AMTRAK PART THREE: DALLAS

Ok, so I wrote this whole long Dallas entry and then Diaryland crashed as I tried to post it. So it's taken me a few days to recoup and get in the mood to write the same entry all over again. Bah!

Day Eleven: So there I was, Amtrakin' my way down to Dallas. I was really anxious to get there fast because when I scheduled my trip, I made a bit of a mistake and ended up making Dallas too short and Chicago too long. Chicago had been an afterthought - I'd never visited the place, my friends said it was great, and I'd almost moved there instead of Seattle - so I decided to check it out and see AK. Dallas, however, is the home of "the former love of my life" and one of my best friends, GJB. And his wife.

I should give you a brief little history of me and GJB. We met almost ten years ago during my first year of college. He was in a doomed relationship at its end. We got to be very good friends and the boy is a bit of a flirt and a serious charmer who doesn't seem to realize his effect on women, and I promptly got a horrible crush on him - the worst crush I have ever had - and tried my very best to hide it (unlike SOME people, I hide my crushes as if they were pirate's booty. I'm mortified if anyone ever finds out that I have a crush on them - in part because I think that they will think I'm a stalker or something. Also, in part because when it comes to romance, I have wretched self-esteem.). One might even say that I was in love with the guy. It was definitely the most intense feeling I have ever had for anyone ever period. But, eventually the crush became pretty obvious (I'm mortified just thinking about it). And the crush lasted for many years - up until about the time that he got engaged and married three years ago. I had met his wife before - actually, before they ever started dating - but not since they'd been married. And I'd met the 8-year-old-saint when he was two. So, it was time for a visit.

But as luck would have it, sometime in the night our train stopped for a bit and was running an hour or so late by the time I woke up. I had breakfast with some strange characters in the dining car - including this midget from Austin (can I say "midget?") who had just dropped his daughter off at Christian College. Being around Christians who like to admit their religion in front of people without qualifying their non-religious-right-ness makes me really nervous. He encouraged me to try the grits. When the wait staff found out I'd never had grits before, I became the center of attention in the dining car and the recipient of many suggestions on how to season my grits properly. Sugar, butter, pepper, salt... so many choices. I went with butter and salt, I think. Anyway, they weren't that remarkable. They tasted like watery corn or polenta without cheese or something. What's the fuss?

Of course, while we were dining, the train sat still for an awful long time. Apparently, between somewhere in northern Arkansas and Dallas, there are only one set of tracks in most places and pull-offs in others. So our train was relegated to the pull-offs while frieght train after frieght train went by in the opposite direction. Then we'd go about 10 minutes at 30 miles an hour or so and pull off and sit again. I was getting SUPER anxious now. I only had a little tiny bit of time for Dallas anyway. This was starting to seriously suck. So I went to play cards with a giant sumo-wrestler-looking guy named Mike, and a boy whose name I never got. They talked funny. I think they were both from Texas, but they had some other accent thing going on. It took me a good twenty minutes of talking with them and going "what?" every other sentence to be able to begin to decipher what they were saying. "Wichoo gwin pud add air fir, hunh" for example, was apparently "What you going put that there for, huh?" They also put words together that just don't normally sit in the same sentences together sometimes. That was confusing me too. Anyway, eventually we got to Mike's stop and he left us to play speed and other two-player games. And then we came to ANOTHER stop. This time, a train had broken down in front of us accross the tracks and we couldn't move at all. The guy I was playing cards with informed me that the last time he took the train, a train in front of him caught on fire and they sat there waiting for it to get moved for eight hours. I threatened to throw him out the window because, obviously, he was causing the bad luck.

The scenery was interesting though. The dirt certainly was red, which my fellow passengers found comforting, since it apparently indicates that you are in the south. There were lots of stereotypical southern homes along the tracks - lots of cars on blocks. I really wanted to get out and take pictures. There's also a lot of swampy looking land down there.

We finally got to Dallas, three hours late. The train pulled into the station... and then pulled past it... and then backed up. I guess they just wanted to put the cherry on top of the whole fiasco. But good ol' GJB was there waiting for me. He and his wife and step-son (an eight-year-old saint) took me out to dinner at a fancy Italian place. We all stayed up and watched Trading Spaces.

Day Twelve: It snowed in bloody Texas. In case you're keeping track, yes, it has so far, snowed everywhere I had been. Texas was supposed to be the part where I got to wear the T-shirt I packed. No such luck.

We went to a gorgeous museum in Ft. Worth. It was built by some famous Japanese architecht and this was his first building in the US. It really was a gorgeous building. We also had Mexican food at some Tex-Mex place. It is apparently the quintessential Texas expierience. I have nothing witty to say about it, though.

When we got home, 8-yr old St. and I played Scrabble. He gave me a run for my money. We watched a movie together and then, GJB and I stayed up late playing Mario Party on his Nintendo game system thingy.

Day Thirteen: GJB and I went out for Indian food. Now, I have to tell you something about Dallas. It is not like other cities I have been to. It is made up of miles and miles of highways and strip malls and giant super-Target/Best Buy/TGI Friday's/GAP/Old Navy etc. stores. And there is a tiny downtown with tall buildings outlined in neon. I also have to tell you that I LOATHE strip malls. I left my hometown in part because of the sudden plethora of strip malls springing up everywhere. However, despite the fact that this Indian Resturaunt was in a a strip mall, it was still some of the best Indian food I've had. Who knew?

We also had to buy a postcard - it's a long story and I'm going to skip the reasons behind it but, anyway - so we went to some mall. Several of the postcards had the Dallas skyline at night with a body of water next to it reflecting the nighttime neon lights. One of them had a photo of Dallas with what appeared to be a giant river running next to it. GJB mused over this for a bit and then had to admit that he didn't realize that there was any such large body of water near Dallas. I certainly never thought of Dallas as a waterfront city. Upon further inspection, we realized that all of these postcards were taken during a flood in 1990. Dallas apparently has some sort of inferiority complex over its lack of waterfront property and so it pretends to be one on half of the postcards in any given card store. How odd.

GJB and I picked up St. 8yr. old from school and then headed downtown. Somehow, just as in every other trip I have ever taken to Dallas (twice besides this, for the record) we ended up at the Kennedy memorial and the book depository. I'm not sure if it's just that Dallas is small and so anytime you go downtown you end up there or if it just happens to be in a very high traveled area or if it is some sort of bizzare vortex. But there I was, again, at the site where JFK was shot. We toured around a bit, and then I had to go get on the train.

I told you, I messed this section up. It wasn't supposed to be so short.

And here's the minor earthquake that took place: I'm finally absolutely 100% positive that the crush is over and the flame is out. I guess, since I hadn't seen him since before the wedding, I wasn't positive about how I'd feel if I saw him in person, but there you have it. Crush vanquished, friendship remains.

Stay tuned for Amtrak Part Four: Madison and major life-changing events! (I know, I've been keeping you all in suspense for so long - I'm sorry.)