yarrow
Engineer
left the old northern pacific depot(our current amtrak station)on time and settled into our family bedroom. hadn't had this accommodation before and we were very favorably impressed. lots of room, views from both sides of the car. very good and plentiful eb "enhanced dining" food. also, we usually travel as a group of 4 but on this trip we were 3 so had some fascinating tablemates(a retired physician in his 80's, a glass artist, a retired portland bus driver).
great scenery over the rockies and through montana. saw deer and antelope roaming. won a bottle of wine at the wine tasting both coming and going. the questions i got correctly to win were: "what states doesn't amtrak serve?" and "what amtrak train is named after a non-predatory bird?". for both tastings one of the crew sent a plate of cheese and crackers back to our room for jj and yarrow. also, last night at dinner our server learned that today is yarrow's birthday and brought him a little cake with an amtrak emergency light stick in it for a candle. we love amtrak.
we were about a half hour late into chicago because the drawbridge on the mississippi between minnesota and wisconsin was raised for barge traffic. a pleasant wait in the woods where we watched cardinals flitting about(a treat for us westerners).
great time in chicago and then we drove to oberlin, ohio to check on a son in school there.
got back to chicago sunday morning and ensconced ourselves in the metropolitan lounge. was happily reading the new(fall/winter) issue of empire builder magazine(which incidentally has a full page ad for digiplayers as available for rent in the lounge car of the eb). then the grand luxe people with silk scarves and italian shoes started arriving. there were to be pulled by the califonia zephyr. it was fun for us amtrak riff-raff to watch them complain. the grand luxe staff semed to be young people in their 20's in silly uniforms who didn't look as though they cared a lot. we peeked out at the grand luxe cars and they were travelling without their round ended observation car. hope they had fun. we sure did.
nice trip back. we were waiting to be passed by 8/28 heading east yesterday. didn't see it and when we got to shelby, mt. around five learned that our sister train had been held all day at east glacier due to winds too high to cross the two medicine trestle. they died down and we went right through and got to spokane 20 minutes early. 8/28 is scheduled to be quite late into chicago today however.
well, we are big amtrak fans. in the mail when we got home were agr tickets for the 4 for us to go spk-lax in january.
great scenery over the rockies and through montana. saw deer and antelope roaming. won a bottle of wine at the wine tasting both coming and going. the questions i got correctly to win were: "what states doesn't amtrak serve?" and "what amtrak train is named after a non-predatory bird?". for both tastings one of the crew sent a plate of cheese and crackers back to our room for jj and yarrow. also, last night at dinner our server learned that today is yarrow's birthday and brought him a little cake with an amtrak emergency light stick in it for a candle. we love amtrak.
we were about a half hour late into chicago because the drawbridge on the mississippi between minnesota and wisconsin was raised for barge traffic. a pleasant wait in the woods where we watched cardinals flitting about(a treat for us westerners).
great time in chicago and then we drove to oberlin, ohio to check on a son in school there.
got back to chicago sunday morning and ensconced ourselves in the metropolitan lounge. was happily reading the new(fall/winter) issue of empire builder magazine(which incidentally has a full page ad for digiplayers as available for rent in the lounge car of the eb). then the grand luxe people with silk scarves and italian shoes started arriving. there were to be pulled by the califonia zephyr. it was fun for us amtrak riff-raff to watch them complain. the grand luxe staff semed to be young people in their 20's in silly uniforms who didn't look as though they cared a lot. we peeked out at the grand luxe cars and they were travelling without their round ended observation car. hope they had fun. we sure did.
nice trip back. we were waiting to be passed by 8/28 heading east yesterday. didn't see it and when we got to shelby, mt. around five learned that our sister train had been held all day at east glacier due to winds too high to cross the two medicine trestle. they died down and we went right through and got to spokane 20 minutes early. 8/28 is scheduled to be quite late into chicago today however.
well, we are big amtrak fans. in the mail when we got home were agr tickets for the 4 for us to go spk-lax in january.
