Take us home, Mountain Rails

Departing Durango makes for a somber morning. After a three night’s stay,  the elegant Strater hotel began to feel familiar and domestic. More than that, leaving our temporary habitat puts us face to face with the reality that there are only two days and two more train rides left before the tour ends and our group will part ways and scatter across the globe.

We rise early and go southwards to Chama, New Mexico, for our ride on the  Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. After half an hour exploring the yards and admiring the branch of the K-36 family survives this side of the state line,  we board and depart. We have booked the full ride to Antonito, a  day-long journey through the mountains. The peaks here are shallower but more varied peaks than their relatives around Durango, blazing green with interspersed streaks of yellow and orange, nourished by heavier-than-average winter snows.

Six hours on a train can challenge the rider’s endurance, tire them out thoroughly enough that their attention lapses away from even the most pristine scenery.  The constant tempts a person towards stupor, and resisting sleep is like standing against a strong ocean wave. A few members of our group do succumb, especially after our break for a generously portioned lunch, but we all snap into more resolute alertness as our train exits the mountains and traverses the wide, sage-mottled plains south of Antonito. As the station comes into sight, we began to appreciate that things are coming to an end in a much more visceral way. Every hour must be measured, every moment experienced in the fullest, every occurrence committed to memory in the most vivid way possible.

By the next morning, we are in Alamosa. We gather at the Rio Grande Scenic Railroad station awake and fully alert, bearing the visual signs of exhaustion but suffering none of its symptoms. We are as impatient to get on the last train as we were the first, but this time, the subtleties of our attitude differs. On that first journey we were friendly but reserved, eager to get on the journey but unsure of just how much of our souls to bare to the group. Now, we cling to each other, speak of our homes in more regretful tones, dance around any blatant mention that soon, we will be leaving each other’s company.

We board, and soon enough the train lumbers out of Alamosa, through the San Luis Valley, and up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains looming on the horizon. We are embraced by peaks and valleys one last time, roll through tunnels and across jagged cliff-faces, soar over deep valleys and high, open plains. This time, very few of us venture away from our seats in the dome car. Absconding to the open cars or the snack bar feels like to accurate  a presaging of our inevitable parting  the next morning. We do not waste the chance for company when we have fewer hours of enjoying each other’s company than we can count on one hand.

Among the staff members on the train is the man in charge of organizing the summertime concerts the Rio Grande Scenic holds at a stage built near the midpoint of its route. He is a competent guitarist in his own right, and roves through the cars demonstrating competence at thorough repertoire of folk songs. He begins with railroad songs when he reaches our end of the dome car, then moves on to John Denver songs. After the inevitable “Rocky Mountain High” comes a rendition of “Take me Home, Country Roads.”

No one in our group is from West Virginia--in fact, the entire Appalachian region has gone unrepresented--but we all lend our voices and sing the lyrics together. For a few minutes there is nothing but our friendship, the melody, the feel of the train gently swaying underneath us. For a few moments we are in a meditative state, stripped of any thoughts of the past or future, truly thinking of nothing the moment.  We know that it is another one of those moments that can never be relived, even if we ride this journey again,  and we savor it for all it is worth.

The musical communion close to the trip, such a perfect summary of our mood at this particular moment that it moistens at least a few eyes.  When the man moves on we  trade contact information, share anecdotes about home, trade memories about what has been the best part of this trip. No one is heading home unsatisfied: Everyone feels that time and money dedicated to this trip was well spent. One of our guests goes as far a to say that this has been the best experience of his life so far: He had decided to begin traveling after a close friend died young, before he could make the effort to realize any of his goals,  and this tour was his first venture out into the wider world.

We have had so many moments on this journey that can never be imitated, running the entire gamut from the horrific to the sublime, and it’s clear to hear any one of us talk that we really did come out of this journey changed for the better. We have been enlivened, reminded to appreciate each moment. A small yearning inside of us has been sated. We’ve had our fill of trains, and now, we are begrudgingly ready to go home to the places where we belong.