The People You Meet Along the Way

This is one of several posts I'll write about our trip this week to the Grand Canyon and Laughlin.  We met a number of people during our trip and a few stuck in my memory.

During our train ride to the Canyon there was an older man sitting by himself in the front row of the dome car.  Turns out he was originally from England and now lives in the Canary Islands in Spain.  He came to America for a month to accomplish a goal:  Driving Route 66 from Chicago to L.A.  He'd been on the road for a number of days and was taking the day trip up to the Canyon from Williams, which was the last town bypassed by I-40.  Route 66 runs right through the center of Williams.  From what I've been reading there's a renewed interest not only in the U.S., but around the world in Route 66 and many tourists come here just to drive the old road.  I may have to do that myself some day.  We saw a number of sections of the historic highway in California and Arizona as we traveled I-40.

On a trip like this you tend to see the same people over and over since you're all basically on the same schedule, and the first evening we met a man from Los Angeles traveling with his young son (maybe 6 years old).  For some reason we all hit it off and throughout the trip we'd run into each other and share stories and photos of our adventures.  During dinner the last night the dad came over and told us his son had said how glad he was that we were his friends.  That was kind of cool.

On Monday as we walked along the rim of the Canyon I saw a couple trying to figure out where to pose for a  photo.  She was trying to take a picture of him and figure out the right angles.  From having traveled so much as a couple I know we often get back home with pictures of one person or the other, but rarely of the both of us together.  Consequently, I've kind of made it a habit to volunteer myself as photographer in situations like that so that other couples can have a great memory to take back home.   I took the camera from the lady and took a nice shot of the two of them with the Canyon in the background.

Later that night I was sitting in the hotel lobby and that couple came in and sat down across from me and we ended up talking for quite awhile.  The live in Indiana not far from Chicago and had ridden the Amtrak to Williams for this vacation.  He was a pretty big guy and talked about how small the roomettes are in the Amtrak sleeper cars and how much trouble he had getting comfortable.  They were waiting to take the Amtrak to Los Angeles that night and would be flying home to Indiana the next night.  He wasn't looking forward to the overnight trip in another small sleeper car room.

The last person I'll mention is Sasha, our Passenger Service Agent aboard the Dome car we rode to and from the Canyon.  We had her both directions and she was very good with the passengers and a lot of fun.  She's also a huge Disneyphile who desperately wants to get a job in Disneyland.  I told her I had worked there well before she was born and she wanted to know all about it.  She had several pieces of Disney jewelry on and really has the bug.  I hope she gets her wish someday.