Don't Sneeze

 

Winter is coming for me--I know it. All the more reason to fall in love with the warm October weekend we seem to get most every year in the Upper Midwest. The first one I remember is when my sister came to visit me in early October after my family had just moved into a new house. She flew in from New York and we decided to spend the weekend in Stillwater.

I was going through a phase where I kept losing my keys, so the weekend began with me frantically searching everywhere until I found them on the floor near my television. No idea why they were there. 

We started on the road about noon and I could tell it was going to be a hot one. Ninety degrees, so we were blasting the AC and couldn't wait to get out of the car. It took a while to find the hotel but it was beautiful and we were both so glad to be up there.

The weekend brought me out every morning for walks and we spent a lot of time talking about my sister's kinda-sorta boyfriend at the time, though I don't think it went anywhere. When we got home and I dropped her at the airport, the temperature started dropping too. 

The next weekend my husband and I had a housewarming party, and a few days later, I woke up sneezing and sniffling so violently I tore a hernia in my abdomen.

Beware the warm weather in October. Don't lift anything. Don't sneeze.

Fast forward to a new house (not all that very far from the old one). Another warm October, and after a flu shot on Friday, I am feeling kind of crummy, to tell you the truth. 

Somehow I also had a hernia this past April (20 years after the first one!) So I'm afraid of doing anything that could tear it again.

Don't lift anything. Don't sneeze.

I love the warmth out there, but the last thing I need is a chill. I decided the culprit is air conditioning, and I'm not going anywhere near it. Besides, we are not at 90 degrees, just at 75.

Still, I know winter is coming, like the Game of Throne actors used to say. And all I want is to stay out in the sunshine, because, you know. 

It gets colder every year.

Photo by Álvaro Bernal on Unsplash

Missing Trains

It used to be I never thought twice about train travel. I did take trains on a trip to Europe in college and loved them, but it seems like Americans really don't do trains the way they do in other countries. I wish we could rethink that and hope we do.

First, it saves a lot of jet fuel and would slow down the mess we're making. Second, if planes are supposed to be about saving us time, but are they really? You're supposed to arrive 2 hours or at least 1.5 hours before a flight. There are often delays taking off and landing. Then you wait for baggage. Right?

So a three hour flight ends up taking five to six hours (and then you have to get a ride to wherever you're going. Then, if your flight gets canceled, you may have to wait until the next day to get another.

Yes, trains still take longer, but at least, you know you'll get there without too much craziness. So a trip from Chicago to New York would be 21 hours. But if you got a sleeper car, and were traveling with friends or husband/wife/partner, it could be fun, right? 

I know most of us don't travel by train because we want to spend as much time as possible with friends and family. I really wish there were trains like the Bullet train in Japan here, but instead we keep pouring money into the airlines, which continue to stress us out (sometimes majorly).

And has there ever been a romantic movie scene on a plane? Yet, all the old movies have incredible scenes on trains. One of my favorites was The Lady Vanishes, which I saw at a vintage movie theater in Boston. The Darjeeling Limited was a more recent movie set on a train that made you want to ride one. Before Sunrise has a great train scene; and I've got a couple of train chapters in book 2 of Fool's Errand and am writing one in book three of the Beat Street series.

On the other hand, what movies really make you want to travel on a plane? 

I also have another link to trains through my husband, whose family played an instrumental role in U. S. railroads. His great grandfather Ralph Budd was the youngest railroad president in the country and the president of the Great Northern Railway. He spurred the building of the Cascade Tunnel in Washington, a project that cost $25 million and eliminated an earlier summit tunnel under the Cascade Range and a rugged alignment through an avalanche-prone area. Nearly 8 miles long,  the Great Northern's New Cascade Tunnel remains the longest railroad tunnel in the United States.

Ralph's son John M. Budd was actually a member of the crew that built the tunnel, and became the CEO of the Burlington Northern Railroad. I didn't know this when my husband and I first met, but I always thought it was cool and loved the connection his family has to trains.

One day, I hope it's easier and cheaper and speedier to travel on them again--especially for families who want to show their kids what it's like to experience the country's scenery from the windows of a moving train. And if it happens really soon, (like tomorrow)?

I wouldn't mind at all.

Train photo:  foundin_a_attic