Scattered Thoughts . . .

We boarded the Lakeshore Limited in Springfield, Massachusetts in mid-afternoon after a quiet but nice evening at our hotel.  This was our third trip on the historic Lakeshore Limited route so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect...  the good and the not-so-good (more on that in another blog entry).  Sheila had booked us in two roomettes...  one for us, one for Will and Sue.   The roomettes have privacy, larger seats, a narrow closet and bunks.  These private rooms allow us to spread out a lot more than in Coach.  Will and Sue were in a roomette right across the narrow hall from us so we were still able to easily talk with them.   The Lakeshore Limited is a "Viewliner" train which includes a few sleeper cars, quite a few Coach cars, a Cafe car, and a dining car.  The dining car is located on the opposite end of the coach cars so this means that there is a bit more walking to do on these trains which, for a long cros...

Everyone was in their bunks by 8:30 this evening.  Once it gets dark outside, there isn't a whole lot to see out the windows of the train.  I think everyone is a bit worn out too.  Anyway, I am still awake attempting to edit some photos and type this blog entry as the train rocks and lurches down the rails at about 80 miles per hour (according to my GPS).  Let me tell you, editing photos and typing is no easy task under these conditions so I wouldn't be surprised to find a few typos in this blog entry when I check it at our next destination.  While I'm still up in my lower bunk, I'll get this next blog entry published and linked to Facebook. Early this afternoon, we checked out of our hotel and walked the couple of blocks to the train station so we could catch The Lakeshore Limited.  This train will take us on our second leg from Springfield, Massachusetts to Chicago.   Our walk to the newly renovated Union Station was nice in what could on...

For many years, Sheila and I have been talking about and dreaming about one day taking a journey across the country by rail. It has always been one of those things we've wanted to do someday when the opportunity presented itself. There is something about train travel... it has a romantic air about it... it is classic... it is relaxed by comparison to other modes of transportation... and it provides spectacular vistas as we wind our way across the country. This was one of those trips that we always figured would have to wait until after Sheila retires since we knew it would be a time consuming trip but Adam recently moved to California so that has prompted us to take a closer look at transportation options. One way or another, we were headed to California to visit Adam. We figured why not do it in style and the way we want? Originally, whenever we talked about a cross country rail journey, we talked about stopping at various cities along the way. We'd spend a night or two ...