{"id":819,"date":"2015-08-04T05:36:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T09:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nymysteries.com\/?p=819"},"modified":"2015-08-04T05:36:13","modified_gmt":"2015-08-04T09:36:13","slug":"new-york-city-blog-from-the-empire-builder-july-26-aug-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nymysteries.com\/?p=819","title":{"rendered":"New York City Blog from the Empire Builder July 26 – Aug. 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fond memories of Portland: Happy Hours range from 3 pm to 6 pm and feature cocktails, well drinks and food. Olives and nuts are $2.00 and prices increase with the food choices. Eat your hearts out, New Yorkers. You can have a drink or two plus delicious small dishes for under $20. Two of my favorite places are Lincoln in the Northwest and Sapphire in the Southeast. Slightly more expensive is People\u2019s Pig. Sitting on the 40\u2019s red bar stools you can drink Habanero Marguaritas in a jar and watch the owner \/chef prepare delicious North Carolina barbecue.<\/p>\n

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Drink up! A People’s Pig Margarita<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the train going back to NYC or the calm before the storm. Sat. 9:30 a.m.12 noon. I was sitting in the Empire Builder Lounge Car starring out at Glacier National Park and having a delightful conversation with a politician from Little Rock, Ark. who told me tales out of school about Clinton. At the same time, a volunteer with the Tracks and Talks organization told us about Montana being the fourth largest state; that the railroad invented the slogan,\u201dSee American First\u201d to lure wealthy Americans to travel to the west rather than to Europe; that at one time members of the Blackfoot tribe would greet passengers when they arrived in Glacier. We would soon be arriving in Havre which prompted the speaker to tell a joke. It’s a joke best kept for a bar, late at night, when everybody\u2019s had too much to drink and isn\u2019t choosy about quality. It goes like this: two men were fighting over a woman. When one of them won, he said to the other suitor, you can have her. Thus, the name Havre. Get it??? Do you think that\u2019s the name origin of Havre,France?
\nUnfortunately, I\u2019ll never forget Havre, Montana. At 1:25 pm Sat. someone banged on my compartment door. A woman official: Didn\u2019t you hear the announcement? We\u2019re taking this car off the rails. Had I stumbled into a Grade B movie? There were no more sleepers or seats, so all the occupants in the condemned car had to sit in the lounge.That night I ended up sleeping on the lounge floor. On one side, I was wedged between the bolted to the floor lounge chairs and the bolted to the floor side tables. On the other side I was eye ball to eye ball with a fender that skirts the bottom of the windows.No one will ever accuse Amtrak of being house proud. If you\u2019re missing dirty tissues, several pennies, I found them. I decided to sleep, a generic term for lying quietly and dreaming of a law suit, and stare out the observation lounge (how I hate that word) ceiling at the moon.
\nThe next evening, after a three hour wait in Chicago\u2019s Union Station, I crawled onto the Lake Shore Limited and headed home to NYC.<\/p>\n

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