Hello everyone!
After an adventurous 48 hours on an Amtrak train, my friend Shaimaa and I made it to Chicago on Tuesday. We leave for another 27 hour train ride to New Jersey later today. I'm going to be sick of trains after all of this!
But in all honesty, it has been quite a ride, and quite a fun adventure for two 20-somethings. The train ride itself provided enough fodder for one blog post!
First, before even getting on the train, checking my bags turned into an adventure. It took me half an hour to get everything settled and paid for, and luckily, the train people are so much nicer than the airline people, because the first 3 bags are free, and then each bag after that costs $10, with up to three additional bags. This is a great policy for somebody who is moving her entire life from one coast to another! Well, in the process of checking them, I had to rearrange one piece of luggage (only one! I have definitely been stuck in airports before doing the juggling-weight-between-bags thing, and it is never fun), and the rest barely made it the under 50 lb range, but that was okay. The biggest thing was that I forgot to label the bags... all of them! And my grandparents had specifically reminded me to do so. Luckily, the woman gave me some tags, and everything worked out pleasantly, although the people behind me in line sure got a wonderful show! I even had somebody comment on it later when I was waiting in the Starbucks that is located within Union Station in Los Angeles. Life is funny.
Second, the train itself was causing a few problems throughout the trip. The train was 20 minutes late arriving to the station, which really wasn't too big of a deal to me, but then, about 20 hours into the trip, in Albuquerque, NM, we had to wait over an hour and a half to have the dining car removed from the train because there were some technical difficulties with it. The bright side of that is everybody received free breakfast, lunch, and dinner until the train arrived in Chicago because they had no way of properly feeding us.
Third, the people on the train were fascinating. There was a guy who kept talking about being a missionary in Mexico, and the police suspected him of being a drug smuggler, and the line "You can check my bags all you want, but all you will find is Bibles," may have been said by this gentleman at one point. He then detailed to a guy sitting near us how he illegally smoked cigarettes on the train by illegally cracking open a window so nobody is the wiser. The two men sitting behind Shaimaa and I also spent a good hour and a half bashing California. The conductor was pretty funny, always making silly remarks are engaging us in conversation or banter, so that made the time pass pretty quickly. Overall, the staff on the train were quirky, memorable, and altogether made the trip a lot more fun!
The worst part about the train was trying to sleep. It was uncomfortable the first night, where we were each confined to a seat, but the second night, I managed to score the set of seats in front of us, so we each had our own two seats to ourselves, and we slept much better. The seats went back by a 45 degree angle and had leg rests under the seat that came up with a button, making it almost like a bed. It was pretty cool and definitely a good thing when you are confined to a train for so long.
The best part of the ride, by far, was the scenery. We traveled from Los Angeles to Chicago, so on the way we hit California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois. There were so many different types of nature that floated past the windows of the train car as we made our journey: tall trees, desert lands with no trees, exposed rock on cliff faces, mountains, the Missouri River, the Mississippi River, and lots of rain. It was rather interesting to take a train through what are usually called the "fly-over states," and if I have the time, I think it would be fun to do again.
Yesterday, we explored almost everything the both of us wanted to see in Chicago. We are exhausted! While on the train I will type up on entry, and I will post it when I get home, with pictures.
Also, keep your eye out for my new "Picture of the Month" feature, starting this month.
Hope everybody has an absolutely wonderful weekend!
