It was an interesting trip, what with floods, weather and all the LifeStuff going on.\u00a0\u00a0 Mac-horse pooped abundantly overnight Monday to Tuesday morning,\u00a0 but vet’s orders had him on a restricted diet for 48 hours after poopage, so my husband had to deal with that, as well as his own medical appointments.\u00a0\u00a0 I fell into my train compartment and knew we would have no contact until after his Wednesday appointment, when I’d be in Chicago between trains.\u00a0\u00a0 That call was a good news\/bad news mix, from his doctors.<\/p>\n
The train up from Texas was uneven in temperature and I had the hotbox of a roomette–either end of the car was much cooler.\u00a0 Not a lot of sleep that night.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The views of flooded fields and overflowing streams and rivers were…sobering.\u00a0 Would have been great to take some of that rain from those who didn’t need it and blow the clouds to those who did.\u00a0\u00a0 All that first day of travel, I didn’t try to write–just knitted and relaxed and let my mind wander and rest.<\/p>\n
It’s great to have knitting along but I should have brought more yarn. I\u00a0 started with a new ball for each project…but no backup yarn.\u00a0 Apparently, I knit a lot faster on a train or in a station waiting for a train than I did at home.\u00a0 Also, when I started knitting again I was very slow, but now I’m speeding up.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Knitting\u00a0 soothes waiting, and having both a long-row project and a short-row project allows me to choose the one that fits the anticipated waiting time.<\/p>\n
The train from Chicago to D.C. started just after six in the evening, and we ran into fog for a ways, and then a darkening sky as we were pointed at some severe weather.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My compartment was on the lower level and cooler than before,\u00a0 so I watched the storms coming nearer (or the train approaching them) for awhile, listening to Pollini play Chopin on my headphones and writing–because the ideas had started flowing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Went to bed a little early for me–climbed up (I like the upper bunk) and slept well in the cooler air until just before 4 am.\u00a0 Climbed down and realized the sky was already getting light, and we were pulling into Pittsburgh.\u00a0\u00a0 I stayed awake, put on the headphones and got to see the dawn light on the river as the tracks are right beside it, up one narrow valley after another.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, the trip from Pittsburgh to Rockville, MD is truly scenic.\u00a0\u00a0 After that, it’s all urban\/suburban bleh.<\/p>\n
This train had more staff in the dining car–and far more cheerful and efficient staff–than the two men in the Texas Eagle dining car.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I wrote for awhile\u00a0 in the morning (hard to ignore that scenery, though!) and have written some after arriving here.\u00a0 Plot problems have untangled.\u00a0\u00a0 New ideas!\u00a0 Better ideas!\u00a0\u00a0 (But no, you cannot lock me into a train compartment until the book is done.\u00a0 Would not work.)<\/p>\n
From Union Station in D.C.,\u00a0 I caught a MARC train to Baltimore’s airport (BWI) and there the con chair very kindly picked me up and brought me out to Hunt Valley and the convention venue.\u00a0\u00a0 In Union Station, there’s a big Barnes & Noble that had one copy each of two of my books, so I signed those between the trains.<\/p>\n
So now I’m at Balticon,\u00a0 about to go see if Registration has my badge ready (if not, I’ll eat lunch) and then I’ll disappear into the maelstrom of convention life for a couple of days.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ll try to post again before getting back on the train Tuesday for the several days’ journey home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was an interesting trip, what with floods, weather and all the LifeStuff going on.\u00a0\u00a0 Mac-horse pooped abundantly overnight Monday to Tuesday morning,\u00a0 but vet’s orders had him on a restricted diet for 48 hours after poopage, so my husband had to deal with that, as well as his own medical appointments.\u00a0\u00a0 I fell into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,5],"tags":[112,107],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","category-the-writing-life","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}