Holy crap.

Yeah, so I'm home at last.

I'd always wanted to ride the Empire Builder the full length of it's run, and now I can mark that off my list of things to do. It was worth the experience, but damn, that was tiring, and fricking long. Given the choice again, I'd be tempted to fly. I can see why it's a necessary form of transportation for shorter segments of it's run -- Whitefish had as much activity as Portland, and the little towns along the old GN High Line are very dependent on it for intercity travel, especially the elderly -- but for a person traveling across the continent on a coach fare, it's a bitch. (It would also have been better in summer, when I could have seen more with the longer daylight hours.) I might do it again... maybe. But I'm not in a hurry to. Add it up, for a two week trip, five days were spent on the train. That really cut into the time I had in Ohio & NC.

It was cool to meet "Mike" at last. Interesting guy, and now we've met face to face at long last.

On arrival in Ohio, we went straight towards North Carolina. A looooooooong drive. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe I wasn't expecting anything at all, which is probably the more likely scenario. I think I've been talking to Brian for so long that I no longer gave second thought to meeting him face-to-face. It was just as if we'd met a thousand times before. Next time, we'll have to do this out my way, and then I can turn tables on you and show you all the cool stuff near me.

Jon was exactly as expected -- po widdle Jawn. :-P. Don't worry, we didn't say anything about the GP9. Or the bike. Heh. It was a blast, and I was glad to finally meetcha. Once we got to Franklin, Jim's house was much better than we expected. In some ways, I wish we'd had more time, to take advantage of the house and it's nice kitchen. The Great Smokey Mountains was really nice. An impressive operation with a LOT of passengers for Bufu, NC. And some of those passengers, ummm.... uh... Yeahhhh. :-)

If only we'd had more time, we might have scored ourselves a small trip over the line on a freight....

NCTM was cool but like a Thanksgiving dinner -- heavy on the stuffing. The Lil' Choo was an excellent store on par with the local Whistle Stop that I rarely get a chance to go to. I ended up dropping $40 there even tho I had planned not to buy anything. Hopefully, pieface will get the package with that in the mail soon. :-P

The next day took us north via West Virginia and the Pokey line of the NS. Egad. Brian called it a "shithole" and man was he right. That is one fricking scary backwoods place, worse by far than anything I've ever seen up my way, short maybe of the twilight zone "where-the-hell-are-we-and-which-way-is-north" sensation I once got near Frederickson, WA. We spent very little time here, and moved on soon to Cincy.

At Cincy we spent a day with Ed, formerly of Trainboard, and a mutual friend of JT. A cool guy, he was just as much a smartass as I was, and I think the two of us got along well enough to scare Brian. Cincy was interesting, I'd like to have more time to spend there making sense of the rats nest of trackage.

One of the things I need to bitch about is the lack of maps. I really am a map whore, and if I had had access to more maps prior, everything would have made far more sense to me. And now, I'm really motivated to start collecting maps and shit of the areas I've been, to straighten it all out in my mind. Damn you, Pieface, for making me interested in eastern shit!

After Cincy, we hit Furball's. Conrail, Conrail, everywhere, and lots of banging on track. Matt, thanks for the hospitality. And honest, your 636 is perfectly clean and unmolested. I *never* took it in the other room for "private time", really! Was interesting to see the Wheeling, especially after having seen the I&O the day before in Cincy. P&W looks class 1 by comparison -- well almost -- though CORP would fit in there quite well.

Afterwards, Brian and I did a quick foaming trip to Lima with Whippy. It was fun to chase, this is more my style of railfanning, following a single local.

After that, it was an early morning rush back to the train, and a long trip home, which I just completed. I think my neck still is stiff from those damnable seats. not made for multi-day trips, but hell, I'll never bitch about a 4 hour trip to Edmonds again!

All in all, thanks to everyone for the hospitality. I know it wasn't the best time of year for this, but I wanted to do what the Genius never did, and put my money where my mouth was. Uber cool, guys. You're the best.