This is way late as we travel in June, but we moved to a new house back then and I have not been online. I had car numbers and all that, but who know where they are at now. I will give a brief synopsis as I think you'll find this interesting. We left OKC as a severe thunderstorm hit the city and had a great trip on the Heartland Flyer to FTW. The Eagle was on-time and we boarded into our family bedroom which is a through car to LAX. This is the first time I had a sleeping accomodation and I don't want to go back to coach again-it was definately lucky we had it this trip. Dinner was great and they even had Dr. Pepper (only diner to have it on the trip). We were supposed to be put on the sunset in the night, but when we woke up lo and behold we were still in SAS. They paid for our meals and we got to tour San Antonio as the Sunset didn't depart until like 3pm (about 12 hrs late). We moved pretty well from there. The diner ran out of mac and cheese which stunk for the kids and the crew was ok at best. Late in the night outside of ELP our car busted a hose and it slammed the bottom of the car below us and we came to a stop in the middle of nowhere while the crew fixed that (about) 15min. The next day they decided to turn the train in Tuscon, AZ, so we all were bustituted to LAX. They didn't tell us much on the Sunset which bothered me a bit and confused the heck out of everyone else. Once in LAX they offered a room, dinner and passage on the next day's starlight to OAK. We had tickets to a ball game in SF, so I worked a deal to take a San Joaquin to OAK instead. We were told we could not take the first bus out because the whole itenerary must be together and there were no seats on the bus from Stockton to OAK (levee break bustitution). We were tired, so I pushed to get us out early and wait in Stockton. The window agent at LAX was a @#$^% and wouldn't do it, so a nice employee told me to call the 1800 number and talk to them. Not only did they get me on the earlier bus, but said there was room on the bus from Stockton, but we would have to go to the other station to get it. Boy that agent was ticked when I made her ticket us! Things improved greatly getting some sleep and at Stockton, there was a bus waiting that we were able to get on to OAK (not having to go to the other Stockton station) and other than the bus taking a wrong turn in Oakland, we finally got there. Two days later we were to take the Starlight to PDX from OAK. It was 7 or so hours late, and we enjoyed our standard bedrooms this time. The next day they bustituted the Empire Builder passenger from KFS. Going over the cascades we got stuck behind a slow UP freight. They would not let us pass because they were pushing it to get the crew into Eugene before they died. Of course they died and we were stuck for awhile about 100 yards from the station (that upset alot of smokers). Finally we arrived at PDX about midnight 8 hrs late. I called the 1800 number to get the address to send a complaint (mostly for being in the dark on the Sunset and dealing with some horible employees in LAX. She of course said the Guarantee deal was over, but could send me a voucher for future travel. The voucher was for 540 bucks and we only spent 1400 total. So we are taking the Zephyr RT from SLC to SFP as a side trip to my wife's family reunion this summer. I hope that trip is better.
