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| February 21, 2008
There are
times when I love my “day” job very much. Today was not one of those days.
Today I felt like retirement would be a really good idea and another train
trip, the best idea. We both slept in our own beds really well and woke up
feeling pretty good. Things went down hill from there when Fred returned to the
house after a brief breakfast to inform me that his car would not start. We
called Terry’s Tire
Center and were reassured
that there was a rental car available for Fred to use. I drove him up to get
the rental car, went out to pick up the puppies from Doggie Camp (the Kennel)
and returned home with them. I tried starting Fred’s car one more time and fortunately,
it turned over. I rode around the block once, parked it and then brought 2 very
happy and clean puppies inside. We spent about an hour in the house before I
had to go off to work.
The morning went reasonably well. Nice family, smart kid,
not to confusing a story, lots of tears from the 11 year old but good questions
from her and the desire for things to be better. Given some time and some
changes in medication and some help from school, we should be able to make the
situation much better.
I didn’t have time to go out to lunch as I usually do
on Thursday, The afternoon appointments got worse as the afternoon went on.
Three of the last 4 kids were in big trouble and took much more than the 20
minutes I usually have scheduled for appointments to come up with a plan to
make things better. Suki saw the last child who was doing well as I tried to
get through the last of the other 3 kids. I left the office after 6pm with a
fair amount of work yet to finish. Ugh. Maybe tomorrow will be better. | | |
| Wednesday evening - It is almost 11 pm and we are home in frigid Madison. Quite a way to end our trip. We were about an hour delayed as I finished my morning entry and we went off to our last meal on our train. The train was stopped in Springfield, Il as we finished eating - this is a scheduled train stop. For some reason, the train kept sitting at the station, then sort of took a few feet backwards then stopped again. We've had lots of delays so no one was too bothered by another delay. That changed as the power went off briefly and then the wait went on. We were having a great time in conversation with several people in the dining car when the engineer came thru and let us know that the engine was "dead" and they were working on other options.
We had done most of our repacking in the morning and ended up returning back to our room to look at options for how we might be sure we would make it home by tonite. We thought about renting a car from the Springfield airport and driving home from there - but we could not find an available rental car that could go one way. We were then told that the train was not going to continue and we were all to detrain and go into the Springfield Amtrak station to await buses that would take us to our final destinations. We were still assuming we would head to Chicago and do our best to catch one of the Van Galder buses (last one was scheduled to leave around 8 and gets in at midnite.) As we were all waiting for the buses to arrive, the family we had dinner with last night said that they would be glad to drive us to Madison on their way home to Masomanie. We volunteered to have them stay with us tonight as they would still need to plow out their driveway - but they later chose to drop us off and then head out to their own beds (I probably would have done the same). Yes, Nick you knew their daughter and I will be sure Ginger hears about the other connection tomorrow. Such a small world. We plan to take them out to dinner as a chance to thank them and get to spend some more time with them in the next few weeks.
So - two buses full went to the Chicago Amtrak station and one bus with about 15 people left for Bloomington and other intermediate stops. It took about an hour to get to Bloomington/Normal and about 3 hours of driving from there. One of the passengers had to give our bus driver directions to the train station as the directions he had gotten were not clear enough. Everyone working together made the trip work out at least it did for us.
I was especially concerned about how the wonderful Amish Family who had been on our car would fare. They had another train to catch to make it back to Lancaster County (some lived in Intercourse and other of the family nearby there). We had lots of fun with one of the daughter's who probably was a bit younger than I was. Her parents and her brother and his family were all lovely and friendly people also. We exchanged addresses and I will try to write a note this week to welcome them home again after what was turning out to be something of an ordeal for them. It is fascinating to me how just a few days on a train can provide an opportunity for people to to connect with one another - people who you might not initially expect to have much in common with you have all sorts of interesting things to tell.
So we made it home in time to shovel out both cars, walk down to the Regent Food Market for dinner and breakfast food, go through the mail, sort out the dirty laundry, eat dinner and get the news papers in some kind of order. I guess I can finally go to bed and get a good night's sleep in my own bed and start to dream and plan for my next AMTRAK vacation - which I hope will be sooner than later.
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| This is the last day of our AMTRAK vacation. We are really enjoying doing nothing!!! We did the same yesterday. Our second day in Texas (yesterday) was mor interesting than the first. Even though the scenery didn't change much, it was more interesting to watch the cattle, desert, ranches and occasional homes go by. Right now we are slowly traveling thru the southern part of St Louis. Haven't even heard the station announcement which should come 8-10 minutes befoee the station. We had the Mississippi River on our right for about 20 minutes earlier.
Various conversations were the most interesting part of yesterday. Our room is right by the juice boxes and coffee dispenser. I stepped outside our compartment after hearing two men talk about some of the problems that had occurred during the night. They were AMTRAK management people who were traveling for a meeting. I asked them to tell me what their favorite AMTRAK routes were. So we spent about 15 minutes talking about what our vacation train trip should be like and what the one after that might be also.
We had wonderful mealtime conversations yesterday. During our lunch meal, we ate with a couple who were returning from Tucson to near Baltimore, MD. They had been out vacationing when he ran into some medical problems and ended up in one of the Tucson Hospitals needing his 4th heart surgery (a stent placed). They discharged him a few days ago and told the couple they would not be able to fly for at least 10 days (issues with pressure changes and the altitude make it unwise for a post cardiac patient to fly). So they cose to come home by train.
Dinner conversations were with a couple we assumed were from Texas from his Trinity University sweatshirt. Turns out they live in Mazo and had been out to visit one of their kids who teaches philosopy there. This family had lived in the Hillfarms area until about 4 years ago when they moved out of town. Small world - she works with a badminton friend of ours (Sam's father - Mike) and he does woodworking in his retirement. They have a daughter who is Nick's age and ma have been in his graduating class from West HS .
Looks like we are no more than an hour late as of right now and may make up some of the time in St Louis (scheduled 40 minute stop here may be much shorter) We are hoping we will make it in to Chicago to catch the 4:40pm Van Gelder bus back home.
I'm ready to do this trip again, perhaps in the late spring or early summer when the daylight hours are longer and you get more "look out the window" time. We are now much better about packing and know to have a small, soft overnght bag to keep "train" clothing and entertainment for the trip. Everything else stays down below. Breaking up the trip was a good idea and we will do that again. .
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| Not as much to report for today. We left Tucson at 4 am - not so nice to spend the early hours trying to doze on the hard wooden benches of the Tucson Train Station - not that the train station isn't nice. It is but not as comfy as a bed - any bed. The train was 3 hours late of course and you really have to be there close to the scheduled departure time just in case they are able to make up some of the time. Once on the train, our beds were ready and waiting for us in the sleeper car. We slept until about 9am and got up for breakfast. I napped a bit in the morning and about 2 hours more in the afternoon. I have to admit that the Texas scenery is nothing to write home about. Mostly flat desert and not as interesting as the Arizona Sonora Desert area we had been exploring the few days before.
I think I have maxed out the pictures for this Xanga site and it is too late now to put them up anyway. Megan, I did take pictures of your stuffed pillow which saved the day last night in various parts of our Amtrak bedroom so you and Jen can see what it looks like. I'll try to see if I can add them tormorrow. We are hoping to make it back to Madison by Wedns PM but probably between 8-10pm or maybe later if the train isn't on time. The "on-time" percentage for this train isn't great.
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