats available to me and tried to get some sleep. This went OK, but in my sleep my feet kept poking out into the aisle, and my mother, who was across the aisle, seemed to wake up every time this happened and woke me up to get me to move my legs in so that people could pass more easily (they weren't really out very far, as I was curled into a fetal position (this being the only way to even partially fit across the seats in a semi-horizontal position)). Surprisingly, these interruptions occurred frequently enough that I was not really getting a whole lot of sleep. I wondered why she felt this responsibility to keep me out of the aisle, but didn't feel the need to get the other 30% of the passengers to move any part of themselves out of the aisle (obviously I knew the answer to this question, but you who know me know how irritable I can be when my sleep gets interrupted constantly (I was, for a change, controlled enough not to blurt something angry in an attempt to be left alone, and I assume this could only be because I didn't want to spoil any one's enjoyment of the trip)).


Whatever.....


Anyway, we finally made it to the Baltimore Train Station which was, to say the least, gorgeous. Neo-Classic Roman architecture that was breathtaking, with a ceiling almost too high to seem realistic, and along the top of all the walls, gigantic statues of ancient figures loomed, looking down on us weary travellers, that we may arrive and depart safely under their protection. That's the most poetic way I could think of to say, "Hmmm... Nice statues."


My Uncle Jimmy picked us up and we headed to Olney, MD.


A week later, Uncle Jimmy dropped us off at the Rockville Train Station. We had discovered that there was this much closer train station located a mere 20 minutes from my Aunt & Uncle's house. Way more convenient than the hour and half + trip to/from Baltimore. This was a much more understated crossroads, with nothing special to report about it whatsoever. Train Station. Neato.


We hopped on and headed back towards Toledo. I slept (or tried to sleep) through a great deal of this part of the trip. A few beers from the club car (observation room in upper level) helped to add to my drowsiness, but I still found it nearly impossible to get comfortable.


Tired from my Maryland exploits, I felt less adventurous when it came to locating fellow passengers to kill time with, so settled in to some MP3's and hoped for a speedy arrival in OH.

About a quarter of the way through the trip, after the conductor (a female this time, and no less dick-y than her male counterpart) informed us there would be no stops long enough to catch a smoke for 2-3 hours, I started to consider breaking Amtrak rules again and locating an unobserved bathroom. However, about 10 minutes later, an announcement came over the PA. This was perhaps the most unusual public announcement I've ever heard in my life. The guy giving it sounded like Bill Lumbergh and seemed to have no idea what he was about to tell us. Several umm's and uhh's later, he actually started to get to some kind of point.


"Uhhh... Just so you all know... ummm... There is no, uh, smoking allowed on any Amtrak railways.... so... if you could just.... you know.... not do that.... uh, on the train.... that'd be great.... uh... yeah, so we caught someone... ummm, smoking in the bathroom.... and, yeah... that's actually, um, against the, uh, Amtrak regulations.... If, ehhh.. If, if we were to catch anyone doing this, you can, uh... you can expect to be banned from riding with us in the, uh, in the future.... "


The above was not exaggerated. In fact, it went on quite a bit longer than that. Of course, my mom is looking at me the whole time, mouthing the words, "Was that YOU!!!" Naturally, I informed her that, of course, it was not me... I'd been sitting in my seat for quite some time anyway. (Of course, I was in no mood to suggest that it might have been me. (Although, later at a smoke stop, I met the guy who I'm pretty confident was the loser that got busted, and he was pretty stupid. I'm confident I wouldn't have been caught anyway))


This was possibly the most exciting action on this part of the trip.... sooooo... moving on.....

I slept off and on as people boarded and deboarded. As the trip went on, there were fewer passengers deboarding than those boarding, so eventually I actually had to share my seat. This really sucked, because it was already uncomfortable enough without having to sleep upright. And as it turned out, the nearly impossible time I was having getting some sleep became almost completely nearly impossible. I must have slept some, because songs I was listening to kept turning into different ones mid-beat, but it was all exactly that kind of sleep where you blink and it's later.... so... crappy sleep.


We arrived in Toledo, and as we were getting off the train, who did we see but none other than ANDY the DRUNK! Turns out he and Marge, his mother, had not left us forever after all. We discussed our respective trips while waiting to get on the bus from Toledo to East Lansing. I was way too bored with travelling to get very excited about this, though. I was tired and didn't feel like getting too close to Andy, who was sick the entire time he was gone (apparently, he caught some bug after my fated drinking of some of his beer, because I still had had no ill effects). It was nice to see them again, as it felt like some kind of neat bookend to this whole train experience that I was at first enjoying immensely, but had since discovered that I was merely enduring.


While sitting in the lobby (this went on longer than planned because the other train that was carrying passengers who were supposed to take the same bus as us, was running REALLY late), Pop had found another friend to talk to. He was a Larry, a large black salesman of some kind. He had apparently been put upon in some way due to his being black, and they were discussing this. What had happened was, he was chatting with a passenger seated next to him on the train and the man in front of him got pissed off and basically yelled at him, telling him keep it down! Larry the Salesmen felt that this was racially motivated because the white man who told him to shut up seemed to have no problem with the white women in a nearby seat who were also having a discussion. This seemed plausible in light of a dialogue I had been subjected to during a smoke break on the train somewhere along our path. Two unseemly individuals were talking about the "dark" area that we were in and, basically, how they felt about that. My reply was a drawn out "Okaaaaay....." and a furrowed brow followed by finishing my smoke alone.


Anyway, skipping ahead a tad, we finally got on the bus, and Larry sat in front of me papa, constantly turned around a bit in order to discuss further topics with him. I fell asleep to the sounds of Larry discussing vitamins, exercise, products, etc. with my father. I slept through the whole bus trip and next thing I knew we were back in good ol' East Lansing. Pop later informed me that Larry the Salesmen did not shut his mouth the entire trip. Even when Pop would pretend to go to sleep so that he may actually get some sleep, Larry would tap him on the shoulder to open up a new topic. Turns out, Larry is pretty much just really annoying, and we questioned whether or not his claims of being racially abused were actually in any way related to the color of his skin. Perhaps Whitey on the train just wanted to get some sleep (as it was like 3-4 in the morning when the incident took place). Alas, we will never know for sure.... The Shut Up guy was at least rude to not ask nicely first. Ah, race relations. I could go on all day....

So.... that's it... we got off the train, and my brother Ash drove us to my parents house. I grabbed my car and headed back to Okemos.


Anti-climactic, ain't it?


Sorry about that... couldn't be helped. The trip back was just kind of boring. And since you all got to enjoy the more interesting parts, I don't feel too bad about you having to put up with this section, admittedly not well written, due largely to the fact that it was almost as boring reliving it as it was living it.


The good news is, I will not be writing anymore too-long stories for a while. Ah, who am I kidding, I don't know any other way to write.... but I'll probably keep em all in one part from now on.... you lucky devils....


Love,
Dan