Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Longest Trip Home Ever

Sunday morning I met Goodie and Judy for breakfast and then Mom and I went out to Highbridge to visit with Kaye and Terry and the boys before I had to leave to go back to D.C. Charles picked me up there about 4 and we took a leisurely ride down Highway 13, stopping for dinner at Abbotsford, and making an accidental detour through Nekoosa, before finally arriving at the Americinn about 10 p.m. Since we both brought suits, we took advantage of the hot tub and swimming pool before crashing.

I forgot that we could call "Julie" at 1-800-USA-RAIL to find out how late the train was Monday morning, so after stopping at Walmart to pick up something to read (excellent book, btw, "The Glass Castle") we went over to the station and discovered it was at least an hour and a half late. Since it was so hot and we were both still tired - I had awoken and gotten up at 6 - we sat in the air conditioned car and napped. Finally, two hours late, the Empire Builder arrived and Charles and I said our good byes.

Unfortunately, because of that two hours and then some, due to freight traffic, heat restrictions on traveling speed, and a near miss of an accident when a U-Haul driver ran the gates as they were closing somewhere outside of Chicago, we ended up being too late to catch the Capital Limited to DC...they didn't hold the train for us! I was more than a little upset, but once they arranged for us to stay in a downtown hotel and issued us tickets for the next night and I had gotten settled, eaten, and realized I was only 8 blocks from the Art Institute, I figured I would easily be able to make the best of it.

And so I did. Tuesday a.m., after eating and showering and checking out, I strolled over to the Art Institute (http://www.artic.edu/) and reconnoitered my favorite Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, ate a delicious lunch at one of the two cafes there, and then wandered through the modern American collections before I headed to Union Station, about 2:30, to wait for the train. We were finally successfully boarded about 5 and left without incident, except that we waited for another train to get in beforehand, which agitated some of the other people for whom they had not held the train on Monday night. But I figured c'est la vie, since I had had such a great little Chicago adventure. And we got into DC only about 2 hours late yesterday, so I figured that was a win, too.

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