Lamy

Dear Chewey,

Well, after an eight hour delay, I finally hopped aboard the 4 Southwest Chief Amtrak train in Lamy, NM.  You might not know this, but the Lamy train station has a lot of history connected to Los Alamos, in that it was the train station that brought all of the men and women who worked on the Manhattan Project in the 1940’s.  My hunch is that this was the last decade in which it had renovations.  As old and decrepit as it was, it also had the charm of an old west train depot (I’ve attached pictures below).  

Your Uncle Brad and Aunt Britt had to drop me off and take Mattea to a friends house, which would have been fine if the train had come when we thought it was going to.  Instead, I had to wait by myself at the train station, in the dark, in the cold, for two more hours before I finally heard the train whistle. I was literally the only person they picked up!  Ha.  

The seating is quite comfortable on the train, but as you know I don’t sleep so well in anything but a bed, so I probably got 4 hours of sleep last night.  I woke up at the time you would normally wake me up (5:30).  I’m sure by now you are already taking your much deserved mid morning nap.  

I’m in Dodge City, KS right now and the weather here makes Los Alamos feel like a warm winter destination.  

Because the train was so late, I’m going to miss my connection in Chicago to get to New York.  So that should be fun, and will be the first of many plan deviations for me in the coming couple years, so I suppose I should get used to it.  Remember how I told you about “island time” when I went to Hawaii or the Caribbean?  Yeah, well train travel makes island time feel like New York City.  

Oh, by the way, you should listen to this song.  I heard it last night at the Lamy train station saloon, and I think it might be my new theme song for this phase of my journey: https://open.spotify.com/track/1PFGeJLRv5joJxOU1sdulW?si=fSdBaIEvQ4u6J8rUoQ4SWw

Ok, well I’ll write more later.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.

I love you,

Dad