Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the door stop dog, refrains from passing judgment on day three of the keeper and Phyllis’s excursion to mountains and glaciers, except to know that the keeper managed the upper bunk of the Empire Builder roommette, but it was not pretty.
What was pretty, was Tuesdays’ long ride across this vast, wonderful country – from corn, to grain, to pumping oil wells, to cattle, to the snow covered mountains of Glacier National Park, and finally the endless orchards along the Wenatchee river.
It needs to be mandatory after so many flyovers- every American should be required to get down on the land- to see and smell and feel what the country is really like: it is opportunistic, ambitious, huge and beautiful. And in too many places treated with strewn garbage and junk, at least from the railroad view. The demise of the planet may not come from atmosphere issues, it may come from being smothered by accumulated debris. But even with the junk, the country is sensational. The “junk” in its’ mental state is another story.
The Keeper and Phyllis try to keep their lives and travel more physical than mental, which seems to work, except in the case of upper bunks.
