11.11.16 On Thursday, I transferred to the Empire Builder, which climbs northwest from Chicago up through Wisconsin and Minnesota, then heads west, nearly hugging the Canadian border. My first night on that train, I woke up disoriented and unable, in the absence of a phone, to figure out exactly where we were. But there was a beautiful terror in surrendering to the not knowing. I opened the curtains of my sleeper car and saw the wind farm pictured in this photograph. I sat and stared at it for a good long while, then fell back to sleep. #8980bookoftravelers