Our Train Trip to KC - Part 3

 

In and Out of Chicago – Tuesday, Nov 14

I don’t think I got any sleep sitting in that chair. It wasn’t comfortable; it didn’t recline or rotate. The arm of the chair was so far from the window and wall that if you tried to prop a pillow on the armrest, the pillow would slowly slide down in the gap. Hubby didn’t have much better luck; he thought the rocking of the train was too unpredictable and jolting.

We got up about 5:40 AM and were soon off to the café car for breakfast. We were a little early and had to wait for the server to get there. While we were eating, we were the only ones there. Then Hubby remembered Chicago was in Central time zone, so he set his watch back. Now it said we were eating at 5:20 and had plenty of time before we got to Chicago at 8:45.

Back in our room, we watched daylight progress. I thought I saw frost on yards and cornfields but wasn’t sure. Mostly I saw naked trees, something you don’t see in Florida unless the tree is dead.

Hubby wanted to lay back down, but the bed had been put away. He stacked the boxes between the sofa and the sink, I moved back to the uncomfortable seat with the cpaps, and he lay down on the couch and dozed for another couple of hours. During that, the attendant took those stacked boxes downstairs and put them by the door so they were ready to go.

We arrived at the Chicago station on time. A Red Cap loaded our luggage in a cart and took us and another lady to the lounge. The lounge people notified us what train we were on and what time 2 be ready to board (2:20). We put our luggage into temporary storage and looked to see what they had to eat. Again, it was snacks, and not a lot of variety.

Hubby settled in to work on his novel, and I worked with pen and notebook. About noon, he decided he was too tired to work anymore, so he wandered off. I jumped onto that computer to work on the short I’d just started the day before we started this trip. Finally got the word count over 1K! It’s been slow going, but until that, I didn’t know where I was going with it. Should move much faster, now.

At 2, I started shutting down and packing things up. Hubby and I went to the temporary luggage storage and put away all the things we had gotten out, then started collecting our luggage just as they called over the PA for our group to go.

Another Red Cap took us to the train where our attendant greeted us. He had us leave our boxes on luggage storage shelves downstairs. When we got to our roomette, we found this one was even smaller than our first one! At least we wouldn’t have to sleep in it, because the train was due to arrive in KC at 10 PM.

Still, we hadn’t been sleeping well, and KC was still hours away. At first, Hub pulled out the laptop and tried to write, but the train was swaying and jolting so much it kept messing up his file, so he gave up and put that away. Then he went walk about for a while, and I made our dinner reservation for 5 o’clock, because we’d never really gotten anything for lunch.

Eventually, it was time to go for supper. We differed on what appetizers we got, but we both had steak (very good) and the cheesecake (also very good).

After dinner, Hubby tried to get some sleeping done. We had 3-4 hours before we had to get off. We turned off all the lights in our roomette and closed the curtains to the hallway, to make it as dark as possible. Hubby took a pillow and leaned into the corner of his seat, but he just could not doze off while sitting up.

The train was moving slowly. They announced we were behind a congestion of freight trains and could only move slowly until the tracks ahead cleared up. Sometime later, we began to move faster and they announced that due to the delay, we would get to KC about 10:42. About 9:45, we got too nervous for Hubby to try to sleep. This was not a major stop where everybody would get off, like DC or Chicago. This was a scheduled 42-minute stop that they were trying to cut down to 10 minutes. Finally, we headed to the door on the lower level so we’d ready to get off.

The train stopped, the attendant help us off with our luggage and flagged down a red cap for us. The red cap was picking up the checked luggage, too, and one of the suitcases he picked up was Hubby’s carry-on. We couldn’t claim it yet, but as least we knew it was there. Then the Red Cap got stopped to help an older man who could barely walk. After several minutes of looking, the train attendant decided the older man had lost his black piece of luggage, that it possibly got left in Chicago. I don’t know how they decided to handle that.

Then we were off to the Central Terminal. We helped the Red Caps unload their cart, claimed our piece of checked luggage and asked questions like, “Do you have the number for a taxi service?” and “Where should we wait for the taxi?”

Now having more luggage than hands to carry it, we made our way through the lobby and out the front door to a bench, where I tried to call Ztrip at 10:50. The line was no longer in service. I went back inside, asked the same guy, and he corrected the number he’d given me. Then he scrolled through his contacts and also gave me a number Yellow Cab.

I went outside and call Ztrip again. I got through and made arrangements. They never showed. The night was chilly. I called Yellow Cab about 11:10. The night guard let us into the vestibule to wait because it was cold. Nobody showed up to get us!

About midnight, we tried to open a door to get out and couldn’t. Hubby went inside to try to find somebody to let us out. What he found was a door that would let us out, so we carried everything over there and went back outside. I called Yellow Cab again. A Ztrip van showed up about 12:30 and asked if we were headed for Independence. Yes, but where was Yellow Cab? We decided to take this guy. As he drove us to our hotel, he told us that Ztrip and Yellow Cab were the same company. Who knew?

He drove us to our hotel. I registered, we got everything up to our room, set up our cpaps and fell into bed somewhere around 2.

Thus our trip by train was a mixed bag of adventures, not all of them due to Amtrak. I probably should have looked up taxi services in KC before we left Florida, so that's something to keep in mind.

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

DC to Chicago – 2^nd Day, Tuesday

At last it was light out, and we got up and went for breakfast. We had just ordered our food when the attendant told us there was a problem with our train connection in NY, and we needed to call Guest Services to see what changes were being made in our plans, and it couldn’t wait, because we were only ½ hour away from DC, which was the possible place we could change trains. So I sat there, calling Guest Services. First the line was busy, then I was on hold. Time was ticking by. The attendant came back and said the conductor had called for us, and we were to get off at DC, which was now 20 minutes away.

We forgot about breakfast and hurried back to our room to gather our stuff. The attendant was very helpful in helping us get our stuff off the train and onto the platform. She even took our claim check to the baggage car and got our 1 piece of checked luggage so it would travel to NY without us.

Not knowing what else to do, I left Hubby on the platform with all our luggage while I went off to find the ticket counter to ask for help. The ticket people gave me new tickets for the rest of our trip, and one took me to show me where the lounge was at. Apparently, since we had sleeper accommodations, we were entitled to use the lounge! Furthermore, we had gotten an upgrade for the next leg of our journey and would have a bedroom rather than a roomette.

As he was about to leave me, I asked him for help in rescuing Hubby, who was still down on the platform with too much luggage for both of us to carry, let alone him. He asked another employee for help, and that employee, whose radio was chattering away at him, said yes, there was a Red Cap helping him get to the lounge. I thanked them and wandered back toward the gate I had come from, expecting to see them somewhere on the way. I didn’t find them, but my phone rang. Hubby was wondering where I was, he was at the lounge.

I went to the lounge.

I saw him as soon as I entered, and all our luggage was in the temporary storage room. The lounge attendant could have printed our new tickets for us, but couldn’t check luggage, so I took Hubby carryon and went back to the ticket counter to get it checked in.

It was not quite 9. Our train wouldn’t leave until 4.

The DC station was huge; multi-leveled, with lots of hallways, doorways to the outside, stores galore and signs all over the place. I was glad to get back to the peaceful oasis of the lounge, where we could have our pick of coffee or soft drinks and a variety of snacks. It wasn’t breakfast, but it helped soothe our jangled nerves. Hubby pulled out the laptop and worked on his WiP until about 2. I worked in my notebook until he got done with the laptop, then I switched and started working on a short story I had barely begun.

We did leave the lounge once, about lunchtime, to go to the food court in search of ‘real fool’. All that was available was fast food, so we each picked something and went back to the lounge to eat.

We had been told to be in the lounge at 3:00 to be ready to catch our train. I packed up the laptop and put it back in our luggage about 2:45. At 3:00, they announced there was a problem with the displays, they weren’t updating as needed, but the lounge employees and the red caps could see the correct times, and they would get us to our trains on time.

About 3:30, a red cap came looking for my party of 2. He helped us get our luggage out to his golf cart and zipped us out to our train. We were in a 2-level car, so we had to climb a tiny square staircase. The train’s attendant helped get our stuff upstairs and to our room. It was at least twice as big as our roomette had been, with a couch along one side, and a bathroom, sink and chair on the other. We put our carryon bag on a shelf above the single chair, piled the boxes and cpaps on the sofa, and we both got to sit near the window.

Soon the attendant arrived to take our orders for supper. There was no dining car, only a café car, so their choices of food were limited, and everything was microwaved. (Okay, I suppose the bread, salad and drinks were not.) What I had wasn’t great food, but it was edible. And it came with a complimentary alcoholic drink. (Try getting complimentary drinks on an airline!)

We ate at 5:45, and it was dark by the time we got done. Hubby had finished his word count for the day and he hadn’t brought anything to read, so he decided it was time to turn in! After all, we had to get up by 6 to get breakfast before he hit Chicago. We had the attendant make up the bottom bed, which we’d been told could hold 2 people ‘snugly’, and place all our boxes on the upper bunk.

Okay, we tried, but after 40 years of sharing a CA King bed, we couldn’t make a not-quite-full bed work for us. After a couple hours, I climbed out and told Hubby I would sleep in the chair. I’ve slept sitting up many times and didn’t think it would be a problem. It was.

 

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

Day 1 – Orlando to New York

For a change of pace, we decided to take a train trip. Why? Well, a cruise ship would not get from Orlando (inland) to KC (even further inland). The trip was to meet our latest grandchild. We didn’t want to sit for hours in a brew of germ soup before we met her, so we didn’t want to fly. Ditto for a bus. We thought about driving, but didn’t look forward to it, what with stopping every hour for a restroom break, finding a motel every evening, and the big cities with their maniac traffic.

So I took a look at railroads. I wanted some kind of room for us, so we could cut back on the # of germs we’d face and have a place to lay down and sleep. So I asked for a roomette for the two of us. It seemed a little expensive, but maybe not, if you considered that not only were they transporting us and our luggage, but feeding us and providing lodging as well. We decided to do it, just so we could say, “Yes, we’ve ridden a train, and we remember doing it.”

The day came for us to start our journey. The dishes were in the dishwasher, getting cleaned. Everything was packed. The taxi was on its way to get us. The Amtrak station was in a part of Orlando we didn’t know, and it didn’t have any long-term parking there, so I had hired a taxi to take us there.

The taxi driver was surprised at the amount of luggage we had; 2 carryon suitcases, 2 mixer sets and a juicer still in their boxes (Christmas gifts), and 2 cpaps, but we got them all in his car, and got us to the station about ½ hour before I thought he would.

It was a nice almost-winter day in Orlando. The sky was deeply overcast, a soft breeze blew, and the temperature was in the low to middle 70s. We got Hubby settled on a bench on the platform, the luggage piled around him, and I went inside to the ticket window to ask questions.

That was when I got the news; they could not accept the boxed kitchen equipment as checked luggage. Even though I had called and asked if I could substitute Christmas gifts for some of my checked luggage, and was told yes, this guy said they did not accept boxes as checked luggage. So we put our heads together to figure out how to get everything to our destination with us. The solution was to pick one of the carry-ons, take out our medications, and take the bag to be checked luggage. Everything else had to be carried onto the train by us and stored in our roomette.

Our roomette was smaller than we had imagined. If you see some youtuber on traveling on trains and their ‘roomette’ has a tiny bathroom in it, that’s not what we got. Our train had that type of room, but our room was even smaller: Two seats facing each other, a small sink beside one seat and a trash can beside the other. There was a cubby hole way up at ceiling level that could be used to store some luggage. Hubby managed to shove the carry-on bag and 1 cpap in there, but it was hard to reach, and none of the boxes would fit in it.

The train left the station at 1:36 PM. We were informed we could go to the dining car at 2 and have lunch. We had purchased a quick bite at the hot dog stand at the train station; we hadn’t thought we’d get any lunch otherwise. But lunch sounded good, so at 2 pm, we lurched our way to the dining car. (Those movies that show people nonchalantly walking down train hallways and confidently stepping from car to car don’t take into account the swaying and jolting that an actual train does.) As we plopped down in a booth, I told Hubby I didn’t have my sea legs. He replied that the sea doesn’t usually toss you around this much.

Later, as we sat in our roomette entertaining ourselves, we asked each other how we liked the train ride so far. Despite the snafu with the luggage, I thought that getting ourselves to the mode of transportation was far less intense than getting through the airport. And despite having luggage piled up around us, the seats are bigger and more comfortable on an airplane. It had gotten dark, and we were still traveling (we would have stopped by then if we were driving). And it’s not as far a walk to the dining car as it was to the dining room on our last cruise.

I think I like it.

 

After a supper that Hubby said was at least as good as, if not better than, cruise ship meals, we had the attendant make our roomette into a pair of bunk beds. The steps to get onto the top bunk were at least 2 steps tall, maybe more, but I eventually got up there.

 

It was, I think, the longest night I’ve ever experienced. The train was rocking, which I thought would help me fall asleep. Instead, it kept me awake as I feared rolling off the bed, despite the safety harness intended to keep me in the bed. I clutched the safety harness for reassurance and finally fell asleep, but I woke up so often, it must have been a light sleep.