Come on Ride the Train!

Hey Everyone,

So as requested, we finally got a sampler platter of our photos up on the sidebar to the right. Please check out the slide show and hopefully the visuals I've been explaining will make a bit more sense. I'll try to keep updating and adding new slide shows in the next few days.

Day 4 was filled with a long train ride from Denver, CO to Salt Lake City, Utah. The almost 15 hour ride was scenic, entertaining, and actually a lot of fun. Not as bad as you might imagine, so if you're considering train travel whatsoever, I say give it a shot! Since I didn't have a full blog entry prepared from our train ride, I'm introducing a new segment that Momma Tate has begun for our viral reality show. Her posts are going to be known as "Musings from Momma Tate." Enjoy! ~Josh

"Musings from Momma Tate" - Day 4
As the sun sets somewhere over Utah, I am thoughtfully watching the horizon from aboard the California Zephyr. Though my blogging will not have Josh’s voice, as my father would say, “I just want you to know some of what I’m thinking.” Day 4 of our adventure has been spent traveling by train from Denver to Salt Lake, and I can hardly believe all that we’ve seen in done over the last three days. I’ve watched the horizon change so dramatically from the vantage point of our plane seats, to the back seat of our rental car and now from the window above the train track. It’s not as though I’ve never traveled anywhere before. My good fortune has been to see America and across the pond, yet this journey has already been filled with so many blessings and laughter. I never knew that Nebraska is subdivided into miles of squares, visible from the sky like a toddler’s jigsaw puzzle. Between Nebraska and Colorado, we were intrigued by the hundreds of circular shapes that dotted the landscape like alien crop circles. This strange practice explains a lot about some of our friends from out here in the heartland. I need an explanation upon my return home from some educated mid-westerner.
People are kinder on trains than on planes. They smile and let people pass dozens of times with a “pardon me,” while the airports are filled with armies of people who don’t seem to trust each other too much, so they look down or huddle with their luggage. In the airport, all sense of good breeding seems lost when they make me hold my arms over my head barefoot while they scan me for nail clippers. I know why, but a woman my age needs more moisturizer than fits in the one quart baggie…at least for three weeks. On the train we can sleep, watch movies, wander into the observation car, read, take pictures and stroll to the dining car like in a 1950’s Bing Crosby film. We’re sharing our train car with about 20 Amish folk from teenagers to the community elders. Plain and Fancy gentlemen, we have identified the married men by their beards. I keep wanting to say “yah” when they ask to pass by.
Over the past few days, I’ve had many moments that were “aha” and “haha.” We were as touristy as humanly possible at Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Yet, there is something humbling about standing at the base of those monuments and marveling at man’s resourcefulness and talents. Along with that awe-inspiring diligence required to complete both projects is the lump-in-the-throat natural beauty of God’s creation. The trees tower over us one moment as we climb the mountainous terrain, and in the next second, fog and sun trade places over the top of the craggy peaks. You can’t take enough pictures of it because it is so wondrous. In Wyoming and South Dakota, herds of deer were interspersed with herds of cattle, both seeming to appreciate the space of the other. An antelope stood proudly by the side of the highway one moment and in the next, a powerful mountain rose out of the landscape. Today, I have watched the Rockies give way to the painted cliffs of Utah, followed the Colorado River as it hosted rafters beside us and listened to the train whistle announce our arrival into each new town.
As for “haha” moments, we have made sure that our friend “Flat Jessica” has had numerous photo ops…she has hung out at the airport in Omaha (very Americana), hung onto Crazy Horse’s arm, rocked out with some Presidents and rode the train (much more quietly than her real-life counterpart). We have ridden a jackalope, impersonated Native Americans In multiple places (Kelsey is still tan from her beach trips), met Wild Bill Hikock, laughed at the best Deadwood tour guide ever, taken a “rollercoaster ride” with a Canadian Indian driver, visited an olde west saloon, posed for pictures in the most ridiculous ways possible. We are entertaining ourselves at every stop.
As I hope you can tell, I am counting the blessings of this journey so far. What a gift it has been. I so appreciate the tireless efforts of those folk who traveled this nation in a wagon, those who labored to create the railroad passes and those who had dreams that they wished to realize regardless of the sacrifice. This has been a truly sentimental journey so far and I know as I have always known how truly lucky I am—family and friends who care and pray for us even as we are apart. Kelsey mentioned last night how truly remarkable it was to think that the stars rising over us had risen over so many of you just hours before. We wish that we were sharing these moments, like the stars, with you.