Monday, August 1, 2011

Philmont - Traveling Home

It was an exciting day. We got up, had breakfast and then cleared out our tents in tent city. We got our gear together and headed for the Welcome Center to wait for our bus to Raton.



As we left the view of the Tooth of Time, I was thinking about how quickly the trip went. There is an old saying, if you look over your shoulder as you head home to catch a glimpse of the Tooth of Time, you will be back. I looked . . .

When on the bus on our way to Raton we looked at the landscape and it was much greener. The rain was helping out the plants and animals.



After several miles I took a look around and most of the boys were a sleep. It did not take them long. Soon we arrived at the train station, only to realze that the train was late. In fact, it was going to be three hours late. We walked around Raton and looked at several of the stores.

Soon enough we were on the train. We had planned to get pizza in Albuquerque during the 50 minute lay over. Now that we were running late, they were going to cut that short. I called several times on the way into Albuquerque and lost signal. The big question was, would we be able to order pizza in time to have it delivered.

The call finally went through soon enough we found ourselves in front of the train station waiting for the deliveryman. He finally made it and we made our way back to the train. We had a couple of tables saved up in the observation car waiting for the pizza to arrive.



The pizza was great. It was getting late and I was tired. Soon enough the sun was setting. I decided to get to sleep as early as possible to at least have sleep if it took me all night long.

In Williams, the train had to drop a rail car. Not something that you would sleep through at about midnight. During the brief stop at Needles, sometime in the early morning, I jumped off the train. To my horror, it was like 90 plus degrees and very humid. It had rained with the temps over 100. I quickly got back on the train and went back to my chair to go to sleep.

As we passed through the California desert, the sun was coming up. It was the day we would arrive at home. I was glad to soon be there.