Take a train trip you say

Do you have a bucket list? Some of us Widows have small ones. Some large. Some simply. Some, more complex.  

One of ours was to take a train trip.  So we began the process of looking into AMTRAK. Did you know that for most trips east - even if you want to go south - you have to go through Chicago.  So to go to Nashville from Denver you have to go up to Illinois to go down to Tennessee.  18 hours to Chicago - another 18 hours from there.  Now a train trip did sound exciting, but maybe not 36 hours on a train.

So we began the search.  One of our newer widows, Sue, (I will have to introduce her to you later) suggested the California Zephyr.  Well I have to say the trip to California looked much more appealing than the Chicago-Nashville route did.  Plus we picked October to do it. Traveling through the Rocky Mountains in the fall sounded like a great idea.  We would travel through Utah, Nevada & then to the end of the line Oakland.

We made it to Union Station in plenty of time.  We were so excited.  The first glitch in our trip was a little delay.  It seems the railroad wanted to take some cars to the museum in Grand Junction. No problem. Our delay was an hour. We can make that time up.

So we are off.

  

Well it seems those cars they added......well they really didn't have the right connection....... so a train that usually would travel 70-80 mph could only go 30-40 mph.

We used that time to enjoy a little drink......

 It seems the only mode of transportation we were faster than was the traffic stopped on I-70.

Our trip ended up being a 36 hour trip.  We had to make frequent stops to check the fitting.  As the passengers began to grumble and ask for something for their misery, we all (at least most of us) took the time to talk to one another.  The poor chef received constant ribbing - are your going to feed us for free? was a question he heard quite often.  The funny thing is, that because of our delay & our verrrrrry slow trip, we became friends.  Used the joking about how awful it was, to stop and ask questions, to visit with people we most likely would never have.  Guess God took something meant for evil and turned it into good. In the end, we were so glad to be off the train but have to say now (after 6 months) I'd do it again! But this time I wouldn't get seats by the stairs.....