Minnehopeless to Chi-town

One hot summer day in Minneapolis I was sitting at the good ol' Seward Cafe eating my free meal for the day when some of my friends walked into the porch area. "Hey guys", I said, "When did you get into town?" We sat and talked for a while and ate our meals. After everyone was done eating we went our ways. I headed into Dinkytown to meet Pigpen, a friend who lives in Minneapolis. I met up with him and we got some beers and went down by the tracks. Night came and I got ahold of another friend and went to her house to say "hi". Little did I know, this was where I would meet my girlfriend, Emma. I walked in the door and there sat a bunch of my friends from Baltimore. I knew everyone except one girl, so I went over and said "hi" and sat down and started drinking some more and chatting with my friends. I stayed the night and got up early and went and got some vodka for breakfast. Me and Pigpen drank a little and then everyone decided to go swimming. Its been a while since I had a shower so I decided to go with them.

Me and Emma hung out some for the next few days. When it came time to leave Minneapolis she decided to come with me since I was traveling by myself and she needed someone to travel with. At the same time Pigpen also decided to come along for the ride. I was headed back to Michigan to see family and friends then into Canada for the rest of the summer. So one day me and Pigpen were sitting at the Seward Cafe waiting for Emma to show up so we could leave town. We had decided to take the CP/SOO train from Shoreham yard. One of my friends at the cafe told me that there is a 6:00ish train and a 10:00ish train, he said that we would be better off getting the 6ish due to lack of rideables on the 10ish. So it was set - we were gonna take the 6ish train to Chi-town. First we were gonna get food and stuff from Dinkytown so we walked across the bridge into Dinkytown and found out that there was a show at this place that Pigpen kinda worked at. So we decide to stay another day. We got beer and sat out front and drank with Capt. Tony, an old tramp who lives in MInneapolis now. Later that night we ran into a kid from Seattle that we knew so we all went over Union yard and sat in the woods for awhile drinking, watching trains and shit. It got late so we went over by the grain towers and went to sleep.

When we woke up we went and got our free meal from the Seward and then it was off to the yard. I knew this area quite well due to staying in that area the year before. We saw a train building in the yard and said that has to be our ride. We walked in the woods and found where the fence stops. I started looking down the train to see if I could find any rideables. Then who would have thought, right in front of our face was a rideable 48. We got on it and moved to one side so when we went past the office we would be outta sight. We sat there for about 20 minutes and then we pulled outta the yard. This was Pigpen's first ride so he was happy we made it through the yard okay. Emma had ridden before, but not alot. This was a nice ride with good scenery and no problems at all. I had a little whiskey left so we drank it and went to sleep that night.

When we woke up we were in Bensenville. We got off the train and exited the yard and went and got breakfast at a little diner just outside the yard. There we tried to figure out our way to Michigan.