counterclockwise: Can't Stop, Won't Stop

My last few adventures in Minneaplis were... watching trains with Train Doc, and hopping a fence into the state fair and observing the horrifyingly consumptive crowd eating their cheese curds and ice cream, all the while disgusting them by eating their leftover cheese curds and ice cream. It was a greasy day and a lot of it was spent in the shade of trees.

We left Minneapolis Tuesday night, after spending about thirty hours in the Midway yard. We caught the high line with the intention of getting off in Whitefish, Montana for some camping and fresh air. However, plan changed when I woke in North Dakota after an 8-hour sleep to find that our food bag had been sucked under the train, leaving behind a tin of black currants and a jar of peanut butter. We opted to go to a city to find some food (though I am now informed that there is a food bank right near the Whitefish crew change). Hauser, Idaho is the closest stop to Spokane, our closest city option, so we got off there and hitched into town.

Spokane seemed extremely clean, happy, and healthy from the vantage point at "pig-out in the park" at Riverview Park downtown. That was an experience not far from the Minneapolis State Fair. It turns out Spokane is not that well off. We wound up staying in a women's homeless shelter after being informed that staying outside was a notoriously unsafe option for women in that town. We went to Hope House, juxtaposed most casually across the street from the plasma center, and right down from the men's shelter, Catholic Charities. Waiting for the shelter to open, you can imagine we made plenty of passer-by friends. We made sure there would be enough room for everyone before we decided to stay at Hope House, and were happy to hear that it is funded almost completely by private catholic sources. We took showers, put on our fresh nightgowns and robes, given a pair of clean socks and fed dinner. Lights out at eleven and I fell right to sleep. In the morning we were given breakfast and coffee. My favorite person at the shelter, Sharon, was this rough, large-framed woman who stared down the obnoxiously loud morning supervisor and somewhere along the morning I remember her saying "whoever messes with coffee in it's natural state should be shot." She said this to the supervisor who may have served us decaf. Loved her.

We decided to take our best non-sketch ride out of Spokane, towards Seattle, which wound up taking five hours. We got a ride from a mother and daughter, Trish and Nicole, whose music taste included The Replacements, Depeche Mode, Devo, Morrissey, and Adolescents. Most of our four-hour drive was spent listening to the Cure. They showed us the Columbia River Gorge, Snoqualmie Falls (where there are lots of antique rail cars that are amazing to see), and a spot where part of Twin Peaks was filmed. We liked them so much, honestly it couldn't have been a more enjoyable ride.

So, now we've been in Seattle, Washington for nineteen hours, and since arriving I have enjoyed food and beverages at the Haphazard House, as well as a serenade from a brass band practicing in the back yard and an hours long pass-the-instrument style living room performance. Tin Tree Factory (Johnny & co) played last and played his song about Adhamh Roland, which got my sentimentality rolling and I teared up.

Minnesota State Fair