Saturday, July 3, 2010

Sketches on Train

I'm not an artist. I'm not a cartoonist. I'm just a guy who likes to draw every now and then.

These drawings are from a notebook I keep of ideas. I drew these illustrations while on The Texas Eagle, Amtrak Train No. 21 from Chicago to Texas.





Gino's East Pizza
"I thought we ordered a small pizza." "This is it. And our train leaves in 15 minutes."

On our last day in Chicago, my wife and I wanted to have Chicago-style pizza before we left, and Gino's East was just five blocks away from our hotel. We were cutting it close to train time, but we thought surely we could work it out. And then the waiter said it would take 45 minutes to cook the pizza. And when the SMALL pizza came, it was huge, and thick, and meaty, and delicious! It weren't no Texas pizza, let me tell ya'! We did make it to the train on time.






Hot Doug's Hotdogs
"I'm Ted. I prefer boxers. What about you?" "Nice to meet you Ted. I'm Nick. Superman thongs."

We just had to try a Chicago hotdog at Hot Doug's, the No. 1 hotdog joint in America. While we were waiting in line -- and indeed, the line was out the door and down the sidewalk -- two young men standing behind us started having a PG-13 conversation, verging on X. The hot dogs were excellent!






Royalty
"Amtrak: We treat every customer like royalty!"


We had a little bit of trouble with our return train ticket. Seemed that Amtrak overbooked and we were left standing without a seat. As we sat in the dining lounge waiting for a seat to open up, I drew this sketch while on hold with Amtrak. Customer service wouldn't refund our money, but gave us a credit on future train rides. To be fair, the crew both coming and going did an excellent job. We were just a bit testy at this little hiccup. We did eventually get a seat.






Conversation
"You only have one life on this planet and..."


Do you know how long a group of little old ladies can gab into the night?






Snoring
"ZZZZZzzzzz"


And finally, do you have any idea how loud those same little old ladies can snore once they stop gabbing?


All in all we had a great trip to Chicago. The train ride was a little tough, but a little bit of discomfort never hurt anyone.

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