We've all gone to look for America

18 January 2016 - We're rolling across the flat, winter-whitened moonscape of North Dakota. Churchs Ferry. 7:56 a.m. Minus nine degrees. We boarded Amtrak's Empire Builder at 3:15 p.m. Sunday afternoon in Chicago after two days of art and architecture. Overnight, in a tight but comfortable roomette, we wested across the middle of the country, dark and stark. Temperatures outside, somewhere around Fargo, dipped to minus 17.

In Chicago, we rode the Chicago Transit Authority trains to Oak Park. In terms of creativity, humbling. Walking to Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, we passed the Ernest Hemingway Museum. A few blocks later, beneath leafless oaks where children play in summer, we passed Hemingway's birthplace. The tall narrow Victorian a remarkable contrast to the trademark horizontal designs Wright pioneered a few blocks away. The style came to be called the Prairie School of architecture - the first purely American architecture.

Now, onward to Seattle. We're due to arrive at the King Street Station around noon Tuesday, Jan. 19.