Anniversary Train Ride

I've made mistakes in my life. There, I-I-I-I-I said it. Wow, that was painful, I hope I never need to do that again. It gives me great comfort knowing that Elaine is responsible for my mistake. She made me go with her on a train ride. No, the train ride wasn't a mistake, but what the train ride caused was a mistake.

I'm going to talk about the train ride in a second. It's not like I don't have a couple stories. But before I get to that I need to clear my conscience. My mistake. While I was on my trip, the one Elaine made me go on, I realized I had no way to write and post my Sunday morning story. Normally, I would not let this bother me but I had taken the previous Sunday off to celebrate my birthday at a Rockies game with my kids (two batches of them). I phoned home to ask Ivy to post something on the website informing you guys I would return soon. With a laugh Ivy said, "Girl Twin and I have been thinking about doing that for you."

I didn't pay attention to the laugh, BIG mistake. I was so happy they would do this for me, I let my guard down They hijacked my stories. They wrote their own story. And I will admit, it wasn't very complimentary towards me. And that's not the half of it.

If they want to write and post stories more power to them.

I wouldn't even try to stop them. But they need to understand, this is my deal. I am Monner and these are my Mumblings. They should mumble somewhere else. Normally, I wouldn't be this upset, but their hijacking of my stories produced more likes and comments than Monner's Mumblings typically gets. That really hurts. I changed the font size of the last couple sentences. (I wanted to give you the option of not reading the small text, should you desire.)

OK, let's talk about train rides. I learned so much about trains that I did not know before. My first lesson learned was there are no reserved seats on trains, at least on the train I was on. The train car was reserved, but every seat on the car was everyone for themselves. This fact also produced a lesson learned. If you spill your coffee on the sophisticated lady sitting in the aisle seat, she will say some unpleasant, unsophisticated things to you.

I could have learned the coffee spilling lesson verbally but I chose to learn it from experience. I must admit the lesson was carried out perfectly. Everyone was rushing to find the perfect seat on the train and some small twentyish guy slammed into my back pushing me (and my coffee perfectly above Ol' Sophistication. I didn't actually pour the coffee on her, I kind of sprayed it into the air. Good God, I was wearing as much of it as she was. Coffee was in my beard and on my clothes. Worst of all, I wanted to drink that coffee.

Ol' Sophistication didn't say anything to the little (construction Language) now running away down the center aisle. She chose me as her target. I surprised her though, I ran the other direction. I didn't see any reason in taking part of an argument I couldn't win.

Sadly, during my escape I dropped my jacket. I had to go back. As if a gift from God, here came Elaine carrying my jacket. I didn't need to go ALL the way back. I love that woman!

Elaine and I found two seats away from Ol' Sophistication. It was time to enjoy a train ride. Immediately outside the train station (which is the beautiful building where I purchased my coffee) the first site to see on our trip was the major league baseball park. It was cool to see it from that location. Next was even better, if you like train yards complete with rusty old train cars and piles of broken railroad ties. I was wondering why Elaine told me this was going to be neat.

It wasn’t long and I could see Elaine was right after all. With the state capital behind us, the train started up the foothills. Soon we were in the Rocky Mountains, the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Elaine and I were enjoying gazing out the window. I spotted a deer.

We didn’t see any other wildlife from the train, if you don’t count one crazy bald eagle. I thought about why we didn’t see any other wildlife, and I came up with the reason. People do not like living near railroad tracks, why would wildlife? Who wants to listen to constant train whistles? (We will talk about the bald eagle in a minute.)

A tour group of 22 tourists from Great Britain shared our train car. It wasn’t long and Elaine became the 23 member. Elaine happily discussed American television, gardening in England, and exchanged photos of grandchildren, all while looking at maps of England and Scotland (same map). You might find it interesting Brits like to watch Friends, King of Queens, and Everyone loves Raymond, and something called The Big Bang Theory (I’ve never seen it.) Oh, and one guy really likes American beer, really likes it!

I didn’t mind Elaine ignoring me and chatting with the Brits. I was looking out the window at a group of rafters on the river in the canyon below the train tracks. Normally see rafters would be no big deal, but these rafters were “mooning” the train. Elaine started paying more attention to me when I tried to “moon” them back. (I might have stretched the truth here.)

Arriving at our destination, Elaine said to me. “Well, what do you want to do?” Planning trips is nothing we have ever been good at. We rented a car and spent the day retracing a trip from Elaine’s youth. Ghost towns, hiking, breathe taking scenery. We had a great time.

The next day was “bucket list” day. I have mention before I don’t really have a “bucket list”. What I have is a desire to do things that if they seem crazy, “Hey, let’s do that.” We went to an amusement park. An amusement park that according to dailymail.co.uk has the “the craziest amusement park ride in the world. A swing that swings riders over a 1300’ cliff. “Let’s do that! If we don’t do it we will regret it for the rest of our lives!”

On the ride Elaine closed her eyes and never opened them. She always was brighter than me. Elaine yelled, OK, I’m done now!” And then the ride started. At the top of every pendulum swing, your body leaves your seat and against the restraint, above the 1300’ cliff.

Lucky to be alive, and walking away from the ride some “old” guy said to Elaine and I. “You didn’t ride that, did you?”

The park opened a new ride that day. Elaine and I stood in line for an hour and a half for a three second ride. Literally!

We spent the entire ride back through the Rockies in the observation car (train car with huge windows and seats that face the windows). The train was chased by this crazy bald eagle. That was the extent of wildlife on the trip back.

OK, it is time to remind you. You are reading Monner’s Mumblings, not Ivy’s and Girl Twin’s Mumblings. Please consider that when posting likes and comments.

Our crazy lives!

Monner