I took the Wednesday morning Sunset Limited west from New Orleans and it was sold out to a bunch of very subdued apres Mardi Gras folk. My assigned seat mate was Romero from Mexico city who visited very cordially for a while. He had been up all night for one or more nights and was ready for some rest. He left his seat and returned to say that he had wrangled an "off the book" pair of adjoining seats from the car attendant and grabbed his gear and left. The result was that the aisle seat next to me remained assigned to him all the way to El Paso and he remained in a pair of unassigned seats in the back of the car. I think he slept for 18 hours straight and then for most of the rest of the 26 hours to El Paso. We got reacquainted while waiting for our baggage.
The trip happened in tolerable fashion. The food was decent, the fellow travelers were nice folks and I spent some time talking to some very interesting people. We spent the day negotiating Louisiana and East Texas, Houston at suppertime, and spent several hours in San Antonio attaching westbound cars of the Texas Eagle and other traffic management responsibilities (I suppose). It was a long night. The sunrise found us in West Texas and we crossed the Pecos during an early breakfast. Our stop in Alpine was on schedule and was announced as a smoke break. Passengers were allowed to detrain and stretch legs. One stretched a little too much (reportedly to the liquor store) and got left behind in Alpine with no cell phone or other carry on gear. She would be retrieved by the next train west (on Sunday). I hope the bottle of liquor would sustain her. It sounded like that would be about all she had for the duration.
In El Paso I got a taxi to the airport and retrieved my car from Hertz. I took I-10 and Highway 90 two and a half hours back east to Marfa where I met Rocky for drinks and spent a very restful night at the Hotel Paisano. Next morning I scored a trunk full of fire wood from Rocky, provisioned in Alpine and boogied down south to gas up in Presidio and drive the 27 mile dirt road into the Big Bend Ranch State Park. I arrived at the bunkhouse (full of mountain bikers) a little after they rang the dinner bell but they saved mine for me - beef and chiles stir fry with rice, beans, salad, tortillas and sopa pila. It was real good grub.
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If you would like to see my collection of Carolina Lowcountry memories—"Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork," you can view the book trailer here, and see the book page here on the publisher's website. The book is also available from Amazon, B&N, and your independent local bookseller.
