Scattered Thoughts . . .

O n our last journey to Ohio on Amtrak with Lukey and Kenzie, we spent a little bit of time in Manhattan, both coming and going on our journey.  We had a layover in Manhattan going each way so we could transfer from one Amtrak route to another.  This allowed us to walk around a little bit and to get some "real"  pizza each time we were there.  Honestly, the pizza alone is worth the nightlong layover! This first photo, below, shows us in Penn Station's subway corridors.  This part of Penn Station has not yet been renovated (Penn Station is undergoing a decade-long, much-needed renovation) so it is still the same dark and dirty place it has been for many decades.  We also encountered some problems here at the beginning of our trip.   Naturally, we had planned for either Sheila or me to pay for the subway tickets so we had both of our phones all set up already in anticipation of having to pay.  The current way you pay for the subway is electroni...

As I wrote in a previous blog entry, our short trip from our hotel to Cincinnati Union Terminal in the middle of the night was uneventful...  and very quiet.  Catching this train in the middle of the night was a piece of cake.  It was still about 90° outside in the middle of the night but it was nice and quiet with absolutely no logistical problems.   The only remarkable event on this night was that we had to check our large rolling luggage...  four pieces in total.  There were four of us and we had packed for a two week trip anticipating sweaty clothes everyday so we had quite a bit to pack.  We each had a rolling piece of luggage and a small carry-on bag.  Fortunately, we planned for this possibility (needing to check our big luggage) so had already put everything we might need on the train in our carry-on bags so this was a painless change of plans.   We had already planned for this because we knew that these new Viewliner II tra...