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Kendra Lester (left) and Morgan Lineberry play a card game with travelers from New York to pass the time on the train.

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Midwest flooding affects train travel for 4-H’ers’ trip to Montana

by Roger Mannon
Staff Writer

A 4-H group from Floyd had some interesting adventures in Montana recently. Just getting there was an experience as well.
The 22 youth and 13 adults began their trip the end of June. The group planned to make the transcontinental trip by train, traveling by Amtrak, but those plans were altered mid-trip.
“We took the Amtrak out of Clifton Forge Sunday evening,” said Tina Lester, a parent who made the trip. “When we got to Chicago, we had a delay.”
Floods were raging in the Midwest by then, disrupting the Amtrak schedule. The group transferred to a freight train for the rest of the trip to Montana.
As a result, the youth and adults arrived in Montana in the middle of the night, nine hours late. “From the station, we had a four and a half hour ride,” Lester said.
The Floyd group dispersed among several host families. During their stay, they got to see the sights in Big Sky country.
“The next day after we got there, we went to Yellowstone National Park. We got to see the Old Faithful geyser,” Lester said. There was also plenty of wildlife. “We saw elk and bison. Three times we saw a grizzly bear.”
Joy Gardner was also glad to see the wildlife and the scenery. She enjoyed seeing Old Faithful, but was impressed with the less well-known prismatic pools. “They are hot springs where the steam bubbles up and the water is blue and green and orange and brown. It is beautiful.”
The residents made them feel at home. “They were Southerners, just like us,” Gardner commented. “The ranches weren’t what we expected. They had normal houses, set in two or four thousand acres.
“The fields of wheat and safflower stretched as far as you could see,” she added.  “It was beautiful to see the wind blowing through them.”
Even Big Sky proved it was a small world. “At Union Station in Chicago, we met another 4-H group from New York that was also going to Montana, and we rode together,” Gardner said. “In Montana we met an extension agent we knew. He had been an agent in Patrick County before going out there.”
The group was able to travel Amtrak on the return. “It was a lot better than the freight train,” Lester said. “On the way out we went through every little town. We saw a lot of freight yards. Coming back on Amtrak, it was better for seeing the country. Going by train took a lot longer, but it was a better experience than being in a plane and flying over everything.”
The Teen Club travels are reciprocal. The last trip a few years ago was to visit 4-H families in Minnesota.
The next year, Minnesota club members came to Floyd. The Montana 4-H’ers plan to visit Floyd next year.