Train Trip

As many of you know, we took the train from Marshall, TX to Rochester, NY with a layover in Chicago for our holiday trip.

Overall, the trip was good. There are definite pros and cons when it comes to train travel vs plane travel. Plane travel is quicker for sure but also more restrictive. You have to go through security, pack a certain way (ie. no liquids in your carry-on) and then you are stuck in a tiny space, completely at the mercy of the flight crew. You have to wait for the flight attendants to bring you something to drink, you are lucky if you get anything at all to eat and can only use the bathroom at certain times during the flight. Plus, everyone starts to get suspicious if you just want to get up and stretch your legs a bit.

The train is better from this perspective because you can move around and you have more space, you can get something to eat pretty much anytime during your waking hours and you can get water any time you want it (at least in the sleeper car). Plus you can bring onto the train your own food and drinks (including alcohol) to consume at your convenience. You can use the bathroom whenever you want to even when the train is stopped at a station. All this and no security at all.

It took approx 43 hours from the time we left our house until the time we arrived in Rochester. Yep, it was a long trip and I had troubles getting a decent sleep but we got to have some much needed family time just to hang out together.

I posted pics on facebook as we went along so some of these photos may look familiar. There are more pics on my facebook page of the interior of the train and our sleeping accommodations.

Here is a quick synopsis of our trip:

The name of our train. This cool poster was hung in the dining car.

The kids in the lounge car. There were 6 tables at one end then the remainder of the car had seats that were turned towards the windows. Every spot was first come, first served. Roughly mid-car was a set of stairs that took you down to the cafe. It was open for the majority of the waking hours and sold various snacks, drinks, sandwiches, salads, etc. The dining car had limited seating hours and a limited menu but it was fine for us. Meals were included in the price of the sleeper car.
M listening to her iPod and watching the world go by. I love this pic of her.

We woke up the second day in St Louis. It was 15 degrees outside as O is demonstrating here. Our sleeping car windows are behind him.

C also taking the above pic of O.

The kids and I standing in the doorway of the train.
Pulling out of St Louis we saw almost 360 degrees of the Arch! It was pretty at night (on our return trip) but we couldn't take good pics of it then.
While on a 7 hour layover in Chicago, we walked the 1.5 blocks to Sear's Tower (now named Willis Tower). Those are my feet as I look through the glass floor down to the ground that is 103 stories below! Then the whole family standing in the glass box that extends off the side of the building. That excursion and having some Chicago deep dish pizza at a nice little restaurant another block further took up nearly all of our time in Chicago.
The second half of our trip was spent in coach class (not a sleeper car). Most of the trip was overnight and, while the sleeper was much more comfortable and private, this part of the trip wasn't horrible at all. We were in the same car with people getting off the train either in Buffalo or Rochester so there was not a lot of activity overnight while we were sleeping. The lights were kept low and we had planned ahead with blankets to remain a comfortable temperature.

The return trip for the same leg in coach class was not horrible but less pleasant. When we left Chicago, the train was clean and fresh and we got off roughly 1/3 of the way on its trip to NYCity/Boston. The return trip had us waiting for 90 minutes (train was late due to weather) at midnight and getting on a much less "fresh" train since it was already 2/3 of the way into its trip from NYCity to Chicago. Again, not horrible but not near as pleasant. The thing about coach is you can't control the lighting or the temperature and there are always people walking by going to the cafe/dining car, the bathroom and getting on and off the train looking for seats. I think I slept for about 2 hours total. UGH.

Our Chicago layover was shorter this time plus we arrived an hour late so we just ate at the food court for lunch and were back on the train in the sleeping car for our final leg of the trip. If you look at the pic of O above, you'll see that the sleeping car has an upper level. We had sleeping accommodations in the upper level on our return trip. The upper level sways more and seems like a rougher ride compared to the lower level. Something to note for future trips. Amtrack trains are not the smooth, sleek trains we've experienced in Europe with fast rails and on time arrivals/departures. These are passenger trains sharing the rails with freight trains which have priority. Numerous times we had to stop and allow a freight train to pass from the other direction. Not the end of the world but so much different than passenger trains in Europe.

The kids LOVED traveling by train and it allowed us some great family time. While I was a bit grouchy (ok, maybe a lot grouchy!) from lack of sleep, it was a fun way to travel. We now have another travel option!

Adventures in airline travel

It feels like I have several topics to catch up on from the past 2 weeks so I'm trying to break them down into manageable short stories instead of one big novel!  So, with that in mind, here are our stories from our flights to and from Rochester.

As I may have mentioned before in previous posts, we traveled from Houston to Rochester, NY ON Christmas day.  The airports weren't jam-packed with people but they weren't exactly quiet either.  Thanks to Delta and their itinerary change, we had to bounce twice to get there instead of the usual once.  We bounced through Atlanta then Cincinnati before hitting Rochester 2 hours later than what we had originally planned.  We knew about this change well ahead of time but we were still very annoyed by it.  We had some compensation though when we flew from Houston to Atlanta with no incident, took off from Atlanta with no problems and were treated to an incredible view of a Christmas sunset that lasted for a really long time.  It went from brilliant yellow to bright orange to blood red over about 30-45 minutes time.  I just now am asking myself why one of us didn't grab the camera and try to get a photo of it.  We were just too tired I guess.  

Our landing in Cincinnati was a bit out of the ordinary for us.  The female pilot brought us in rather quickly with many turns and steep drops.  Even the flight attendant who was hanging out just behind me made the comment, "wow, this is some crazy flying tonight!"  Our only disappointments for the day were that Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream was closed in Atlanta and many of the food court restaurants were closed or nearly out of food when we had our short layover in Cinci.  Besides that, we landed on time, received our luggage without having to wait forever and headed out into the snow!

Our return to Houston was much more exciting.  First, we started the day out by taking off nearly an hour late from Rochester.  It seems they had to fill the plane with extra fuel and in doing so caused the plane to be overweight.  They needed 10--that's TEN--people to give up their seats so that they would be within the weight restrictions of the FAA.  I had never come up against that one before!  Ten people over weight??  Seriously??  That must be 1500-2000 pounds!  I guess between the number of kids (obviously not weighing what an adult weighs) and 7-8 passengers who gave up their seats we were back in compliance and we took off for Atlanta after getting de-iced.

Atlanta was incredibly foggy.  Thank goodness for flying by instruments because that was the only way we were landing there.  Visibility was poor and the runway had just barely popped into view about 2-3 seconds before we landed!  It was still foggy when we took off but it didn't seem to slow us down any.  Between Atlanta and Houston we hit some bad turbulence.  Fortunately C and the kids were all fast asleep and they didn't even stir.  I was fine as it was more of a rough dirt road kind of a bounce instead of those quick falls and climbs that get your guts all churned up.  The flight attendants had to sit in their jump seats for about 20-30 minutes but then things seemed to calm down.  As we were landing, however, we were getting hit by some pretty strong cross winds and the pilot was having one heck of a time keeping the plane level.  I was thinking to myself "I will be so impressed if he lands this thing."  Just as the image came to mind of that famous 1989 plane crash footage from Iowa where the landing plane goes cartwheeling down the runway in a ball of flames (I couldn't find footage on the internet but I've seen it numerous times on t.v. programs)...  Now where was I?  

Oh, yes, as that image came to mind roughly 150 feet above the runway at Hobby Airport, the pilot revved up the engines, brought up the landing gear and we took off again without touching down.  I looked back at C and said, "I guess we got waved off!"  It took a good 5 minutes before the Captain came on and said that we were doing a come around or something like that.  The winds were hitting us at 20 knots and they weren't comfortable landing so, in the interest of safety blah, blah, blah...  I was perfectly happy with with their decision.  So, as we did our 15 minute tour of the city we did a little rockin' and rollin'.  Again, it wasn't consistent or extreme enough to get my guts churning so I didn't think much about it.  M started crying complaining that she really wanted to get off the plane.  I was trying to calm her down and encouraged her to look out the window to see that we were indeed coming in for another attempt at landing.  About 200 feet above the runway, she threw up.  I couldn't get a barf bag fast enough.  She was a mess, the seat was a mess, I was gagging.  It wasn't pretty.

But, we managed to get cleaned up, get home and, needless to say, momma was DONE.  The kids went off to AB's to play while C and I showered and got some food.  Then we both just crashed on the couch.  

We are always so happy to see our far away family and friends but it is so very nice to come back home.  And that is my story about our travels.  

We are still alive and well on this last day of 2008

Whew! The past 2 weeks have been a blur. Between finals and holiday parties/gatherings, shopping for gifts, preparing to travel...well, it has just been overwhelming. To say the least. Let me see if I can summarize it all without writing a novel!

Finals: I can only blame myself if I fail to pass those. I studied. I studied hard. But, not LONG enough. I took a class years and years ago when I was a freshman in college on study skills. I KNOW what I need to do for long-term retention and understanding of any class content. I have been able to squeak by without doing that though through all of my adult education. As a result, I have decent grades but no real retention of the subject matter I've covered. If I've used the information then I remember it. If I haven't used it, then it is pretty much gone from my brain.

Anyway, with that said, I feel pretty confident that I did well on my Acu 2 final. Herb 2 and Physiology.......I'm hoping for a miracle. I need at least a C to pass and not have to take the classes over again. Of course I'm hoping for that but at the same time, I'm wondering if having to spend the money again to repeat a class will encourage me to make better use of my study time. I will need that skill as I get to the more advanced classes. Something to work on for next semester I guess.

Christmas: We shopped and planned everything down to the minute to fit it all in to the time we had. We traveled on Christmas Day so we opted to open our gifts from my family and from us on Christmas Eve. That worked out well. Christmas morning the kids slept in and barely had time to see what Santa had brought them before we were running out the door to the airport. It was chaotic, frustrating and exhausting but we made it through all of our flights without incident and landed safely in Rochester around 9:20 in the evening. It wasn't snowing at the time but there was lots of snow on the ground and the kids could hardly wait to play in it.

We were big slugs for the first 2 days. C's dad, TM, had been very sick with upper respiratory issues. His mom, KM, had been fighting her own bug but took such good care of us those first few days as we were so wiped out. We slept and ate, and ate, and ate some more then took naps. It was much needed rest and relaxation for all of us. However, now we have all strongly returned to our night owl ways. We are rarely in bed before midnight and it is often an argument to get the kids to go to bed even then. Then we sleep most of the morning away often getting up no earlier than 10am. It doesn't bother me as much as it bothers C. We had a big discussion about it the other night. He kept saying that it isn't normal for kids to stay up as late as our kids do. I say they are just doing what their bodies naturally want to do. They are getting enough sleep just at a different time of the day. If we were to homeschool the kids (which would definitely push me over the edge!) I would keep the same schedule because it just suits us. Yes, when we get up earlier we get more done, I agree. But when we sleep when we are tired and wake when we are not, we are all much happier people. It is difficult finding a happy medium between the two.

Anyway, just know that we are for sure getting our R&R covered while we are at T&KM's. I've seemingly fought off a cold virus and C seems to be doing the same. TM is doing much better but still has the cough that keeps him from sleeping well. KM seems to be losing her fight with the bug as I found her this morning sitting in the recliner to sleep. You know how it is when you are coughing and congested and it is so much easier to sleep sitting up. The kids have been totally unscathed by the cold virus. Amazing. We have all also avoided some rampant strain of pink eye that has been going around the area. Knock on wood we will continue to avoid that for the rest of our trip. Hopefully we can get back to Houston without bringing any bugs with us. Now THAT would be amazing.

So, we have taken full advantage of C's sister's in-laws when it comes to food. Her mother-in-law got together with some friends and relatives and had a baking day before Christmas. They made a ton of cookies and a huge variety of them to boot. It seems that no one wanted to take them all home so she brought a huge box of them to us. Well, we certainly took care of them! And they were good! I had forgotten how much I love 7 Layer Magic Bars with the graham cracker crust, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and coconut. I leave off the nuts and so did KF which made them all the more irresistible. I think we sustained ourselves in those first few days here on 90% cookies and 10% "real" food.

The remainder of our trip involves visiting several family members and friends. We are having a great time here. This morning it is snowing and that is a welcome sign for us. Over the weekend it warmed up and rained and literally washed the previous snow accumulation away. Now we have a few inches on the ground and it looks beautiful. Ask me later how beautiful I think it is when I have to go out in it!

Happy New Year to all of you. Here's to health, happiness and all the best in 2009. Kisses all around.