The train broke

Monday, January 19, 2026

I lost Keith in the night. I woke up and he was gone. I peeked over the side of my bunk and he was not in his bed. I waited for him to come back to and from the bathroom. I waited a long time. I finally decided he was kidnapped up by train robbers so I got up to find him. He was sitting in the dining car looking at his phone. He was having leg cramps and went to be stretchy. I sat there for a while and then I went back to bed.

The next thing I heard was at 6:00 a.m. and they were announcing that breakfast was available in the dining car. They told us that yesterday. I think anybody who wanted to get up and eat breakfast at 6:00 a.m. could have set an alarm. At 5 minutes after 6:00 they announced that breakfast would be delayed because of an issue in the kitchen. I didn’t care. At about 7:00 they announced that when we got to the next stop in 40 minutes they would be disconnecting the dining car in order to do maintenance and we would have a stop. I did not care. I kept trying to sleep. At 8:00, they said get off the train. I cared.

We had to scurry to change and go! Hurry! Then we spent 2 hours in La Junta, Colorado, doing nothing. The train drove away, down to a switching place. They didn’t tell us what was happening or when we might be going, so we walked up and down the platform, then around the small downtown. We found a Dickey’s! What fun.

We found murals. What fun.

The drive thru part of the bank was actually in an old train caboose.

Back on the platform we heard from the folks that there had been big sparks in the dining car (In? Out? By? I don’t know – never got that detail) and they couldn’t conduct electricity through it. Huh.

Rumors were flying that there would be no food service for the rest of the trip (24 hours), which made no sense. Of course they would find food for us. Wouldn’t they? Of course. BUT I can light my hair on fire like everyone else, so I made Keith go to the cafe across the street to get some breakfast. I was in charge of watching the train, to not letting it get away without him.

He was no sooner out of sight and the train started slowly backing its way back to us.

Crap.

I thought he could make it. People started trickling out of the station. The train stopped in front of us. More people coming. The staff emerged from wherever they were hiding and stood by the doors.

Keith reappeared at the perfect moment. We were the last ones to join the group, but the doors didn’t open yet. Then they said Nevermind, the electricity still doesn’t work.

We ate breakfast in the station.

It was only about 10 more minutes and we were back on and moving out, dragging our dead dining car at the back. We were in La Junta for a bit less than 3 hours.

We looked at some very flat Colorado. I was really quite pretty.

Eventually we saw some less flat Colorado and then some New Mexico.

The train people got us a lovely sandwich lunch from some town I can’t remember.

The train people got us a lovely Golden Corral dinner from Albuquerque.

I knew they would give us food.

A lot of people are planning on calling customer service for refunds or something else to make up for their inconvenience. I don’t think it was an inconvenience. They fed us. No one was injured by wandering around either the train station or the town. I thought it was an adventure.