(this is a backdated journal entry from late at night May 3oth & Early Morning May 31st)

MAY 30TH
I'm on the Amtrak now; everyone's sleeping. It's been pretty intense so far because I had never been on such a long journey cooped up like this! It's a 43hr adventure from Chicago (Union Station) to Los Angeles (LAX).

If you've read previous blogs then you know I had planned on driving my cute little bio-diesel across country but in the couple of weeks before I left it seemed like it would be a better idea to hop because I haven't finished my veggie conversion and it seemed like a better way to travel with my aunt.

THESE ARE ALL PHOTOS THAT I TOOK FROM THE TRAIN!! so sorry if a few are a little blurry...train moves...i did my best with my dinky little point and shoot!

So here it is…AMTRAK: The good, the bad, and the ugly….

The best part is that I could bring all of my music equipment with me as carry on, or as checked luggage (AND I COULD HAVE EVEN BROUGHT MY OWN BIKE)!!!....next time). Also, I met some pretty cool people: I educated some older folks about bio-diesel and electric cars, and I think one of em's actually going to go home and look into it because she lived in Arizona (warm weather = larger bio-diesel communities), I also met this college girl that was reading "Fast Food Nation" and ended up telling her about "The Meatrix" (?so good!!!--> YouTube it now), I spent a lot of time in the viewing car, realizing that the there are islands in the Mississippi River, checkin out mountains, I saw coyotes in the desert, we even stopped in New Mexico for an hour,-> and then who could forget the little 5 year old girl who was convinced that I the coolest person on Earth!!
---------TANGENT BEGINS IN 5…4…3…2…-----
So this little girl walks up to me and she bluntly asked me what I'm doing, and I told her that I was working on some music stuff. Immediately she had a hundred and one questions, "Are you a singer?", "Are you a big star?", "Can I listen to your music?", so I put my little ear buds into her ears and played some of my new music and she's quiet just long enough to listen to half a song and then "Your voice is pretty!", "Can I hear this on the radio?", "What's your name?" "How do you say that?"…PRETTY CUTE…
---------end of tangent------

BUT ANYWAYS onto THE BAD-?So I guess I'm more of a "travel with a friend" rather than "travel with family" sort of person because the first few hours I was like…okay…I gotta get out of here…and that's when I finally voyaged to the viewing car! (aka: RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!)


my aunt-->she eventually found the viewing car too!

AND FURTHERMORE! …THE UGLY!...so remember my tangent from a moment ago!? Well I was pretty excited about the adorably inquisitive nature of this little 5yo girl so I was havin a great time talking with her!...that is until her mother came to the viewing car to find her! She was maybe mid thirties, obviously rural (which is totally fine!), and not very friendly! She sees that the little girl is with me, gives me a stern and dirty look and asks the girl what she's doing. The girl starts ranting about how I'm a musician and how pretty my voice is, but her mother cuts her off, grabs her hand, and says "We don't talk to strangers!" I tried to be polite and friendly and told the little girl her mom is right and introduced myself to the mother, but she starts walking away and then whispers, "You don't know if she's a scary black person!"?She obviously did a poor job of whispering this to the little girl, because I heard her very well!

MAY 31st
Short note. Okay so we just got off of the train in L.A. and it's colder here than it was in Chicago…something's wrong with this situation!


the rental car guy couldn't find us because the LAX shuttle dropped us off in an odd place so my aunt told him to look for the girl with the blue guitar! and BAM...there he was!