I arrived home at the house at White Picket Gardens late last night...too
late for writing a passage..just enough energy left to haul the backpack into the
house..brush my teeth and fall asleep into the holy darkness.

The week end with Abe and Kristin was wonderful...their house is just how I
thought it would be..colorful, creative, cozy and most of all, the place where
they call home. It is good to see Abe in a home...he was definitely a roamer
for a long time! It rained in Portland, but it didn't really matter. The
core of their house appears to be their puppy, Little Buddy...I had to tiptoe
around in the mornings to fool him into thinking we were all still asleep...it
didn't always work!! At noon on Easter Sunday, they drove me to the train
station where I set off on my other journey.

I kept a detailed account of the entire trip in my journal...hopefully I will
add it next week as an attachment..or mini novel. In the meantime, here is
the last excerpt written last night on my way.

There is so much news from the family that I will fill up next week's passage
with family news...until then..settle back, enjoy the end of my journey with
me.

"Sunday night. I am going home. I spent my final day walking, taking
photos, absorbing Chicago into the sinew of my bones. The Chicago that Sandburg
spoke of in his poems that made him famous. The Chicago that he loved. The
Chicago that was home to the World's Fair in 1898 where writers gathered in
smoke-filled cafes to share their work. The Chicago that still remembers poets and
authors by having a reading of T.S. Elliot this week.

It is dusk now-the final destination of this train is Washington, D.C. I am
tempted to stop the conductor and change my ticket from Waterloo to Washington
and just keep going. But I won't. I am tired. My eyes are bloodshot. I
have a cold and two blisters on my right foot. Ohhhhh, don't let these last
comments fool you. My journey has been wonderful and memorable...a lifetime of
it's own.

I have traveled by plane, train, subway, bus, taxi and miles and miles of
walking........... I have dined with bikers, politicians, ministers, skaters,
waitresses, musicians, factory workers, writers............I have watched the
sun rise on the San Francisco Bay, the red hills of New Mexico, the plains of
Missouri....I have watched the sunset through the fog in Oregon, over the
Pacific Ocean, the mountains of Colorado, the skyscrapers of Chicago..... I have read Lolita in Tehran, Cannery Row, Gatsby and my dog eared copy of
Sandburg......

I know train travel...the stuffiness of waiting rooms..the long nights
sitting in seats waiting for the next stop or morning....writing in the lounge car,
breaking bread with new friends in the dining car. I worry someday that train
travel will become just a part of history...so, go West young man, now while
you can (Horace Greeley).

So I just stretch out now with the last couple of hours of my journey. My
shoelaces are in their normal double tie position, I am wearing my last pair of
clean socks...the one with the stars and moon on them from Philip..I have
turned my T-shirt inside out thinking there is a little clean left on it...I
bought my last cup of regular Joe..tomorrow it is back to decaffeinated.

My thoughts are of authors and the way their lives have woven in and out of
each other's and now mine...Sandburg, Fitzgerald, London, Steinbeck, Hemingway.

There is still so much work to do: categorize my black and white photos, a
few smaller journeys, photograph the moon and the harvest, learn the
stories...and put it all together with all the artistic flair that I have. But for now
it will just simmer as a bubbling soup on the back burner until I am ready.

It is time to go home...home to the House at White Picket Gardens..home to
mail and email..and school and writing...I have $2.32 in my wallet, no more
clean clothes...but what I do have are stories, so many new stories to tell. So
here's to books and authors and midnight rides through snow and train whistles
and new friends and to a journey well done."

Lou Ann

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