From Snow to Sand (2022)
When my freight train is in motion, riding in a well during winter often feels like I'm trapped in a snow globe. Wind surges around those ribbed walls of double stack containers, with a cool, subtle stream flowing into my well, nothing violent, but persistent, quickly pulling up any tiny crystals of snow packed to the porch. At first, they dance and they swim and they soar through the air playfully grazing my face. But soon, over time, the snowflakes accumulate, they melt, and the playful touching becomes a cold, stinging sensation, a nuisance, like trying to shoo away a swarm of bees or gnats; it's a completely useless tactic on my part. They attack and attack as the freight rumbles and roars down the line, shaking the snow globe even more and more, until finally I surrender to my coffin of down for an indeterminate amount of time, until she stops or the temperature rises. In here, it's warmer, darker and less fierce, but it's dull and boring and lacks a view. In time the cold steel creeps right up and on through, chilling my back, and prickling my spine, making me shift side-to-side. Eventually, night falls on the lonely towns as she blazes on through and I drift asleep under a bright sky illuminated from a slender moon.
It's both a choice and a privilege to ride the steel. Whenever that flame is fierce and I need to go, I set out for a few days or weeks or a month and make the best of my time off, when I'm able, when I've put in the time that Uncle Sam requires to live under a roof. I will say though any day on a freight is better than work. It's better than the burden of responsibilities, that continual quest of success I search for, that simply doesn't exist, and the permanence of routine, but only because it's a freedom of choice, a privilege.
I awake early the following morning to catch a glimpse of the sun slowly creeping up into the bright, cloudless sky. Stripes of orange and yellow and blue paint the horizon, with little dichotomy between it and the blanket of endless snow cast out for miles. The only discernible feature to distinguish the separation from land and sky is from the distant silhouette of trees. Without it, the landscape is merely a painting.
The whooshing and whistling and howling of wind resonates with the rattling squeals and thunderous moans of a flat wheel. I watch the blaze of scenery roll by as my freight rips through the small, quiet towns, shortly meandering into Arkansas. The towns where I occasionally see people sitting in rocking chairs on their porch, sipping coffee, in no rush to get anywhere, but just enjoying the moment and simple pleasure of life.
It's still chilly outside, in the mid 20s I presume, but nothing like the previous single digit nights of Illinois and Indiana. As I stare out at the landscape, I smile. I can finally hear the desert calling my name with each mile and it makes me happy to get one step closer to Texas and New Mexico.
That endless snow that I saw for miles and miles slowly starts to disappear, turning to farmland with sparse trees, barren yet free, hugging the banks of the tracks. She rolls and she creeps before reaching the yard in Pine Bluff until finally coming to a halt on the main line, waiting for a crew change. I stand up in my well, yawn, stretch, and crack my stiff back and neck, before taking in a deep breath to really breatheeeee. The cool air no longer suffocates my lungs like it had on those dry, frigid nights; it’s refreshing. That subtle, chilling ache, crawling through my bones and joints finally starts to mellow, becoming limber with the climb in temperature, and I realize, damn I'm getting old.
The yard looks fairly active, more than I expected anyway, but being particularly indecisive, I quickly construct a plan of what I'm gonna do. I very much want to stay on this train headed for San Antonio, but I'm low on water with only a few sips left in my jug. So I pack up my gear, and hop off the train, walking the line between the shadows of freight and the adjacent road. I casually wander just enough until I can cross a ditch between the road and I. It's stagnant, murky, and littered, breeding tuberculosis, so I want to make damn sure I don't fall in that cesspool.
The shift from deep snow to rough asphalt is a much needed break on my feet and knees surprisingly. No longer am I marching through the snow pulling up heavy stones with every step forward. But now, with the ease of movement comes the extra weight on my back. I had stopped to shed layers of clothing, crumpling them up, and stuffing them into my bag.
The sun feels warm and soothing against my neck, and as much as I'm dreading the long walk into town, suddenly I realize I have nothing else to do or worry about. Who cares? Three miles, eight miles, 15 miles, I've done it all before. It's ephemeral. This is merely a break from the exhaustion of routine and comfort, which often starts to feel mundane and cyclical after a while. Wandering aimlessly, riding freight, it's like a walk in the woods for me; it's adventure; it's fun; it's addicting; it's all of that packed into one. It's the serendipity of the unknown and zero expectations that keep me outside. The stellar scenery is just a plus that keeps me riding trains, which is what I like most about it, the free, infinite views I have all to myself, the art of constant motion. I'm not constricted to four walls or a schedule and I have the time to write, shoot photography, and do what I enjoy without the restrictions of work and ordinary life getting in the way.
It's hard to balance travel and work. I have to make time for it, which I don't always have and when I'm not working at the restaurant or doing trees in Massachusetts I want to spend that time with my wife and my friends. Like everyone, our time is limited. Trains come, when they come, as does the work I pick up, in order to get out here for a rip. Work is always there as well. Whether it's trees, working back of house or front of house at the restaurant, construction, or packing chutes, the list of opportunities goes on as long as I'm up for the challenge, humble, and willing to learn. At the end of the day, we all work in some form to survive. I'm just fortunate that my country has an abundance of it and I'm able to live the way I do.
My problem is not work itself. I don't mind hard work and I'm one to take any job. I haven't boxed myself in to one skillset. I just simply don't like how, after time, expectations and comfort at the workplace start to set in, they tack on more, want me to stay longer and pick up more hours. Then before I know it, work is consuming my life, whether I like the work or not or even need it at the time.
So typically, anytime I find the comfort of a job creeping into my life I try to break free. Maybe it's a habit I've developed after ten years since I left my hometown, and I'm afraid if I stick with a job I like, it'll replace traveling? I don't know, but I don't think so...spontaneity tends to run my life because I don't know what I want. I'm just along for the ride wherever it takes me. I do, however, think anytime you mix money with passion that passion now becomes work and slowly it cripples your morale because now it's no longer something you do for fun, but something you must DO to survive.
So I'll live the way I wanna live and ride it till it dies, bingeing on these stints between reality where I enjoy my unemployment until eventually I fall back into some job, somewhere, doing something, any job really. It doesn't matter, but right now it's about riding freight...maybe in the future it's another hobby between bouts of work, like shifting gears back to skiing or skydiving or rock climbing or learning how to surf or even settling into one job. Who the fuck knows if I don't?
I ruminate over all of these thoughts, as I always do when I travel, while I fling my pack up and over my shoulders. I start walking further down the desolate road, picking my head up from watching my footsteps to glance at the tracks, scanning the train until my eyes stop on a slave. I think to myself and wonder...
The I131 interchanged in Salem two days ago, broke into thirds, and sat for a day before continuing on the road to Pine Bluff. They must have added a block to the front in Salem and I'm staring at it now as I start to grin.
Now I don't care much for cabs. They're comfy and warm and in a pinch they keep you out of the cold and inclement weather. But, they strip you of that feeling, that freedom of the wind rustling your hair; it thrashing against your face, and watering your eyes. When you're riding a car you're free of glass panes and luxury. In a cab, it's like being the only passenger on a train peering out the window at the scenery rolling by you. It's just not the same, at least not to me anyway, but I had grinned for good reason.
In each cab is an ice box. It's never cold or stocked with ice, but occasionally it will have water, not always, but there is a good chance. So instead of wasting time walking to the store I continue walking the road nonchalantly waiting for an opportunity to climb up and into the cab. Traffic is sparse and practically non-existent on this road so it doesn't take long before I'm inside rummaging around for water. I check the ice box, but it's empty. Every small water bottle in there is empty, crumpled, and discarded in the box as if it were a trash bin. I grimace in dismay and groan.
I really don't feel like walking, but just as I get off of my ass, and stare down at my feet, I see a gallon jug of water hidden under the seat. It's completely full and saves me a 3-mile trip one-way to the nearest gas station. I grab the handle to the engine door and free myself from the cab, squishing my pack through the small door. A few jerks and forceful jolts and it's free. I glance to the road, then to the yard, and see that I'm completely alone.
This moment won't last forever so I scurry down to the ballast as quickly as possible, walking the line towards the end of the train and suddenly the ssssssss of air pierces the silence. I don't have time to reach my ride so I grab another well and jam the heel of my boot into the snow caked to the porch. The train starts moving as I'm clearing the porch for my bedroll. A few kicks later and swishes of my foot and it's doable, not as nice as my original ride, but doable.
She feeds the day with thunder through each crossing and town and mile of forest, screeching and squelching around every bend of track and steep curve. The heart of the ride lies within the endless forest, that verdant bluff of pine cascading for miles as the snow melts and my porch ponds with water. The full warmth of the sun is captured when my train exits the tunnel of forest and I begin to see the palmetto bushes sprout up along the tracks as we dip into Texas.
Night falls and thousands of stars light up the sky. It feels like I'm cruising through space on a chariot through the galaxy to nowhere specific because at that moment I'm too tired to know where I'm at and it really doesn't matter because I'm not in San Antonio yet. I drift off without realizing it and wake at a siding to a fierce breeze clawing at my face, that thick, cold desert air nibbling my nose and cheeks. I pull out my phone and check the maps and see that I'm in Hearne.
I doze off again for what feels like hours, but is only minutes as the sun starts to crawl off the desert floor, the eternal flame of life that I often take for granted. It's here. It's burning in the sky, and then it dawns on me, I remember I need water again. I throw all my gear off the train and pack it up nicely on the ballast next to a nice jaw bone of an animal, which I pocket as a souvenir. I don't own a lot of accoutrement. In fact, most of the knick knacks, train stickers, date nails, photos, zines, I end up giving away. I prefer a life of few material possessions and if it's something that's not making me happy I'd rather give it to someone else who appreciates it.
So I stuff the bone into a side pocket on my pack and wonder who I'll give it to or what I'll do with it later as the ballast crunches underfoot and the neighborhood of dogs bark at my footsteps. It's Texas. I don't really care too much. I find a road that butts up against the tracks and exit railroad property as I make the short walk to Dollar General figuring I'll resupply and make it in just enough time to get back on my train.
It's about a mile away, not too far, but far enough. I look destitute and rather grim, but I find a smile goes a long way in a town where I'm an outsider. It portrays the innocuous drifter or so I tell myself that anyway. Although, I find it's always the worst when I must wander through an affluent neighborhood. I always look over my shoulder wondering when the next cop will stop and question me, fearing the local Karen, head of the neighborhood watch group, has nothing better to do, but waste the time of a bum in his thirties who just wants to ride freight trains. Then this paranoia subsides as I look around. Nothing happens. I realize I'm not walking through a rich neighborhood, the ones with HOAs and rules where your grass must be yay inches high and all your shudders blue, and no on-street parking. Instead I'm just wandering the streets with quaint, little, one-story homes, some brick, some adobe, some neatly adorned, others dilapidated and hideous, but each unique and different in its own respect. Suddenly I'm at ease again.
I walk into Dollar General and grab some train food and caffeine to keep me going. It's in and out, five minutes max, probably less. I'm excited to get back on the train and head to San Antonio, but as I trudge past the school, the houses, and reach the nursing home by the tracks, I realize my train has already left. I kick the dirt and sulk as I watch a glider whiz around in the sky, circling the tracks. It's too hot to walk so I wander to the end of the road and jolt down under a tiny railroad bridge by a drainage culvert.
Pallid bubbles foam to the surface of the water so I think twice about washing up and rinsing off days of train and grease. I just relax and lie back, sprawling out on my bedroll with my sleeping bag drying in the sun. The contents of my pack are scattered about as I rummage for a pen and paper to draw, to write, to kill time until I feel the urge to walk the tracks towards the yard.
Much of my day I think about self-reflection and improvement and it's peaceful and relaxing to feel comfortable with myself after all these years and love life. Negativity spawns just like the next person, but now it doesn't consume me like a blackmore for months. It comes. It goes. Normally, pessimism rises from the system and its failure to its people, issues out of my control and in the hands of lobbyists. I try to brush it off, but social media tends to fuel the fire, which is why I am not on here as much unless I'm traveling. I'd rather think positively and treat everyone how I want them to treat me, to spread those vibes, instead of constantly complaining about topics out of my control. Sometimes the workplace can also burgeon with perpetual bitching, especially in the restaurant industry because everyone hates their fucking job. It's why we're all or were alcoholics or chemically dependent. Changing yourself is a hard feat especially depending on your upbringing. My parents weren't the worst of people but they certainly weren't the best. Retraining my mind as an adult has been the hardest achievement above all else. Those growth mindset years of watching abuse, listening to constant yelling, and crazy outbursts; it sucks. I learned to mask and control my rage and manage my emotions, which is still difficult. I never learned any of this shit.
Freedom is a mindset, and as much joy as travel brings, there is also a dark side to it; it's loneliness; it's guilt; it's shame; it's all these emotions compartmentalized over years that resurface that I must face. I am the only one who can do that and writing helps bring that out, to focus and overcome, and better myself as a human.
Hours pass. I walk the line towards the yard, the ballast crunching underfoot, and stabbing the soles of my feet as the fierce desert heat drowns me in sweat. Salt trickles down into my eyes, stinging, and I wince, blinded by the light. It's not a far walk indeed and as I get closer to the yard by a bend in the track I mosey down through a rut of tall grass and throw my pack over a cattle fence. It plops on the ground with a large thud. Nothing explodes or breaks. I place my feet between the set of barbed wire and propel myself off the top wire, striking the ground with a hard thud. The forest beyond spreads for miles and miles and I can already see foot trails leading into the woods.
As I look out beyond the bean poles of beech, and dying oak, and the gnarled vines, I wonder when the next train to San Antonio will stop along the curve.
Hearne was much warmer than my past days of travel, seemingly chasing snow storms, and spending most of my time bundled in a coffin of goose down.
