somewhere near martinsburg, west virginia		 with the chaos going on in dc, i decided to take a vacation from the area. my destination? st. louis, missouri, where my partner is working on a campaign to organise state workers.

it was my first time on amtrak, and i was pretty excited. in total, the train left dc at around 4 pm, and headed off towards west virginia. the scenery in west virginia was absolutely breathtaking, and what i took the most pictures of on my train ride. on the train there was an observation car, which is where i spent most of my ride when i wasn't sleeping or watching the horrible movie being played.
after being on the train for 17 hours, we arrived in chicago, illinois, where i was meeting up with a dancer i was photographing that afternoon. (see photos from that shoot here).

i had an eight-hour layover in chicago. i did not take many photographs of the city, but was quite amazed by it. a lot of the tourist sites were unopen to the public, due to the recent events in dc and nyc, but i was still able to get a good feel for the city.

i was able to walk up the chicago mercantile exchange, somehow unnoticed. the trading floor was not open, and there was nothing really for me to do there, but it was just a great experience to see it no matter. chicago was very overwhelming to me, but it did seem like a really cool city. i wish i had longer there to document some of the neighborhoods.
harpers ferry, west virginia
next stop for me was back at union station in chicago. i had another 6 hours before i would arrive in st. louis. the train from chicago to st. louis was not as nice as the train i took from dc, because it was a commuter rail, and i was sorely disappointed.
 
route 3 north, east st. louis, ill.

st. louis reminded me a lot of pittsburgh. there are a lot of one-way roads and it isn't the easiest to navigate around. the downtown is beautiful, and they have the lovely missouri river at the edge of downtown. it struck me as a "typical" midwestern city, but they did have a subway, and seemingly better public transportation. i was staying in forest park, near washington university. it was a beautiful wooded area. i spent most of my time while in st. louis, driving around southern illinois, an area i am fascinated with. some of the towns in southern ill.:

brooklyn, ill., a small town with a population of 700 mainly subsisting off of the 10+ strip joints on rt. 3.
east st. louis, ill., population 41,000. east st. louis struck me as similar to anacostia, a poor area in dc. it was really depressing driving through the area. an interesting take on east st. louis, by jonathan kozol, can be found here.

loc's midwestern style bbq, east st. louis, ill.
abandoned building, venice, ill.

granite city, ill., population 35,000. granite city, to me, was a typical blue collar town. i was really enthused, however, to find out their labor politics so strong, they at one point had a socialist mayor.

i was only in st. louis for a short period of time, and didn't get to see all the parts of missouri i wanted to, but i really liked the area. there were a lot of friendly people, with borderline southern accents, and it felt like a real city as compared to a bustling suburb. above all, though, i wasn't particularly taken with the religious atmosphere. [as seen in alorton]