Day Twenty-one: We slept fairly well last night. I had stayed up until we came into Minneapolis-St. Paul at around 11:30 PM. After the station stop we traversed a very large BNSF yard: it seemed to be miles long, with lots of  freight trains. After we awoke, we made our way to the dining car to get breakfast. (As anyone who knows us will attest, it takes at least a couple of cups of coffee to make either Mary or me fully functional.) We ordered from the menu and found out they did not have toast as listed: really no big deal, but the waiter was rude about our even asking why they did not have any. Our seat mate for this meal had ridden this train three times and he said they had never had toast any of those times; which led Mary to question why it was even on the menu. My breakfast was good; Mary's was not cooked to her liking, but she ate it anyway. After the meal was over she asked about the cooking, and again the waiter was rude in his reply. As we were leaving, the waiter apologized and we figured all was OK. 

I was able to call the rental car company on the third try (the cell sites came and went too quickly). They had found the car in the parking lot, so I asked about the camera...they said they knew nothing about a camera. I had a bad feeling about this one. They called back 10 minutes later with the news that the camera was not in the car. I could have guessed that by now. We called the Chicago police to report the loss and were given a report number. (Thank God we bought trip insurance: now I only hope that it will cover the camera.) We also asked the car attendant to get us the 'Lost & Found'  number at Chicago Union Station, but he never did get the number.  (I figured he was sort of intimidated by the onboard chief, seeing he was so new on the job; so we tried to cut him some slack.) 

We tried to put these events behind us and concentrate on the scenery passing by the windows.  Our car attendant got us a newspaper at one of the service stops, so we caught up on current events in Minot, ND. The train follows U.S.  Highway 2 all across North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and through part of Washington State. We were in Montana now, the land of the 'big sky'; but it was raining and the clouds were close to the ground, so we did not even see much sky. For a while it (Hwy 2) was on the right, then on the left, past the endless farms and too-few towns. I had been on this train before, but it was so long ago that nothing was familiar. The miles rolled on and the track seemed good: we did not have to wait very much, as the sidings were frequent enough to keep us rolling along. We did slow down for track work here and there; as the conductor pointed out over the intercom, summer is the time for the railroad to do track work and maintenance chores. This work slows the trains traveling through work limits to ten miles per hour. We were running pretty close to the advertised scheduled time, never much more than 30 minutes off. 

I had a 'Gardenburger' at lunch today, even though the menu said "chips or potato salad", they didn't have any potato salad (we should have figured this out). Again, no explanation or apology: just a surly attitude by the wait staff. This is starting to grow old. Back in our sleeper, we napped and watched the damp scenery slip by our window. We decided to go to the lounge car before dinner and get a soda and watch the view from there for awhile. This certainly is not the 'Coast Starlight' but it was better than the trains east of the Chicago hub. The viewliner upper lounge is sort of stiff, with plastic seats and windows that never seem really clean. The rain was not helping much, but still the scenery was fun to see.

I will continue this saga when I have returned to California and probably post it on Thursday or Friday.