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// December 4 [California Zephyr] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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December 4

It was just getting light out when I woke up, and I stuck my muzzle up against the window to see where we were. The train was moving slowly, and we were on track that was elevated above the town we were passing through. It went over a railroad yard and then we were on a bridge over a river, and I tried to think about what rivers me and Peggy had crossed on our way to Colorado. I was sure that the train had already passed the Platte River, so maybe it was the Missouri or Mississippi. They should have put signs on the side of the bridge so that people would know. They did that on bridges for cars, so you'd know what rivers were below you, even though you usually couldn't see very much of them through the window.

The train went over a highway and then we started passing by a really big railroad yard, and we banged across a rail crossing then around a curve and pretty soon there were more tracks leading off to the south, so wherever we were must have been an important place for trains, 'cause we straightened out and went through another rail yard.

It took a sharp turn to the north and then there were fields on my side of the train, and once it straightened out again, it stayed in farmland, which was kind of boring to see in the wintertime.

I got an interesting view of the sunrise from my window, though. Sometimes it would be hidden by trees and barns and other times I'd catch a glimpse of it coming over trees that were further back, and we passed by one really big series of fields where I think I could actually see it on the horizon. If the trees had been leafed out, I wouldn't have been able to.

So I watched until it was above the distant trees, too, and then I took a little falling glide out of bed and went to pee. It was kinda crowded just with me in there, and so it must have been really tight for humans.

When I got done, Miss Cherilyn was sitting up in bed, and she took her turn then came back outside and folded the beds up and out of the way. She asked if I was going to take a shower and I told her that I hadn't planned to, 'cause I hadn't really done any exercise at all yesterday. So she got together some of her clothes and went back into the bathroom.

By the time she got back out of the bathroom, I still didn't know where we were. There hadn't been any signs and I hadn't seen any towns out my window, either. I remembered from the trip that it had been mostly open farmland, though, so that didn't really tell me anything. We could have still been in Nebraska or Iowa, or maybe we were even in a different state that I didn't know.

So I asked Miss Cherilyn, and she got out her portable telephone and looked at it and said that we were in Iowa, and she turned it around so that I could see it. And there were lots of little towns but no big ones, not until Des Moines which was still a ways away.

She used her portable telephone to send a telegram to Mister Salvatore so that he would know that we were awake, and then we both sat by the window and watched the fields go by until he came to our room and got us.

While we were walking to the dining car, he told us that the train was running about two hours late, because we'd been delayed in Nebraska. And he said that he didn't know if we were going to make our connection in Chicago, and if we didn't, we could either spend the rest of the day there or get a car and drive the last leg of the trip.

I said that since there wasn't a lot around, the engineer ought to be able to go a little bit faster and make up some of the lost time, and he started laughing. He said that usually when Amtrak got delayed, the slowdowns just kept adding up and it got later and later as the trip went on.

I just got oatmeal for breakfast, 'cause I wasn't feeling too adventurous. I was kind of happy and kind of sad at the same time, since I'd left Peggy behind but was going back to Kalamazoo and I'd get to see Aric and Meghan again.

The train stopped in Creston while we were eating our meal, and we didn't stay there too long—we had hardly come to a stop when the train started moving again, and Miss Cherilyn almost spilled her coffee on herself.

I went to the Viewliner car after breakfast, and Miss Cherilyn sat down with me for a little while and then said that if I didn't mind she was going to look at more papers, so I told her it was okay, even though I thought I'd be a little bit lonely in the car all by myself.

After I'd watched hundreds of farms go by and not much else, I finally got tired of looking out the windows and I started walking the aisle of the train from one end to the other, and when I got to the back I'd look out through the rear window for a little bit and then go to the front again.

I went downstairs in a couple of cars, too, but there wasn't anything too interesting down there. Just more rooms like the ones that were upstairs, and they blocked most of the windows, so you could only see out the little window in the door, and I didn't like leaning my hooves up on the door, 'cause if it came open, I'd fall off the train and I knew I couldn't fly fast enough to catch up with it again.

I had to get out of the way when the conductor announced that we were about to be stopping in Osceola, 'cause people needed to get through the aisles so that they could get off the train, and there would probably be new people getting on who wouldn't want to trip over a pegasus. And I couldn't sit in the Viewliner anymore, 'cause all the seats had been taken.

So I watched the train go through Des Moines and when it had stopped and everyone was busy downstairs I went out and stood in the little vestibule between cars and stuck my muzzle right down to the gangway, 'cause it wasn't sealed up so well there and I could smell the outside.

When the train was moving, the train smells had overwhelmed everything else, but here at the station it was different, and I got the scents of the station and maybe also fresh snow, but I was not so sure about that. Snow doesn't really have much of a smell to it.

There wasn't really anywhere else for me to go, so I went back to our room and Mister Salvatore was in there, too. He got out of the seat and let me sit on the window side so that I could look out. I told him that he didn't have to, 'cause it was kind of crowded for him with me right there, but he said that it was okay, and he didn't mind.

I probably could have gone to his room and had it all to myself, but I'd decided that I wasn't having any fun being alone any more, and even if they were busy and concentrating on their papers it was good to just be there.

The two of them kept looking through their piles and occasionally talking about one pony or another, and I didn't know any of them. I wondered if they'd done the same with my group. That was a little bit strange to think about. Maybe the two of them had been sitting in a train with Action Shot, and they'd been going through the applications and had decided that they wanted to help me instead of Gusty or Sundowner or some other pony who I didn't even know.

So when the two of them were debating if Sparklesnap would be a good fit, I turned around and nuzzled Mister Salvatore and told him that I knew he'd make the right choice. And I would have nuzzled Miss Cherilyn, too, but she was across the table and I couldn't get to her.

When the train left Mount Pleasant, Mister Salvatore suggested that we go to the dining car and get lunch. Miss Cherilyn said that she was getting tired of looking at paperwork anyway and that now was a good time.

They must have changed chefs, 'cause the lunch food was better. I got a glass of white wine with my bean burger, and we were still eating when the train went across the big bridge over the Mississippi.

There were big towers on the bridge, 'cause one piece of it could be lifted up so that boats could fit underneath, and I saw the tail end of one that was a ways downriver that had probably passed under before we came along. And then when we made landfall again, we were in Illinois, which was not much different than Iowa had been.

Neither of them felt like doing any more paperwork after lunch, and there still weren't any seats in the Viewliner, so we all went back to our rooms and Miss Cherilyn packed up all her things even though we still had hours to go.

We had just left Naperville when Mister Salvatore sent Miss Cherilyn a telephone telegram saying that our train back to Michigan had just left, and she asked me if I wanted to spend the day in Chicago and take the morning train tomorrow, or if I'd rather get a car and drive back home.

I was eager to see Aric and Meghan again, so I said that I'd like to get a car. And so she told Mister Salvatore what I wanted and he said that he would make some telephone calls.

It was dinnertime when we finally got to the station, and so we ate a quick meal at Au Bon Pain, and then we went to find the car that Mister Salvatore had found for us, which it turned out was the Mustang again, but it wasn't as much fun for him since it was cold and he had to keep the roof up. He said that he thought that Mister Garvin had given him the Mustang on purpose because it was probably cold and drafty, but it turned out that it wasn't.

We had to go slow on our way home, 'cause it was snowing, and the roads were slippery, even with the big snowplow trucks pushing the road clear. Most of the other cars were being cautious in it, although there were some that just went rushing past, and like Peggy had told me, I kept looking for them further up the road in case they'd slid off and fallen in a ditch.

When we got to Michigan and a little bit more inland, we went through some heavy snow a couple of times and I thought it would be really fun to put the roof down, but they said no, so I was kind of sulking in the back. I wanted to play in the snow, and it wasn't as fun to be inside the car with the snow staying outside.

Instead of going up to Main Street, we got off the 131 Highway and on Stadium Drive, and we didn't go too far before we got to my new home. They were big apartment buildings called Stadium Drive apartments, and I'd seen them before flying over but I'd never paid them any particular attention.

Mister Salvatore got a little bit lost before he found my building, 'cause they all looked the same and since it was dark out it was kind of hard to find the one that was mine, but when he did he parked right in front of it and we all got out and went inside.

They had gotten me an apartment on the third floor, and it had a balcony on the back that looked over the woods, which was nice. There was a big glass door that was hard to slide open that went to the balcony, so I could get in and out pretty easily, although finding it again might be difficult, 'cause all the apartments looked the same.

I could put something on the balcony, though, that would make it distinctive. Maybe I could get some ribbons to mark it with, or else some lights. When I peeked over the edge, I saw a couple of other balconies that had lights on their railings.

The inside had two bedrooms and a living room and a little kitchen, and there was a bathroom which was a little bit nicer than the one I'd had in my house in Grove Street.

They'd set it up as much like my apartment on Grove Street as they could, which was really nice of them. So it did feel kind of home-y. And I did like that it was closer to the 131 Highway, 'cause that meant that when I wanted to go flying from my apartment I could pretty much fly up as quickly as I wanted to, instead of staying low to keep the airplane directors happy.

Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn helped me bring in my things and then Mister Salvatore asked me if I really wanted to go around the block with the roof of the car down, and I said that I did because I thought it would be fun.

So Mister Salvatore started the car and folded down the roof, and then he told Miss Cherilyn to take pictures 'cause he was going to send them to Mister Garvin so that he would be jealous of how much fun we were having. And I thought that we were just going to drive around the apartments, but he got back on Stadium Drive and we went down the road. I saw a lot of people staring at us but I didn't care because I was having fun. The windshield kind of kept the heat in when we were moving, and the seats had butt-warmers, plus I had my winter coat, so I was pretty comfy.

We stopped at Sweetwater Donut Mill, and he went through the driving lane and we got a bag of cinnamon rolls and two cups of coffee. He would have bought a third one for me but I didn't want any coffee.

Then we drove back and he agreed it had been lots of fun, but Miss Cherilyn still made him put the roof back up before it got too much snow inside. She said that Mister Garvin would be mad if it had snow in it, and Mister Salvatore said he was going to be jealous of how much fun we'd had with it.

I hugged both of them and thanked them for bringing me home, and Mister Salvatore said that he would let me know soon what our schedule for Florida would be.

I thought that Aric and Meghan would probably want to see my new apartment, and it would feel more like home if they came and visited, but I also wanted to fly, so I decided that I would fly over to his house off of my balcony.

There wasn't anything big that I had to mark the balcony with, except my snowboard. But if I came in kind of low I'd be able to see it leaning up against the wall, so pushed the sliding door open, put my snowboard in place, and then pushed the door back shut. Most of the stores I've gone in have sliding doors that move on their own and I don't know why my balcony door won't do that. Maybe it's turned off, and that's why it's so hard to push. I should have asked Mister Salvatore.

I didn't know exactly what the best path through the trees behind my apartment was, 'cause I hadn't gotten a look at them in the daytime yet, so instead of going out perpendicular to my balcony, I paralleled the wall of the apartment house and then climbed up to rooftop level and went over.

Until I got totally oriented, it was going to be easier to follow Stadium Drive and then go up Academy or Main Street. There weren't a lot of cars, because it was Sunday night and maybe the ones that didn't have to drive around were staying home.

I took a little bit of a shortcut once I was close enough to Kalamazoo College to see the bell tower, and I flew directly at it until I could see Academy Street, and then I could easily follow that back to Aric's house

I didn't really want to look at campus, but I couldn't help myself, and it looked really lonely with most of the buildings sleeping and the parking lots nearly empty. There were a few lights on in rooms, but it was mostly dark, and they hadn't bothered to push all of the snow out of the parking lots.

Aric hadn't put any Christmas lights on his house, and I hoped he had some, 'cause I could help him hang them up tomorrow. That would be a lot of fun, and would make it look more festive. And maybe it would make the neighbors want to put up Christmas lights, too, because his street looked kind of boring.

He did have a lighted wreath on the front of Winston, which was neat. I didn't see any electrical wires going from the house to Winston, so it must have been running off a battery.

I shook off on the porch, and then I peeked in through the front window. Aric and Meghan were sitting on the couch watching a movie, so I let myself in the front door and then hopped up on the couch with them, and pretty soon we were all hugging and nuzzling and talking and kissing and not watching the movie at all.

Aric decided once we'd gotten settled back down that we'd start the movie over again. It was called Bad Santa, and it was very strange. It was hard to figure out what the moral of it was, 'cause Santa was bad but trying to be good and his elf was bad and stayed bad, and the one kid was kind of dumb.

Meghan told me that there wasn't really a moral to it. She said that most Christmas movies were a little bit sappier, and left us feeling good, and plays were like that, too. It had been a lot easier to figure out A Christmas Carol.

Aric said that he liked watching it because it put him in a Christmas mood.

We didn't go upstairs right away but stayed on the couch and cuddled for a while and none of us even wanted to move. Aric said that he could put in his other favorite Christmas movie, which was called Die Hard, but I didn't feel like staying up late and watching another movie. I would have if Meghan had wanted to see it, but she was falling asleep and so we decided that we should go to bed.

As we were going up the stairs to Aric’s bedroom, I was worried that maybe it wouldn’t be good tonight, ‘cause I was stressed and tired from travel, and a little bit disjointed ‘cause my body didn’t know what time it was.

But when I opened the door to his room it was familiar, and the scents were the same as I remembered and so I started to relax.

I could tell that Aric was eager, and so as soon as we were all in the bedroom I started to nuzzle him and then Meghan ran her fingernails across my withers and the base of my neck and then down my back and around my dock, and pretty soon I was forgetting everything except for the moment.