And for those who thought that Madden must have felt trapped on that bus for all these years, the truth -- I can promise you this -- is that rolling through the country that way is the opposite of being trapped.
It seemed the kind of history that passes mostly unobserved, a diesel engine and a hundred boxcars rolling over remote country, and we shared an unspoken moment of respect, Todd and I, for times past, frontiers gone, and then walked on, talking about nothing much but making something of it.