There and back again

I traveled by train last week to Chicago.
Tiny private "roomette" - you better like your traveling companion. Cars filled with people, all shapes, sizes, ages. Tiny babies, Amish farmers, Asian-Americans, dark-skinned women in batiks, even an Amish toddler.

The country rolled past. Fields, rain, swollen rivers, cities. We read, talked, read some more. I loved it. Slow travel. We forget what it's like to look, to watch, to just be for a while. The trip took about 24 hours, door-to-door.

Coming back, I had a cold and took the plane. No romance there. I sketched a man waiting.
Since then I've been sleeping under my cat, sketching, and getting well - a vacation of sorts, if you look at it the right way.