Chicago: Day 4 + the train to Texas: "Where I'm at?!"

I probably had about three hours sleep that night so I woke up a bit disoriented and in a rush to get ready and leave. One of my room mates Derek took me to breakfast. We had a bagel and some muffins and sat with some lovely Scottish women. Derek was going to spend the day with them so once I'd checked out of the hostel we all walked north and I left them at the river and headed west towards the train station. I should have hung around with them a bit more but I'm always worried about missing trains... I ended up with over an hour to kill at the station.

The train journey was scheduled to be almost 22 hours long but after a few major delays I knew that wasn't going to happen. I had two seats to myself so it was very comfortable, once again luxury compared to the plane or the bus. I'll list some of the journey highlights.

• People getting on the train at St Louis and their greeting of "What's going on?", that leads me to believe that people from St Louis are in a perpetual state of unknowing transpiration.
• A gangsta looking black man offering me "blow" and after I'd turned him down asking if I was German.
• An old woman on the phone filling a black stereotype by shouting "Where I'm at?!" which is such a bastardisation of the English language that I love it.
• A water tower with A New Hope written on it.
• Seeing a bald eagle just after riding into Texas.
• My constant walks to the food cart to get vegan burgers.
  
  
  That all took about 24 hours and I managed to sleep for at least a couple of hours when it got dark.