Would you could you on an train? Heres to a 52 hour travel day.

 

Camped out in the train station…

Some times on the race you find yourself on a train with copious amounts of time.
 

 

This travel day was a doosie coming to a grand total of 52 hours, including a 24 hour train ride across the border.
So i came up with a few ways to help pass the time…
 

First things first—a little home decorating.

24 hours seems like quite awhile for a racer to set up shop, so we figured why not make it homey? Now that I am on an all girls team we wasted no time at all making our space cozy, complete with some pictures from home. Not to mention that my seat mate just happened to go to school for interior design.

 

Do some laundry.

There are times on the race when you pick up your shirt to smell it to test the cleanliness factor only to wonder why you would do that because, well you plan on wearing it regardless.

But when you find yourself on a train with a sink…what better to do then get some laundry done?
 

Play Hide and seek.

With plenty of friends to go around these days I would like to suggest to you a round of train Hide and Seek. There is a good chance that your packs will serve as a good place to duck behind considering that they have grown to be about the size of a person. I might have picked up a new wardrobe in Thailand.
     

Have a meaningful conversation.
Squad mate or not, this is a great place to sit and chat considering you have few places to go for well about 24 hours. So get comfortable and chat away. Intentionality—it’s a thing.
 
 
 
Karaoke
Ok ok so there is a good chance that your train will not be quite as cool as ours but boy did we luck out with a Karaoke cart. So maybe it was all in Thai, and people stared at us funny when we went to snap this pick, but hey I am going to venture to say that the art of karaoke translates.

Make a "can" phone.
I know you were wondering how you might be able to talk to people a few rows down, what to do with your empty Pringles can, and when was I ever going to find a use for the extra Smoky the Bear shoe laces that I have been stashing in my back pack. Put all those things together and you have a can phone. It’s just what you need when you are looking to have an amusing conversation with a buddy a few rows down.

Sleep… or rather not.
Sleep does not usually happen for me on travel days. There is nothing quite like sleeping on the top bunk of a sleeper car on a moving train at night when they leave all the lights on. So mostly I just laid there listening to people talk in a language I do not understand, hoping that I would not fall out of bed, praying that my sleeping pills would kick in, and dreaming of my memory foam mattress pad. I have to say this is the first time on the race that I have just wanted to lie in my bed at home but then I realized that I was on my way to Malaysia, exactly where I wanted to be.

 

Work out
Just as my dad reminded me every morning growing up, there is never a better way to wake up then to get the blood pumping and using your muscles. I soon after discovered coffee and proved him wrong. But in any case, there is nothing like a good work out to wake up from a sleepless night and pass the time on a train.
 
 

Take a shower over squatty on a moving train has always sounded like a good idea to me.
 Smelly is as smelly does and after a few days in some of the hottest places that ever were, we all start to get a little smelly. You know you are a racer when your ministry contact 2 months in a row reminds your team upon arrival that it is socially acceptable to shower daily.  But here you have the chance to clean up right on the train so no worries there.

 

Along with the train ride there are a few things you should know about travel days:

Sometimes a train station is as good as place as any to take a nap.

Sometimes the air-conditioning on the bus is too cold and you feel like you are living in the mountains of Honduras again and can’t get warm.

Sometimes your logistics coordinators tell you to get on a train and that someday you will get to where you need to be.

Sometimes there is a thunder storm and water starts dripping from the roof of the bus onto the kid with dreads.

Sometimes you end up in a city you never knew existed and see some really tall buildings that you never knew were built.

Sometimes you get on a bus and an hour later a man gets on the bus saying “All the Americas get off the bus” and puts you on another bus; supposedly because we weighed the bus down too much to get up the hill.

Sometimes you find yourself on the side of the road at 5 in the morning just having faith that someone is going to come and pick you up.

Sometimes, 52 hours later, you are where you need to be.

And then you find yourself in a country that you have never really thought about until the day you arrived and know you are going to love it.

The fun never ends for us while we are out trying to find our place in the world, to quote Michel W. Smith. So saddle up your horses we have got a trail to blaze.
 
Love, 
Nika Nika Nika