Gibson got off in Johnstown, PA. While there, we picked up Chainsaw Lady - a 30-year-old with a gash down her leg. Fender, now a bit drunk, graciously gave her the window seat, and before long she was telling the story of her lumberjack mishap which happened while she wasn't even on the job. The chainsaw slipped and went into her leg, and the way she described it, this isn't uncommon in her neighborhood. A personal friend of hers was less lucky, and sliced into her own knee once.

Before leaving, Gibson provided Fender with a Smirnoff, which was now making its way to Chain Saw. A mother-daughter team, also on from Johnstown, were also drinking in the seats next to Fender. When we stopped later on in the night, they all went out for a smoke break with one of the Mennonite men.

It was getting late, and I wanted to wind down, so I put my headphones on and listened to a CD for a while. My listening was disrupted by the sound of harmonica and occasional singing by the Mennonite women. There were four to six girls and three or four older women on the train in dresses and hair nets. One of them played harmonica very well in a style that made it sound like an accordion. The one that played well was giving lessons to another girl. The melodies were familiar, but I couldn't name the tunes. Most likely they were spiritual songs, as the singing that I could make out had fragments of "Jesus" and "Saviour" throughout.

The girls were rowdy, talking in their Pennsylvania Dutch accents - a very whiney, bright and boisterous tone. Some of the girls had the same pattern of dress. With them was only one adult male, and two young boys.

The harmonica playing went on until at least 10pm, though I can't be sure because time started to shift. We were traveling on the Summer Solstice, and we'd be hitting a time zone change. Sleeping on the train wasn't very easy. It was more like fragments of sleep in between talking, bits of my CDs and railroad noise (though the train was much more quiet than I expected). A black man behind me was constantly making cell phone calls, and talking loud enough that I could hear him. The lights on the train switched to an otherworldly glow, and I crunched into a trusted posture which seemed to work.

6/22/04 - As the morning came, we heard the Mennonites singing hymns acappella, four-part harmony. Most of the songs were in English, but some may have been in their own tongue. The girls sang most of the songs, but the boys sang one. If they weren't singing, they were reading the Bible.

As we pulled into town, Cellphone Man was talking to a University of Chicago college student that got on the train that night. She was eating some sort of dumpling, and their conversation turned toward food. She was talking about how her mom can cook really good Asian food, and that she tries to make some of the same dishes her family has passed down. Then Cellphone Man gave her tips on Chicago. She seemed to be giving him a lot of information for a stranger.

We ended up at a place on Clark Street called Orange for breakfast, and we discussed some of our plans. Then we ditched our stuff at Jason's place and he showed us around his neighborhood. Some very nice shops and plenty of nice little restaurants to check out, we knew we'd be back for some more exploring, but we wanted to hit downtown first.