Join the new world

From the Vineyard to Boston to await the trip to Cali, I also awaited the travel bans and stay in place orders though as yet unaware of them. The Vineyard was Ok, nothing to do but walk beaches or trails, Boston was the similar but without the beaches a huge plus I got to visit a legal dispensary for the first time, Jamaica Pond was more than an adequate substitution for the beaches, I walked around it daily. The night before I left Trump announced the travel ban, the local grocery store was emptied but the local bar was full.

Amtrak from Boston to Chicago wonderful scenery when awake and sun was out. Chicago ghost town, and I was not the only one to ask the conductor if we WHERE going all the way to Cali. It was definitely unsettling wondering where one might end up and for how long ...

The train emptied the edibles kept the anxiety levels normalized and finally the Amish tribe I was traveling with opened up, they where a lot of fun. Fresh onion slices in there pockets - this was before the mask craze descended.

Denver and the bum element that later once in Cali became a blight on the landscape, oh but the majestic Rockies what a site

Cali and the bum blight, every town with a line of tents with the individual trash dumps along the tracks, occasionally a fire swept camp an unintentional clean-up? Our terminus north of Oakland was near, but so was a bum on the tracks. The last handful of us passengers where in the observation car, the beer dispensary was directly below ... We heard yelling "Get out of the WAY" as we came to a stop. We had hit the bum reportedly, he was up, right down the embankment a bit with conductors yelling at him to get away from the tracks - we could not move until he did - as the police and rescue arrived, the bum made it back to the train, to remove is undamaged shoe to show his bloodily blister ...

Volume too the return east