All Aboard!

I'd never ridden a train before. Okay, that's not true. I once rode the Hood River scenic train in The Dalles, while in Oregon visiting my grandparents. It had been my grandmother's idea. The ride lasted about 20 minutes and I think I was about 6 years old. But to me, it didn't really count, because all the romance and excitement of traveling by train required that a significant distance be traveled, that the trip be an event. That, I thought, I hadn't done.

So. I'd felt like I'd never really done the train thing. Because of that, while in the USA this autumn, I decided that the trip across the country to my storage unit in Denver would have to be by Amtrak. I wanted to see what rail travel was all about.

My sister dropped me off at Union Station in Washington DC and I was way too excited for my adventure. I did a bit of wandering around the beautiful station, bristling with anticipation for the trip. I sat back and took in the scenery of the bustling station. Very cool.

A bright fiery readhead started chatting to me about her family issues, her love issues, and her money issues and then announced that we were train buddies. She was awesome and I loved her already. Once on the train, we settled in and looked forward to the ride, moving to the Observation car as soon as the conductor checked our tickets and cleared us to move about the train. The Observation car is fantastic! Floor to ceiling windows ran along the length of the car and over our heads, creating part of the ceiling in a domelike effect. Seats faced the windows, allowing the view to surround us in a surreal wraparound vista as it whipped by like a life sized movie. We watched as the countryside roll by as we met new people and snacked on cheese and crackers. When night fell and she headed back to her seat to rest, I stayed and watched the night sky, meeting new friends and relaxing, amazed that I hadn't done this type of travel before. I managed to doze for a couple hours despite my excitement. In the morning, as we approached Chicago where she was to go home, she laughed at my childlike awe and suggested that I get a tour of downtown from the water, and it sounded like a perfect idea. I had a 5 hour layover in Chicago before I had to catch the next train to Denver.

We disembarked and said goodbye. I wandered the station for a bit, looking for the lockers, got my bearings, and locked up my bags and went in search of a cup of coffee before trying to figure out how to get a tour. I wandered around the massive station, and found myself in a large foyer with the ticket counter. I was deciding if it would just make more sense to ask one of the ticket sellers how to go about my plan of seeing the city by water, when I saw a commotion on the far side of the lobby. A man in a green shirt with a cane by his side was shouting. "Hey, that's mine! Stop! Thief!" he yelled. A man with a large grey hooded sweatshirt was struggling a bit and shoving something square-like and black into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. I was slow to respond, taking it in. The man in the green shirt got to his feet and the man in the grey sweatshirt shuffled away at a rapid, but not running, pace. People started to shout, "Hey! Stop him! Thief! Pickpocket! Stop that man!" The shouting was furious, but nobody made a move to stop him. In disbelief and without thinking, I started to run. I shouted and ran, my flip flops doing their flippity floppity sound as I stomped through the station. I yelled, "Stop that man! Grey sweatshirt! Stop him!" and others joined in with my shouting, encouraging everyone else to stop the guy but not a single person actually made a move. Fueled by the injustice of it, I chased the guy harder, and nearly knocked over a cleaning lady and her cart as I rounded the fountain.

First of all, I have to wonder, what was I thinking? What did I think I was going to do if I caught this guy? Second of all, why was nobody helping? Third, how is it I was able to run when this leg, healed from a broken femur, often losing the strength to hold me securely as I mounted staircases, had failed me so many times before? No time for such questions, I told myself, and ran on.

The man in the grey sweatshirt disappeared through some automatic closing glass doors. I had to hesitate when I got to them, for them to open again. In that time, he had made it halfway up the escalator on the other side but was now acting completely nonchalant and calm. I guess he thought he'd lost me, and was acting like he had nothing to do with the chaos. I ran to the staircase beside the escalator and sprinted the stairs two at a time. He looked back at me in shock, and I kept going, and began to shout again that he was a pickpocket and that someone should stop him. As he started to step forward, I got a couple stairs above him and jutted my right arm out, effectively clotheslining him as my forearm hit him in the neck. I began to climb over the banister and to climb on top of the man in the grey sweatshirt as I shouted to him, "give it back! Give it back!" That very moment, a man in a suit started down the up escalator and grabbed the guy, holding him in such a way that his arms were pinned and the hands extended. I continued to yell at him and he held out a wallet and gave me a sneer as he pulled the cash out of it and stuffed it down the front of his pants. I grabbed the wallet from his hands and held it up in the air. From below us came a weak shout, "my wallet....!" I looked down and saw the man in the green shirt hobbling on his cane, approaching the staircase. Where were the cops?

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, there they were. In a flourish and a huge demonstration of bravado, they came, running the stairs, with 3 German Shepherds in tow. Policemen in uniform, some in streetclothes with insignia on the breast of their t-shirts, all of them rushing around looking very serious and important. The man in the suit still had the man in the grey sweatshirt pinned, and I held the wallet above my head so as not to appear to be on the bad guy's side. The police ran right past me, shouting "where's the perp!?" and I pointed in the direction of the obvious. More police ran by me, my arm in the air, wallet above my head. Since they didn't seem to care, I headed down the stairs to return the wallet. I had nearly reached the man in the green shirt when a female officer yanked the wallet from my hand. "Is this the wallet in question?" she asked. "Yes- but this is the owner..." I replied, but I didn't get any further. She took it with her as she ran up the stairs, shouting to the other officers that they needed to find the victim.

The victim, as it were, was quite disappointed to see his wallet go, again. I told him I'd seen the grey sweatshirt guy take the cash and put it down his pants, and that we'd gotten him, not to worry. He looked faint and began to sway a bit. "I'm a nurse," I said hurredly. "Are you ok?" He was not ok. He told me he was on his first day of walking without his neckbrace after an accident, and that he was a diabetic and was feeling "fuzzy". I asked him about his blood sugar checks, insulin, and his most recent meal, and tried to keep him calm. I'd gone from vigilante mode to nurse mode, and by now quite a crowd had gathered. He took a seat and the officer who'd taken his wallet gestured for me to come up the stairs as the other officers dragged the grey sweatshirt man away. On his way past me he shot a dirty look in my direction, but I figured as I only had a few hours left in Chicago, he was no threat to me. I approached the officer and answered her questions. She then jokingly thanked me for doing her job, and collected the man in the green shirt. I went off walking towards the lobby, sure that I would barely have enough time for a downtown tour only if I were lucky.

No such luck. As I approached the lobby, I was greeted by a group of people, excitedly cheering me and each telling their own version of what I'd done. "She started off slow but then broke into her stride!" said one onlooker. "I saw her round that corner, scarf flying!" said another. "She's a real hero, she's a nurse too, did you hear?" a woman said excitedly, "I know! A real hero!" agreed another lady. "Can I take your picture?" they all asked, camera-phones out and photos snapping. A woman on the other side of the fountain waved me over. "My husband, how is he?" she asked. I realized this was the other half of the couple who had been robbed. I was still with her when her husband returned and happily said he'd recovered the wallet and everything in it.

I was exhausted! I looked at the clock. Two hours had gone by. There was no way I could have a city tour now. I stepped outside, went to a sandwich shop a block away, and found a spot by the water to eat my sandwich, contemplating the crazy events. How do these things always happen to me? And what was I thinking, anyway!? I passed the remaining time wandering about and people watching. While in an overpriced gift shop in the station where I'd found a fleece blanket to buy for the upcoming train to Denver, I decided the day's events warranted the purchase of a 'Chicago Rocks' t-shirt. The train ride to Denver seemed quite uneventful after what I'd been through in the Chicago station. Fun, though. And educational: I learned that stretching out for a nighttime nap in the observation car is a lot more comfortable than the passenger seats, and that a blanket and warm layers is a very good idea. I met lots of good people, relished in exchanging travel stories and dreams, and I even treated myself to the dining car for a nice dinner. I deserved it, I told myself, after the amount of drama that had been involved in just getting myself to Chicago. Apparently the adventure not just the train ride itself, but what happens between train rides as well. ha ha ha!