December 3
I slept in a little bit—everyone did—'cause yesterday had been such a long, fun day and we were all tired. Plus we weren't doing anything this morning, as far as I knew, so I stayed in bed curled up next to Peggy.
When I finally got out of bed, I went right to the bathroom to take an overdue shower. I could feel all the dried salt in my coat from the flying I'd done yesterday. I hoped that John and Chrissie didn't think that I was a bad groomer because of it.
It was never as much of a problem when we were working weather, 'cause we almost always got washed off by the rain, whether we wanted to or not. You couldn't wash off in the ocean, though, 'cause you'd just get saltier.
I didn't want to use up all the hot water, because probably everyone might want to take a shower too, so I started off with cold until I'd gotten my coat wet, and then I finished washing with hot.
I could hear John and Chrissie moving around in their room when I'd finished my shower, but Peggy was still sleeping. So I stood on the floor and brushed my coat and then my mane and tail, and I should have done my wings right then but I wanted to lie on the bed to do it, 'cause it was a little bit easier to groom them when I was on my belly, and the bed was more comfortable than the floor.
So I sat at her desk and wrote some more in my journal. It still felt really strange to be writing December at the top of the page. When I'd started it was December, and that name was strange to me and hard to write, and now it's familiar. But it means that I haven't got much time left before I go back to Equestria; it's the very last month.
I had to stop writing in my journal long enough to go over to the bed and nuzzle Peggy, and that woke her up and so the two of us talked for a little bit and then she got out of bed. And she saw my journal was on her desk and asked if I'd been writing in it, and I said I was but that I'd stopped so that I could nuzzle her 'cause friends were more important than writing.
She kissed me on the forehead and then went into the bathroom to take her shower, and so I took her spot on the bed and started preening my wings. I was still losing feathers, but I was getting close to being done with my moult, which was nice.
I could have gotten back up and written more, or else I could have packed my saddlebags, but I didn't do either, 'cause I was feeling kind of lazy. So I stretched out my wings and let them rest on the bed, and I just relaxed until Peggy came back in and got dressed.
She said that we were going to meet her friends for a late lunch, and then after that we'd go to Denver so I could get on the train back to Kalamazoo. And she told me that we'd all ride together in Clive's Excursion, 'cause everyone would fit in that, and that was we wouldn't have to say our goodbyes so soon.
We had all morning free, and I kind of wanted to fly, but I didn't want to spend any more time away from Peggy, so the two of us went downstairs together and went in the kitchen.
John was already down there reading his newspaper, and he'd made a pot of coffee so we both had a cup. I thought it would be nice to make breakfast, so me and Peggy looked through the electric icebox and the cupboards until we found enough ingredients to make scrambled eggs and pancakes. And I knew how to make both, so she let me do most of the cooking, and just helped out when a bunch of things got ready at once.
I don't know how they keep track of it all at the tavern, 'cause most food you can't leave for too long on the stove or it will burn. I guess it takes a lot of practice to know just how long it takes to cook everything, and I suppose it would be easier to keep watch if the stove was pony-sized.
Chrissie came downstairs just when I was finishing the last of the pancakes and starting on the scrambled eggs, and then when everything was ready, Peggy put the food on the table for everyone. I was proud of myself for making breakfast, and the food turned out to be pretty good.
We took our time eating, and when we were finished, Chrissie just stacked everything in the sink and said that it could be washed later. She didn't even feel like putting it in the washing machine.
After breakfast, we went into the living room and John turned on the Christmas tree and we sat on the couches and talked about the year I'd had and what I was going to do when I got back to Equestria, and then Chrissie told us some funny stories about working at the Air Force base. She said that one year they'd had a party that they weren't supposed to have in the back of one of the C-130s, and the base commander had thought that they were up to something, so he'd gone around looking for them, and they'd waited until he'd inspected all the airplanes at one end of the field and then taxied it down to the other end, and he'd never figured it out. I thought he should have noticed that big an airplane going by him, but she said that there had been one that was landing and that was who they switched places with.
Then she said that it would be fun to look through an old photo album, so she went to the shelf and got one out and started showing us pictures from it. That was really neat—there were pictures of Peggy when she was a baby and a yearling and I said that she was really cute and she got kind of embarrassed by it. I wish I had thought to gather together pictures of me and my family, 'cause people would have liked to see them, even though there weren't all that many.
My favorite one was with Chrissie wearing her Air Force uniform and holding up Peggy—she said that it had been taken right after she got back from Serbia, which was a country in Europe. Both Peggy and Chrissie looked so happy in the picture.
When it was almost time for us to go, I got all packed up and everyone helped put my things in Cobalt. Peggy said that I should take the snowboard to Equestria and I could use it there, which was really nice of her. And she also gave me a little plastic thing that was called a memory stick, and she'd put all of my movies on that so that I could give them to Meghan to put on YouTube when I got back to Kalamazoo.
Everyone promised that they'd come see me before I left for Equestria, and then we all hugged and I got in Cobalt with Peggy. John turned on the outside Christmas lights, even though you couldn't see them very well since it was light out. And then I had to hug everyone and thank them for letting me stay and I had to hug them again after that, and Peggy rolled down the window on Cobalt so I could stick my head out and wave as we drove off.
We went into town and went to The Airplane Restaurant, and we were the first ones there, since it was close to us. And the man who was at the podium said that he'd seen plenty of pilots here before but never a pegasus, and he wanted to take my picture, which I didn't mind.
We got a big table that was inside an actual airplane—it was called a KC-97, and it used to fly around carrying fuel for smaller airplanes so that they could get more without having to land. And our waiter was really excited to see me, too, and he promised that he'd bring us some free drinks which was really nice of him.
Peggy said that we should order some appetizers that we could share with everyone, and after we did we got up and looked around the rest of the airplane before anyone else showed up. You could look into the cockpit but you weren't supposed to go inside. And the airplane had had more of the restaurant built alongside it, and one of its wings actually stuck into the building.
Inside the other part, there were lots of pictures of airplanes and also small airplane models that hung from the ceiling. And it was kind of like a museum, except that you really couldn't see everything without getting in other people's way.
Pretty soon, Clive and Gina showed up, and then Heather did too, who I hadn't seen since over the summer, so the five of us went back to our table in the airplane, and they ordered some drinks and by the time their drinks had arrived, the appetizers were ready, too.
And Leah came and she gave me a big hug before she sat down, and then Lindsay and Victoria got there, too. And it was really nice to have a big lunch, and everyone talked about all the fun things that we'd done together, and Lindsay and Victoria both had some pictures on their portable telephones of me snowboarding which they showed everyone.
I was having so much fun talking and laughing that I really didn't pay that much attention to eating, and my lunch was cold before I finished it, but I didn't mind. It was a lot more fun to talk to everyone and re-live my trip to Colorado then think about how I was going to be leaving soon.
I hadn't known, but Peggy had taken a couple of pictures of me with the jenny who liked me, and everyone said that those were really cute, especially the one where the two of us were almost rubbing noses.
We all had to go in our own cars together to a special parking lot called Park and Ride, because it was against the rules to leave them at the restaurant when we weren't eating there anymore. And then we got my things and put them in the back of the Excursion, and Peggy asked Clive if he knew where the train station was. He said that he thought he did, but he put it in his GPS anyway. He said that it was smart and even after it had picked the best route, it could change its mind if there was a traffic accident or something else that would slow us down.
We hadn't gotten too far north of Colorado Springs when clouds started coming over the mountains and blocking the sun, and Peggy looked at her portable telephone and said that they were snowclouds, but I guess they must have left all their snow in the mountains, 'cause they never dropped any on us.
I thought that we were going to get to the train station really early, but when we got to Denver it was kind of like Chicago, and there were so many cars on the road that they didn't move very quickly, and so they honked at each other in frustration but that didn't make anyone move any faster.
It gave me a chance to look around at the city some, though, 'cause we weren't just zipping right by it. Everyone pointed out the interesting sights like the Mile High Field, which was where the Denver Broncos played football.
Once we were off the highway, the traffic moved even slower, 'cause cars had to keep stopping for the signal lights, and I was glad that we'd left for Denver a little bit early. Me and Peggy had taken a different route that went around the middle of Denver, and now I knew why she had.
The train station was really big like the one in Chicago, and it looked almost like a castle. There was a big sign that said it was called Union Station, and under that it said Travel by Train, and there was a place in front where we could get out and unload my things before Clive parked.
Mister Salvatore saw me when I got out, and he came over and helped unload. And he had to introduce himself to everyone, and then when Clive said that he needed to go park his Excursion, Mister Salvatore said that he could leave it right there and he would talk with the train station police and so he did. He went inside and I saw him talking to someone at a little desk, and he showed the man his wallet and then came back outside and said that it was taken care of, and Clive could leave it there while we waited for me to get on the train.
We all went inside and everyone wanted to help me carry something, so I didn't have to carry anything at all. And Miss Cherilyn was inside waiting for us, and she hugged me and Peggy, and then we all went in to the waiting area.
We sat and talked for about an hour, until it was time to go down to the tracks because the train would be there soon.
Once it was time to board, I hugged everyone one more time and we all said our goodbyes. Mister Salvatore told Clive how much he liked his Excursion, and gave him a card with his telephone number on it in case the people in front had changed their minds and decided to give him a parking ticket while we were inside the station.
I'd been a little bit worried about having to make a bunch of trips onto the train 'cause besides my saddlebags which I could wear, I also had my snowboard and helmet and magnetic hoof boots so I thought it would take at least a second trip, but with everyone there wanting to help, we got aboard the train really quickly. And even though we weren't really supposed to, I stayed down by the door so that I could wave at everyone when the train pulled out of the station, and then I went upstairs to find my room.
I was sharing it with Miss Cherilyn again, and she said that Mister Salvatore had gotten his own room this time instead of trying to sleep in a coach car like an idiot.
We didn't stay in our room for too long, because we didn't want to miss dinner. The dining car had the same menu as the other trains did, and the chef on this train wasn't quite as good as some of the others had been. Or maybe I'd just had so much really good food in Colorado that I was kind of spoiled. I hadn't really thought about it before, but it was probably really hard to cook food on a moving train, 'cause the kitchen would be small and pots might slide off the stove. A lot of sailorponies were really happy when they were back on land because the food on a ship wasn't very good. Even on the fishing boats, they didn't eat the best fish.
Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn wanted to know about what I'd done in Colorado, so I told them but I skipped the part where we'd gone to the hot springs, 'cause if Peggy had been embarrassed about me telling her parents then she probably wouldn't want me to tell my helpers, either.
Mister Salvatore was really happy that I'd gotten a chance to go to a casino, and he promised that when we got back to Kalamazoo he was going to take me to Firekeeper's for a day if I wanted to go. Miss Cherilyn still thought that it was a bad idea, but she said that she'd come too just to keep the two of us out of trouble if we did go.
By the time we'd finished dinner, it was dark outside, and we went back to our rooms but then I decided that I wanted to look out the windows in the Viewliner car. It had been full when we went to dinner but mostly empty when we left, 'cause it was dark and there wasn't a whole lot to see except car lights and house lights going by in the darkness, and sometimes we'd go through a little town and it was fun to watch the cars waiting for the train to go by, and see in the lights of the town the buildings that were close to the tracks.
If I got out of my seat and pressed my muzzle right against the glass, I could see a little bit further, but all the lights that were on in the Viewliner car reflected off the windows and I looked around but I couldn't find a switch to turn them off, and maybe that would have been rude to the other people in the train car.
So after a while I got bored and I was a little bit restless, too, since I'd not flown at all or really exercised much today. I didn't think I was supposed to fly around on the train, and there wasn't really enough room for it anyways, but I could walk from one end to the other, so first I went all the way up to the front, and I kept quiet 'cause they had turned down the lights in the coach cars so people could sleep in their chairs if they wanted to. And then went to the very back and I got up on my hind hooves and looked out the back window and when I looked down I could see the tracks rushing by and it made me kind of dizzy, so I focused my attention a little bit further away and watched Colorado disappear behind us.
That was making me sad, so I went back to my room and Miss Cherilyn was sitting at the desk reading papers, and I asked her what they were and she said that they were the papers for the next group of ponies exchange students. She said that they tried to match up the helpers with the ponies, and that all the teams of helpers got to look through the applications and figure out who they'd get along with the best. And I hadn't know that, but it made a lot of sense, and I was flattered that they'd picked me.
She said that Mister Salvatore was kind of disappointed that there weren't any pegasuses in our region next year, 'cause he'd said that I was the funnest pony he'd helped so far. And she said that he was trying to find out if there were any anywhere else in America so they'd have time to put in transfer paperwork.
Then she pushed the papers aside and said that she could show me some pictures of my new, temporary apartment, if I wanted to see it, and I was curious but I said that I'd rather see it with my own eyes first. Sometimes you could get the wrong idea from pictures, and I was going to get to see it tomorrow anyway.
We talked for a little bit longer and then she folded the beds down and went into the bathroom to change into her sleeping clothes, and I went up to my bed and let the train rock me to sleep.