And the trip of 1998 has been named -- Lil and Pearl Ride Again!  Of course, I would prefer Pearl and Lil, but you know how Lil is—would you want to fight with her?

Lil:  That Pearl, she’s always trying to put a bad spin on me.

(A note to the uninitiated is warranted here.  Pearl is Owwee in Montana-speak, while Lil is Grammy.  It’s a long story, but the names have stuck.)

Each Montana trip has a different flavor; it’s own taste.  This one was no exception.  Lil and Pearl set off out of Chicago on the great Empire Builder on a Friday afternoon.  Immediately they encountered problems.

Lil:  They let us board early, ‘cause believe it or not, I am a senior citizen.  What they didn’t tell us was that they had put us on top of the smoking car.  Now, anyone knows that smoke rises – but they wouldn’t let us change cars until St. Paul/Minneapolis.  I was fit to be tied!

Pearl:  And when we first got on, sitting there waiting for the rest of the passengers to be loaded, we had another scare.  A sheriff came on board with another man.  He gave me a good, hard look.

Lil:  We hadn’t even started, and they were after you, Pearlie girl.

Pearl:  Hush.  Anyway, the other man shook his head no.  We wondered what the deal was.

Lil:  And we found out at dinner!

Pearl:  We sure did.  We were seated with the woman they were looking for.

Lil:  She had borrowed a "former friend’s" Volvo before embarking on her train trip.  The Volvo had broken down, and had somehow gotten misplaced.

Pearl:  The details were a tad confusing.

Lil:  Anyway, the sheriff and the man (former friend) confronted her, but she told them what had happened and they let her continue on her journey.

Pearl:  She should have read Trevanian, she’d have known that Volvos are bad luck.

Lil:  And then, of course, Pearl had to bring that, that bear along with her.

Pearl:  Oh, come on Lil, you know you love Buddy Bear.  Sides, you won’t let me take your picture – got to have someone to shoot with my camera.

By midnight on Friday, our heroines had finally settled down in a smoke free car.  They woke up somewhere east of Rugby, North Dakota, the geographical center of North America.

The small towns marked off: Stanley, Willamette, Wolf Point (where the 75th annual Stampede was being held), Glasgow, Chinook.  At Chinook the Bear Paw Mountains arose to the south, causing some kids in the next seat to ask if they were the Rockies. 

And then on to Havre.  The train had a twenty-minute refueling stop, so passengers were able to get out and see the depot and get some different type of goodies.

Lil:  They didn’t have any Ruby Red on the train, and I was soooo thirsty for it.

Pearl:  There was a neat statue of James J. Hill in front of the depot that I had never seen.  I went out and took a couple of shots of him.

Lil:  I couldn’t remember if Pearl liked Ruby Red or not, so I got a bottle of Ruby Red and a bottle of Sunny D.

Pearl:  She offered them to me, and I chose Ruby Red.  I thought I liked it.

Lil:  Uh, huh.

Pearl:  Well, I didn’t remember that it had all that pulp in it.  I said I was sorry.

Lil:  Uh, huh.

Pearl:  And I did drink it all, pulp and all.

Lil:  Humph!

Day 2 done September 24.  Click here.