Amtrakking

Aug 31 – Sep 3
So I’m heading back across the continent I have just crossed by car, but by train this time. New York to Seattle in just under 70 hours. I am retrakking (geddit?) my steps in order to spend a weekend on the Olympic Peninsula which Melissa & I couldn’t squeeze into our already overstuffed roadtrip schedule. Also the reason for heading back to the west coast is that I will have to get a flight from that side of the country to wherever will be my next destination.

Aug 31
The first leg of the trip was New York to Chicago – 19 hours. We left yesterday (Aug 31) in the afternoon (about 4pm) and arrived in Chicago at 10.30am this morning. The train was comfortable enough but absolutely packed, and as a single decker, the view wasn’t amazing.

Sep 1
I arrived in Chicago this morning & spent a couple of hours wandering around the city looking for some healthy food to take with me for the next 2 days. I found an organic store in my guide and took off to find that. En route I wandered past the Accenture office on North Clark St., and considered popping in to say a quick hi – but it quickly dawned on me that it was September 1st, the beginning of the new financial year for them and they would all be up to their necks in Year End. The last person you want to see then is someone who hasn’t worked in almost a year and is just popping into the office on a whim to catch up. After that I wandered into a bookstore, considered replacing my beloved e-reader but they didn’t have any in stock :( and then headed back to Union Station to get the train.

The second train is much cooler than the first :) it’s a double decker! So the view is great from the window – and the lounge is all glass so you can get a great view wherever you are. And it’s not as packed today – at least not so far – touchwood!

Sep 2
I awoke this morning to an announcement that we are pulling into Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. I slept reasonably well last night, not waking too many times and its already 9am - woohoo. Walking up very early when you have a full day in front of you on a train makes for a very long day. I still have 2 seats all to myself – touchwood. Good thing too – because I smell badly. It’s now been about 48 hours since water last touched my body & it will be at least another 24 until I can take a shower again. This is definitely my biggest complaint about Amtrak – they don’t have showers on board – or at the big stations it would seem. I tried googling it before leaving NY but there was nothing available – or maybe I didn’t find it – but I’m sure that if there was something available there would have been signs in Union Station and I didn’t see anything there either. The announcement this morning also told me we are approx. 1 hour 15 mins behind schedule. We were stuck in Minneapolis for a loooong time last night – so long they even turned off the train for a while! Story goes that lightning had hit some signals further on and they couldn’t go anywhere until that was fixed.

North Dakota is quite pretty. Very flat, and where we are travelling through right now has lots of lakes and plenty of birds – which is always nice to see. The land appears to be quite marshy with pockets of straw planted, it makes for a nice contrast: green marshy reeds right next to bright yellow straw that looks ready to be harvested.

Sep 3
I didn’t sleep so well last night, there were a lot of stops to take more passengers on & as well the train split at Spokane; one part going to Portland, the other to Seattle. This morning we are passing through the Cascade Mountains which is a complete 180 contrast from yesterdays flat plains. There is even a volunteer from the National Parks Service (I might not have the name completely right) that is providing commentary on the small mountain towns & all the fauna & flora we pass by.

I find the Amtrak Superliner very comfortable. There is another passenger close by who complains about it not being comfortable – but the seats & leg room are the most generous I have experience by far in the last 9 months – there is so much leg room that my feet barely reach the foot rest on the back of the seat in front of me! But it does get cold at night – having my sleeping bag with me would have been a good idea.