3 days on the train home

Monday morning my Uncle cooked us a breakfast of sausage and biscuits. We loaded up my Aunt's van and headed toward the train station in Fort Worth. We made one wrong turn once we got into the city and had to backtrack a little. We found that across the country...people are bad at giving directions. So, instead we used common sense and the map we had and found it with no trouble. We ate lunch at Subway in the train station and said our goodbyes. It was a couple hours before the train came. We tried to check some of our baggage through to Boston, but were told it could only be checked to Chicago.

It was 110 shortly after 2pm when the train came. We waited ouside, in our travels, for the most part it always seemed to be better to be ouside than in. We boarded the Texas Eagle that would take us to Chicago. There wasn't much senery along the way. We had lunch on day with a couple from Indiana. He was originally from Bar Harbor, Maine. His married a German woman while in the service, same as my Uncle Warren. They were very pleasant and told us of their plans to move back to Maine. I'm writing this a few weeks after we got home and I don't remember if we had dinner with anyone or not. We continued playing cards, mostly gin. We watched a movie on my laptop as well. We weren't yet feeling anxious to be home, even though the scenery was less than great.

We had hoped to have some layover time when we arrived in Chicago. But, by the time we picked up our luggage it was too late to go to the Sears tower. They boarded first class passangers two hours early. We had decided the last few hours on the Texas Eagle to try to get out on the streets in Chicago and maybe find a convience store to buy a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer, mostly becasue we were a little travel weary and wanted a good night's sleep. But instead, Amtrak was having us board early for a wine and cheese reception. We got food from the station. I had my first encounter with a Krispy Cream donut. The ones we had were like a glazed donut with cream horn filling in it. It was pretty good and just the overload of sugar I needed to get me until bed time and the wine reception. We sat in the first class lounge, ate and I did some photo uploading and cutting and pasting to this blog. As we boarded the train, we saw Kevin and Donna, a couple that were on the California zepher on our way out. Strange we should be on the same train with them again almost two weeks later.

The sleeper car on this train east of the Mississippi from Chicago to Albany, NY was very different then the ones we'd been in out west. The west cars had several roomettes on the first and second floor and a bathroom on the top floor and two on the bottom floor. This had a toilet and sink in the room! (See photo) I was NOT impressed. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of peeing next to the chair/bed. I had "wife moment" and made Brian go looking on the car to see if there was a different bathroom somewhere, but alas, the closest was three cars down in coach. So, I was stuck with peeing in the room, which required the other person to go stand in the hallway. Nice. There was absolutely NO room for our two large luggage pices. Our train attendent Paul told Brian he'd check it through to Boston, even though we'd been repeatedly told this wasn't possible. But faced with no where to put it beside the hallway, Brian checked it. This room wasn't all bad, the upper berth in it was much, much better than the western trains. The mattress pad was much thicker and I had a window!!! and more room between my nose and the ceiling. The window was great and I really enjoyed watching the lightening with Chicago in the background as we left the city.

The wine and cheese receiption was very nice. Sat with a recently retired couple from New Jersey. She was retired from a school district business office, our "Cindy." They were very nice. The attendent, James, kept my wine class very full and I was a bit goofy by the time we got back to the train car. We slept pretty soundly and when I woke up, we were outside Cleavland Brown Stadium.

The rest of the ride home was uneventful. We met some nice early 20-somethings in coach on the train from Albany to Boston. They were fun to chat with. One was a special ed teacher. Of course, when we got to Boston, no bags. Brian was not happy. He told the train station manger he wasn't happy. But, there wasn't much we could do, I cut throught the unhappiness and asked her where she thought the bags might be, when they would show up and if we could get them to Portland on the Downeaster, so at least I could pick them up there. She said they were probably in NYC and she could put them on a bus to Portland.

We walked in the much-cooler-than-Fort Worth evening to the bus station. We were in luck can were able to take the 10:15pm bus to Portland instead of the 11:30pm. The movie on the bus was Nation Treasure 2 which we'd seen on my laptop during the trip, but it helped pass the time. Kelsie was on her way to pick us up at the train station at midnight. She brought my car which had some kinda ignition security problem and refused to start sometimes. She promised not to turn it off and met us shortly after we got there. The salty Portland air seemed clean and fresher than anything we'd breathed recently. Since we hadn't braved the shower on either train, we came home drank huge glasses of water with no chemicals in it from our tap and took showers before going to bed around 3am. My bed felt like a giant puffy cloud.

It took several phone calls, but we got the luggage back by Friday. Kelsie and I drove to Portland on a very hot day to pick it up at the Grayhound station on lower Congress Street. Kelsie thought the people there looked "sketchy", but there were nothing like what Brian and I had seen here and there.

Since we've been back, people have asked me "would you do it again." I'm not sure what they're asking. Would I do the exact same trip a second time? No, some places once is enough...I feel no need to see San Diego, Yosemite or Sequoia again. And, it was alot of train time, when if we'd know the driving wasn't that difficult we would have driven some of it. But, Brian's already talking about going back to Northern California, taking the Canadian train route. But, I certainly wouldn't have missed any part of this trip ....well I could have done without the hotel hassle in San Diego and the lost luggage. Train travel is a bit "butt numbing". Car seats are more comfortable, but you get to walk around more on a train. The train also travels all night while you're sleeping which is certainly an advantage in some barren places.

Thanks to my readers for traveling with us. If gas prices stay down, maybe we'll got to Washington, DC next spring.......

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