Goodbye Caboose!

This is the last of this four part story.  

 

If you missed part three, just click here.

 

We slept.

 

It was an uneasy sleep.

 

At least mine was.

 

I kept having dreams about zombies chasing me.

 

I think it was from the wind making scary noises through the caboose.

Or perhaps it was from being incredibly thirsty.

 

I finally startled awake.

 

It was pitch black.

 

And dead silent in the caboose.

 

I reached out and touched the metal wall close beside the bed.

 

It was freezing cold.

 

I couldn't hear Mr. Jenny breathing...

What a dilemma.

 

If he was in a sound sleep (lucky guy!) I didn't want to wake him.

 

On the other hand, if he was dead (not so lucky guy!) it would be good to know before too much more time elasped.

 

In a tiny, little voice I said, "Steve?  Steve?   Are you awake?"

 

His voice boomed out of the darkness.   "Thank God you're awake.   THANK GOD!  Can we go now?"

 

Obviously, he wasn't dead. 

 

The poor guy was just waiting for ME to wake up!

 

"I'm glad you're not dead," I said, "Are you freezing and all crinkled up from the bed being so short?"

 

He didn't answer for a moment and then he replied, and quite testily I might add, "Technically we slept in the caboose.  Let's just go."

 

"Okay, what time is it?   And not to be a whiner here, I really have to pee."

 

He fumbled in the darkness and a tiny ray of light from his watch illuminated the refrigerated depths of the caboose's dark interior.

 

"It's 3 am.   I have to pee, too.   Let's go!!!!"

 

We jumped out of bed.

 

Okay.

 

That's not totally true.

 

We got up slowly out of our indvidual beds.

 

Mr. Jenny turned the powerful beam of our teensy/weensy flashlight on.

(slight exaggeration here!)

Since we had slept in our clothes, it didn't take long to throw our few items into the duffle bag.

I did it ultra-fast even though I was doing the "I have to pee badly!" dance.

"I don't think I can make it across the tracks!" I whined to Mr. Jenny.

"Just hurry," he said, 'I'm freezing."

 

I did hurry.

 

But.

 

There is no way I was going to be able to make it to the bunkhouse and the bathroom.

 

Ummmm...

 

Let me just say that it's hard enough peeing outside when you're a girl...

 

...but just add howling wind, freezing cold, lumpy gravel to that equation.

 

Yeah.

 

It doesn't add up to anything very fun.

 

But!

 

I did it!

 

Then...

 

We threw everything in the truck!

 

We were both shivering like crazy.

 

Mr. Jenny started the truck while I grabbed a blanket out of the backseat.

 

D'oh.

 

Why didn't I take that blanket into the caboose to start with?

 

D'oh.

 

It was cold.

 

We were stinky from not taking a shower.

 

Our joints and muscles were totally crinked up.

 

Yeah.

 

"Let's go!" we shouted.   "Goodbye caboose!"

 

And we were off!

 

It was 3 am.

 

3 am.

 

So, technically, we actually did sleep in the caboose.

 

Just not very long.

 

And not very well.

 

We found a gas station after a few miles driving!

 

It had a bathroom.

 

And coffee.

 

Hot, steamy, caffeinated, yummy coffee.

 

And then we drove.

 

And drove.

 

The top picture was taken 137 miles away from the caboose!

 

Goodbye!

 

Goodbye Caboose!

 

The bottom picture is when the sun finally came up around 5:45 am!

 

Goodbye Caboose!

 

Hello sunrise!

So.

 

Yeah.

 

We stayed in the caboose.

 

We didn't have too many regrets!

 

Would we do it again?

 

Ummm...

 

Probably not!

 

But it was an experience.

 

And please don't tell Mr. Jenny, but I have my eye on a hotel shaped like a teepee that we're going to stay in next.

 

It looks really cool.

 

AND...

 

It has an indoor bathroom!

 

And then, of course, there's the yurts that look interesting...

 

AND...

 

Well.

 

For now never mind.

 

Just let me repeat one last time...with great gusto and enthusiasm...

 

Goodbye!

 

Goodbye Caboose!

Almost to the end of the Caboose

This is part three of the caboose story.

 

If you missed part two, just click here!

So.

Ummm.

Hmmm.

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

 

In the semi-twilight, we stumbled across the tracks and let ourselves into the bunkhouse.

 

The docent had showed us a bedroom we could use if 'we couldn't handle the caboose overnight.'

 

We glanced into the room.

 

It looked like a pretty normal room.

 

Regular bed.

 

Baseboard heater.

 

Adjacent bathroom.

 

Mr. Jenny and I looked at each other.

 

"We don't need no stinkin' bathroom!" I said...

 

...with much more bravado than I actually felt.

 

We did our bathroom stuff.

 

We went back outside.

 

Hmmm.

 

It had gotten darker.

 

AND colder.

 

AND windier.

 

We scurried and stumbled across the gravel and tracks.

 

Mr. Jenny stopped at the car to get our teensy-weensy flashlight out of the glove box.

 

He shined the light on the metal steps into the caboose.

 

Yeah.

 

That was soooo much better.

 

NOT!

 

But we gamely hopped aboard.

 

"It's cold in here," said Mr. Jenny.

 

"Yeah, it is cold, but luckily we have these thick comforters."  I patted the comforters hopefully.

 

They were not thick.

 

"So which bed do you want," said Mr. Jenny.

 

"Ummm...I don't care," I replied.

 

"So, I'm just sleeping in my clothes," said Mr. Jenny.

 

I agreed.

 

It was cold.

 

And kind of gritty everywhere from the wind blowing dust into every crevice.

 

I turned on the battery light over one of the beds.

 

It was about 12 watts.

 

Or perhaps less.

 

We climbed warily into our individual beds.

 

Wow.

 

They were narrow.

 

And short.

 

My feet actually touched the wall.

 

The metal of the walls was quite cold to the touch.

 

Mr. Jenny is a good 6" taller than I am...he tried to get comfortable.

 

...

 

...

 

He gave up.

 

He sat up.

 

And boinked his head on some metal contraption hanging partly over his pillow.

 

(insert swear words here!)

 

"Do you want to switch?" I said helpfully.

 

"I don't think it's gonna make any difference," he grumbled.

 

He lay back down.

 

(Please don't get me started on transitive and intransitive verbs here.   I'm telling a story.   Geez!)

 

We wiggled.

 

We squirmed.

 

We sighed.

 

"So, whataya think?" I asked.

 

"I think it's going to be a long night," he replied.

 

We laid there in the semi-darkness for awhile.

 

The wind howled through the caboose.

 

It was kind of scary, but I was trying to be tough.

 

After a minute or so I said, "Wow, it's kind of scary, isn't it?   And...ummm...kind of cold.   And...ummm...is your pillow all gritty from the dirt blowing down the tracks?"

 

Mr. Jenny was quiet for a minute or so.   Finally he replied.  "Yeah.  It is kind of scary.  And I'm trying not to think of how it feels like there's dirt everywhere."

 

We sighed.

 

We wiggled.

 

We squirmed.

 

I finally said, "Gosh, those poor caboose guys really had it bad, dontcha think?  They'd have to be pretty short to sleep on these beds.  Short and impervious to the cold.   Short and have a great attraction to dirt and grit and the smell of diesel oil.   Dontcha think?"

 

Mr. Jenny didn't really answer me.

 

The battery on our pathetic little light gave out.

 

It was pretty black inside the caboose.

 

I tried again.

 

"So...ummm...I wonder what time it is?   Do you think we've slept at all  yet?"

 

Mr. Jenny made a snorting noise.   "I'm pretty sure we haven't slept at all yet."

 

We sighed.

 

We wiggled.

 

We squirmed.

 

"So...umm...do you wanna talk?"

 

Mr. Jenny made a snorting noise again.   "Sure.  It's not like we're going to sleep or anything."

 

We talked about boyscouts and Mr. Jenny traveling a lot of years ago on a train from Idaho to Washington DC.   Mr. Jenny didn't remember it being quite so cold and quite so uncomfortable.

 

We talked about girlscouts and camping in primitive cabins that seemed to be much more comfortable than our current surroundings.

 

We sighed.

 

We wiggled.

 

We squirmed.

 

And we talked.

 

And talked.

 

And finally Mr. Jenny quit talking.

 

Dang, if he hadn't fallen asleep after all.

 

Seriously.

 

He fell asleep and left me laying there with the howling wind, grit on my pillow, sleeping on a squishy rock WITH NOBODY TO TALK TO!

 

Geez.

 

Louise.

 

Now you might recall I told you there was no electricity.

 

And perhaps you might recall from posts long ago that Mr. Jenny uses a C-pap.

 

So...

 

As I was laying there with the wind and the grit on the squishy rock I realized that Mr. Jenny was probably going to die.

 

Die as in dead.

 

Because he didn't have his C-pap.

 

Oh man.

 

Oh man.

 

I decided to be vigilant all night so that if he stopped breathing I could somehow dramatically rescue him.

I was attentive.

 

I was freezing.

 

I was waiting on every breath from him.

 

Until...darned...if I didn't fall asleep, too.

 

And, hey.

 

You probably fell asleep just reading this installment since it was so long and all.

 

And since it is so long and all, I'm going to wrap it up for this segment and finish the tale tomorrow.

 

I hope you STAY ABOOOOOOARDDDDD!

 

...because this is going to be continued...

The Caboose 'Experience' Continues...

Yesterday I started telling you about our overnight stay in the caboose. If you missed that and have nothing better to do at the moment, you can read that by clicking here.

The inside of the caboose was almost totally original.

 

The sleeping berths were outfitted with thin mattresses.

 

The battery light fixture cast about a 12 watt glow.

 

The entire thing smelled of diesel.

 

In a very...ummm...train-y kind of way.

 

We put our overnight bag on the back bunk and headed out to explore the train yard.

 

Perhaps we were curious about the historic surroundings.

 

Perhaps we were just in denial.

 

Perhaps we were just afraid to try out the beds.

We walked and walked around the yard.

 

It was so neat.

 

Old cars, old equipment, amazing textures, cool metal.

 

We were having a great time until we realized it was getting really windy and the temperature was dropping.

 

One of our big plans for the caboose was to read up in the cupolas, so we decided to retreat to our luxury accomodations and make that happen before it got dark.

We each climbed the metal rungs carefully.

 

It doesn't seem very high in the pictures, but it seemed like were on top of the world.

 

The train tracks stretched into the distance.

 

We played with the manual windshield wipers and looked out the windows.

 

We read a little bit.

 

We marvelled that we were actually spending the night in a caboose.

 

It started to get darker outside.

 

The wind picked up and seemed to moan and draft through the caboose.

 

Hmmmm.

 

We realized we should head over to the bunkhouse to use the facilities before it got any darker and colder.

 

Getting down was not as easy as getting up.

 

Mr. Jenny accomplished it quickl,y but I ended up with the giggles.

 

Everytime I tried turning around to go down the short ladder I cracked up.

 

Mr. Jenny waited patiently.

 

I giggled some more.

 

And tried turning around to get down.

 

And giggled some more.

 

Mr. Jenny's patience started wearing thin.

 

"Ummm...you need to get down.   We need to go to the bunkhouse," he told me in his most serious voice.

 

That just made me giggle more.

 

It took quite a while for me to get down, but I finally did.

 

The wind was really howling by then.

 

And it was getting darker.

 

And colder.

 

We gathered our toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and washcloths.

And opened the caboose door.

 

We gasped at how cold it had gotten outside.

 

Dust was blowing down the tracks.

 

The sun had dropped down below the mountains.

 

Uh. Oh.

 

Walking across the tracks we realized how difficult it would be get to the bathroom in the dark.

 

Railroad tracks.   Big gravel.   Railroad ties. 

 

Ummm.

 

Whose idea was this anyway?

 

To be continued tomorrow.

 

Still Aboooooarddddd?!?

I have always had a fascination with trains...

Robert Louis Stevenson shares this love, I suspect.

 

The words of his poetry are forever in my memory...

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

I hear a train whistle and I am transported...

I am magically on that train and traveling somewhere other than where I am.  In fact, I've written about train whistles before on my blog...

 

...and if you're feeling in a train type mood you can click here to read my previous post.

 

On our road trip to Boise, we stopped at a historic train station.

 

As usual, we were entranced by the cabooses on display.

 

Mr. Jenny and I, in fact, tried to get clearance from our city to allow a caboose in our backyard.   Alas, it was not granted but that did little to deter us from our desire to one day have a caboose to call our very own.

 

So when we found out we could actually STAY in one of the cabooses in the museum overnight we jumped at the chance!

 

"There's no electricity," the smiling docent told us.

 

"We don't care!" We replied.

 

"There's no heat!" She continued.

 

"We don't care!" We replied.

 

"There's no bathroom," she concluded hesitantly, "You need to walk across the tracks to the bunkhouse."

 

"We don't care!" We replied.

 

And we cancelled our reservation at our nice, clean, modern, bathroomized hotel room and booked the caboose for our trip home.

 

After a fun visit with kids, grandson and friends in Boise we headed south toward Arizona again.

 

We were excited but a bit nervous about our stay.

 

"There's no electricity!" We said.  "We can manage!"

 

"There's no heat!"  We continued.   "It'll be just fine!"

 

"There's no bathroom!" We concluded.   "We'll not drink anything after 2 pm.   "It'll be great!"

 

We got to the museum.

 

Nobody was there.

 

Mr. Jenny started digging through the truck looking for the after hours phone number and the museum curator walked around the corner.

 

"Hey!" said Mr. Jenny.   "I saw you on TV.   Weren't you on Rick's Restorations with some railroad equipment?"

 

The bearded gentlemen, Mark,  replied, "Yes!" and struck up a lively conversation with us.

 

We talked for quite a while and finally Mark told us that someone would be there with a key to the caboose shortly.

 

He started to walk away and then he turned around.

 

"You know there's no electricity, heat or bathroom in that caboose, don't you?"

 

We both assured him we would be fine.

 

He started to walk away and then he turned around again.

 

"You know it might freeze tonight, right?"

 

Freeze.   Schmeeze.  "We'll be fine!" we told him and we parted ways.

 

A few minutes later a young man showed up with the keys to the caboose and passes for the railyard.

 

"Just sign this release," he told us and then showed us an extra key.

 

"This key is to the bunkhouse.  You can use the bathroom in there and go in there to sleep if you get too cold."

 

We signed the releases.

 

We looked at each other with big eyes.

 

And then we went inside the caboose.

 

I apologize for this method of sharing pictures.  Blogger is being difficult.   I believe you can click on each small picture and enlarge it.

 

To be continued tomorrow.

 

All Aboard!