Best Story Ever

I have had some really good moments on this trip, and also some really bad ones. Here’s a really good story:

I am taking the Empire Builder form Portland, OR to Minneapolis, MN. It’s about 38 hours – 2 nights, 1.5 days. Before I left Portland I got some new snacks for the train, and I also got a sandwich and a pint of ice cream for dinner the first night. I have been craving ice cream for the last week. Not eating any for several weeks has just made me want it! And when you are traveling, there really isn’t any good way to make it happen. Here’s where the story gets really good.

In North Dakota, the roads are really bad right now because of the snow and ice, so a lot of people are taking the train only a couple of stations, just to avoid the roads.

We had 20 minutes to walk around during our stop in Minot, ND.I asked a couple of people who were going to Minot what the station was like, and if there was a Dairy Queen nearby. I’ve seen a lot of Dairy Queens recently, but they have all been through bus or train windows where I can’t get to them!

Anyways, one man was like “Nah, there’s nothing but McDonalds and Wal-Mart in Minot.” And that was the end of the conversation.But a little while later, this man comes up to me and asks if I had been asking about Minot- he wanted to know if I wanted some sort of food or something. I was just like “nah, not really, I just wanted ice cream, so a Dairy Queen or something.” He called his wife, who was coming to get him, and asked her to go to McDonalds and get me a sundae! And I also got to ask him a bunch of questions about what it was like to live in a state like North Dakota that had so few people, and what school systems were like here. It was very good.

In Minot, I got a lovely sundae with hot fudge and caramel from this nice man and his wife. It was great. Although North Dakota is like zero degrees right now, which made it a little weird.