■   We wake up around 8:30 and wander into town, hitting the library just as it opened at 9 a.m. I caught up on the news in one of the worst local newspapers I’ve laid eyes upon and then read Orson Scott Card’s newest novel and a book of Celtic history while Rapid-T catches a four-hour nap on a chair in the periodicals room. Later in the afternoon, I fill my glass with hot water from the bathroom and make a cup of instant coffee — a luxury compared to the instant coffee made with cold water I’d been feeding my caffeine jones with the past few days. (You can also, by the by, eat Ramen noodles with cold water or, what’s actually better, with no water at all. Just crush ‘em up real finely.) I take my coffee outside and sit in the first real sunshine I’ve seen in a week — and realize how relaxed I am. I have no concerns for the moment — and if I did, there’s not much I could do about them from the hills of West Virginia. Plus, my feet have finally thawed out.

The library closed at 5 p.m. and we head back into town with thoughts of food on our mind. A friendly desk clerk at the Ramada agrees to let us stash our bags there and an equally friendly convenience store clerk tells us where the Charleston mission and food bank was. My problem: they’re at least a half-hour away, and I want to get back to the yard by 7 p.m., when our train is called for. Once we cross the bridge into Charleston proper (from East Charleston), I persuade my companion to skip the food bank and grab something from a nearby fast food place. His eyes light up when we come across a Papa John, although pizza’s beyond the six bucks I have left. No matter, says he, and heads around the back. Pizza shops, he explains, are great for dumpster diving — and within minutes he has most of a large and small pie in his hands. I, meanwhile, head across the street to a Rally’s, preferring food with a known providence. I get burgers for both of us (engendering another argument when I order Rapid-T fries instead of the onion rings he prefers), we eat and head back to the yard.

Our train is still on the way, a brakeman tells us, after laughing at us for hanging around Charleston for the day. “You guys f-ed up,” he says, explaining that the train we got to Charleston on goes through to Virginia and we should’ve stayed on her.

Nevertheless, we can get to Virginia on the next southbound train showing up. The worker suggested going to Newport News, from which we could catch out to Florida. We wander deeper into the yard, looking for ways to kill time. Eventually, as the temperature drops, we hit on starting a fire, spending the next hour breaking apart pallets, searching for gas buckets with a few drops left in them and hunting up a metal barrel. Eventually, we get a blaze going, using the only skill I retained from my boy scout days (when I wanted to be an arsonist when I grew up). The train shows up around 11:30 p.m. and we douse the fire and race for a Canadian grainer.

I’ve already reached some level of mastery on boarding grainers. Run up to the car, shucking my backpack as I approach. Toss backpack and duffel bag on the “porch” — the little area in front of the cubbyhole — in such a way that they don’t trip me up upon entry but so I can reach them from inside. Then clamber up the ladder, holding onto two or three railings or braces at every moment. As soon as I’m on the porch, squeeze backwards into the hole, making sure my head won’t hit anything if the train starts moving.

We squeeze into the small cubbyholes — and this time I plug the floor hole with one of the little bottles of water we’ve been gifted with by railroad workers. The bottle is frozen solid the next day, when the train stops for a bit at the road map blip of Collier, Va.