July 4th & 5th, 2001

Okay... I'm doing two days with a single journal entry. I'm feeling lazy and I haven't had a good night's sleep on this train, so you'll have to just deal with it. ;)

Slept in late on the 4th... slept like a rock. Once I put my head down I don't remember anything afterwards. My alarm dog came in at the usual time but I just sorta shoo'd her off and curled up into a fetal position and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Jock finally woke me up when he came in and threw the curtains open. I guess in my curled up position he didn't notice me on the couch. I decided I'd slept in long enough and now it was probably time to wake up and get cleaned up.

Ready to head out.

It was tough leaving Pam and Jock's as well... the constant travel on the road is leaving me feeling a little beat up and weary. The freedom of the open highway is blissful... but it seems to be taking its toll. I'm going to miss them... it's been nice being able to see them all again. And Pam and Jock were really gracious in taking us both in on such short notice. Thanks for having us. =)

We take the train into Chicago for the last time, all our luggage in tow. Mike is nice enough to drop us at the Metra station and hang out with us while we wait for the train. It's running late today, probably because of the Taste of Chicago stuff going on.

A Picasso sculpture downtown

The Taste of Chicago! (again, if you couldn't read the sign...)

MMmmm... turkey GOOD!

Buckingham Fountain...

We get to the Metra terminal, which also serves the Amtrak line. Molly and Tuyen are waiting for us when we arrive. We go check our baggage and get a locker for our carry on things then head out into Chicago to experience "The Taste".

We have about an hour and a half to kill before our train leaves, so we go to the taste, buy some tickets and start sampling foods. There's about 50 different restaraunts represented... damn near anything you can think of. We eat our fill of different things, hang out a while, then head back to the train station.

Molly and Tuyen hang with us most of the time. I've really missed her these past few years. Turns out she's a writer too... working in advertising to make ends meat. It's funny like that... the two of us have always seemed to share this sort of common thread of experiences as we've grown up half a continent apart. Any time we get together we always end up finding out something new. Tuyen is cool too... I look forward to seeing you both again. Take it easy.

The Amtrak Experience

In the terminal in Chicago

To the train...

My seat.

This is the first time I've ever travelled via train. I mean, I've done subways and the Metra and what have you, but I've never gone cross country or anything like that.

My initial impression of the train is good. We get aboard and we find that our seats are in the second level of the train, with great big windows to look out of. Unfortunately by the time we get away it's dark so there's not a lot to see.

I do, however, love the fact that I have over 3 times the amount of legroom I would on a plane. It's soooo nice to be able to stretch out while in transit. The bad news is, however, I'm going to need the space later when I have to sleep in my seat.

There's nice people seated around us... an older lady and her daughter from Southwest Iowa in the seats in front of us, a couple of menanites in the seat to my forward right and a lady and her son in the seat across from me. I talk to her a while about different things and give her the address for my webpage.

Even though the fact that it's dark pretty much wipes out any hope of seeing any kind of scenery at night, one cool thing about the fact that we're travelling on the night of the 4th is that as we're travelling through various town and across the countrysides we see snippets of numerous firework displays exploding in the air as we travel.

I learned something interesting tonight as I ate dinner... looking out the window of the door that leads to the other train cars is A Bad Idea. Why, you ask? I always had this impression of riding on a train to be a rather smooth experience, but in fact at times it's rather like riding on a boat, the cars will list back and forth get really bumpy etc. If you watch that other car in front or behind you through the window moving, you can see exactly how much movement in every direction the car is doing... we're talking 3-4feet up, down, left, right. Alie was like "Don't look. You'll get sick and get weirded out." Yeah, it's a bit disconcerting.

Sleeping is a bit of a pain as well. In coach, I guess you don't get sleeper cars. So, you're pretty much stuck sleeping in your seat. The seat reclines almost to a lying down position, but it still isn't terribly comfortable, more akin to sleeping in a not so very comfortable Lay-Z-Boy recliner or something similar. Then there is the constant motion of the train. Once you get used to that, however, it's almost like being rocked to sleep.

July 5th

Sleep was difficult on the train. The train ends up getting into DC about an hour late... apparently there were some problems over the night that held it up. I manage to catch some more sleep on the train throughout the day... it's tough though.

We roll into DC's Union Station. This place is massive. It must have 30 restaraunts in it... along with gift and novelty shops, department stores. You could spend an entire day wandering around the station itself. We collect our luggage and flag a taxi to take us to the Alamo Rent A Car place to pick up our vehicle for the second half of the trip. Our cab driver is an idiot. He has to call someone else for directions on how to get where we need to go. It's pathetic. And even with the guy giving him directions he still gets lost and is weaving around in traffic and cutting people off and almost hitting other cars. We finally find the place though, and pick up our car.

Washington DC's street layout was designed by a crackhead. I have NEVER driven in such a whack city before in my life. Streets go everywhere, change names, change directions, turn into other streets, etc... with no rhyme or reason. It takes us 2 hours to find a hotel, and once we get settled in and whatnot another hour to find us some food.

I could write more, but I'm really damn tired. Good night.