"God only knows why I don't just retreat // instead of riding the rails back to the place of my first defeat." -Hedwig & the Angry Inch

Back in Chicago. First eighteen years of my life were spent fooling and tooling in this city - longer if you count the years I kept my thoughts here and nowhere felt more like home. How strange and disjointing that it would ever feel so alien. So archeological. So like a dream, surrounded by faces wrapped in smoke - you know them well and love them well and they bear that same love for you. Their smells and thoughts and voices are the same as you remember, but you cannot to save your life place their faces.

When you wake up, some live. Others have been dead for years.

Chicago, nothing has changed. Chicago, everything has changed. I love you when I'm here and miss you when I'm away. How pleasant that you stay right here - more or less - so that I can come visit you. I forgive you in advance and a thousand times over for being a hundred degrees on Wednesday. Sometimes you have to bake.

Location:Chicago

"You think I could interest you in a pair of zircon encrusted tweezers?" -Frank Zappa

Amtrak. You are a weary institution. I salute you. At lunchtime I tried to grab a table by myself, but was quickly corrected. People don't sit alone - no room. An employee led me to a table occupied by an older couple from South Carolina and a fellow my age or a bit older with a strong New Zealand accent. We talked about travel, train food, hometowns and family - easy subjects for strangers on a train. It felt good to be crammed up next to this heavyset New Zealander, to be bumping knees with these kind people. The woman spent 12 years in Japan so we talked about vending machines with Sapporo and whiskey. The gentleman liked the school I went to, so I explained that my parents and siblings had chased my sister and her three kids from Chicago to San Francisco. The New Zealander liked New Orleans, so we talked about music, cheap airfare and drunk people. My salad wasn't as good as the company.

Only the slightest twinges of claustrophobia so far. I thought it would be worse. About to hit Reno and Sparks, twin cities in Nevada. I've been through here before. It's an armpit. My free Amtrak route guide says locals are fond of saying, "Reno is so close to hell, you can see Sparks."

Not bad.

The contrast of wildly tacky human development against the Sierra range is embarrassing to me. Telephone wires span broad breathtaking canyons, sprinting alongside four lane highways dotted with big box store semis and red SUVs and what the hell have we done here?

Location:California-Nevada-Utah-Colorado