A Winter Wonderland?

Yesterday I caught the train from New York to Washington DC and it was easy, but for some poor people it wasn't as smooth sailing as my journey was.

Two ladies hopped on the train in New Jersey and sat right next to me and immediately started talking about their plights.  They weren't actually traveling together, they're trains were cancelled and Amtrak, the train company were trying to do the right thing and so put them onto this train to push them further along their way to their final destinations.  One lady, an older lady with a poorly fitted wig was trying desperately to get to St Louis in Kentucky because her son was in the hospital.  She then proceeded to tell the other lady who was trying to get home to Chicago all about how each member of her family had died of cancer.  What type of cancer and where it was located in their bodies.

The conversation went a little like this (you have to imagine the voices to be slow, drawly New Joirsey accents):

St Louis: "I've got to ge to St Louis.  My son is in the hospital.

Chicago: "oh dear.  Do you only have one child?"

St Louis: "No, I have four children, but I have one sick child.  He has a chest infection and he's taking brain medication.  It's just like the cancer.  Everyone of my family has had the cancer...

(she then lists 7 of her family members - by name and location of the cancer)

Chicago: "Does your son smoke, because smoking is very bad for the chest 

infections."

St Louis: "He doesn't do drugs, he just takes his brain medication."

Chicago: "No, I didn't mean that he takes drugs, but if you DO take drugs or smoke or drink to excess, then these underlying problems can come out to the surface."

St Louis: "Well he doesn't do drugs."

Chicago: "Well, it's the second hand smoke that does the most damage you know."

St Louis: (losing interest in the conversation) "Well, I don't know anything about that."

Chicago: "My husband is a doctor and he knows about it."

With that last statement, St Louis picked up a pamphlet from the seat pocket and started reading it........ conversation over!

The view from the train

At home, I sometimes think 'wouldn't it be nice if it snowed?'  But only people who don't normally live in snowed in conditions ever think that.  I mean it's beautiful and everything, but when you think of the logistics, it's not as fun as it sounds.  For a start, it's cold.  And if you have a look at the picture above, it becomes dirty and messy and wet and slushy and it's sometimes icy and slippery and did I mention cold?

The traffic is slowed and sometimes halted to a complete stop.  The trains have to stop periodically to check underneath the train and if the snow covers the tracks then that's more delays right there.  Planes are grounded and then backlogged.  Some planes need to be rerouted because the initial destination is snowed in.  

The shops and buildings have the heating turned up to about 30℃ (Who can tell me what that is in °F?).  So whatever you've got on in layers, you need to start peeling these layers off one by one and even then you don't really start to cool down until you standing in the shop door way in your underpants!

In between the big cities the train passed through lots of little towns and they were blanketed with white.  In the cities you don't notice it, but passing the towns you could see people's houses and into their back yards with kids bikes and toys and trampolines all completely covered with snow.  In some towns where the snow must have fallen even harder you could only make out the shape of cars in the street.  Imagine waking up to that in the morning and having to get to work.  

 Lucky these people though about lifting up their windscreen wipers!

I remember when I lived in England I would carry my can of de-icer and an ice scraper in my handbag to get the ice off the windows on my car even before I could leave. 

You just do what you have to do.  

How lucky we are to live where we live!