59 days off. To travel and do with as I would like.  My first decision, get on a Greyhound for a little over a day. 1,500 miles on a bus to visit my mom for Thanksgiving.

Then I traveled 3 days.  Nearly 3,000 miles.  Taking 3 trains.  Arriving in North Dakota.  Beginning in South Padre Island TX to find myself in Bismark North Dakota.  As usual surrounded by water.  But doing nothing as I would “normally”.

It all started for me in California.  Quitting my job. My 25 yr life packed up into 3 bags and thrown into the back of a conversion U-haul for the better part of 3 yrs.  Spending all of my time on a beach somewhere, windsurfing and teaching others to windsurf.  Corpus Christi and South Padre Island Texas to start off the spring.  Continuing on to Avon North Carolina, and Mauntauk New York before spending my summers in California and Hood River, OR.

As the summer wains its off to Cape Cod, MA back to NY, and Dewey Beach Delaware.  Before going back to North Carolina and Texas.  Usually with a little less then a month time off its off to Bonaire and Aruba for my winter before it all starts back up in the spring.

Sounds like a dream 322 days traveling around chasing the sun.  But their is a price to be paid when using a cooler as a refrigerator, a car as a home, and your moms address as your own.  For how much I am out and about I am for the most part alone.  My socialization and fraternization all done through work.  Everyday normal things and interactions become unusually difficult.

The nice thing is that abnormal begins to become common place.  Deciding last minute with no plan I take a train half way around the United States.  Finding myself in a foot of snow.  1,000 miles away from a beach.  In the beginning of winter.  At #2 on the US list of coldest cities.  With a friend who was both at the end and the beginning of this story.

Just your average trip. The Texas Eagle took me through 1,000 miles plus of desert and Cactus.  The Pacific Starlight took me along the southern California Coastline and through all the neighborhoods of my first 25yrs.  Roaming the cars of the train.  Sipping on a beer at a table in the observation car.  As the scenes of my life, Beaches, cliffs and waves passed by me on the rail.  Through a great Halloween,  Great Great Grandmother, and Great grandparents towns. Passing by Childhood summers.  Into Tennis matches, and past football games attended, first kisses and Friends left behind.

This (photo left) would be the last picture my camera took on the Coast Starlight. I would not get it fixed until just after getting on the 28 Empire Builder.

Waking up just in time to see the sun rising through the clouds and over the mountains.  I was somewhere in Western Montana with my camera finally working.  This would be the start of scenes totally unfamiliar to me.

Here are the two sides of Montana (photo to right and below). It was as if a line had been drawn mountains on one side and a totally flat landscape on the other. 

Three days on a train and I was finally there. Minot North Dakota where I met my friend and former Santa Cruz roommate Annie.  I would not realize it till I saw her brother and sister in law.  That they all where there when I stopped living in a house and started at that time living in a tent, [the next season I would upgrade to a van].