Amtrak toward home

I neglected to mention an event in yesterday’s blog. As we waited for our room to be ready, there was a group of tourists from France in the lobby looking for lodging. They could not fly to France due to the eruption of the volcano in Iceland. The air in Europe is filled with smoke and large ice chunks that will cause jet planes to lose engine power. It is unsafe for travelers from 95% of the airports and will be for several more days. Naturally, the hotels near LAX are quite full just from the normal travel within the United States. We readied ourselves and went to breakfast. The La Quinta Inns have good breakfast offerings but rarely the same. For example, in Roswell there are waffles and hard cooked eggs but here there were scrambled eggs. Sometimes there is oatmeal but not here. The dry cereal selection vary also. We prefer raisin bran but it is not always offered as it was this morning. I promised the housekeeping chief that we would be out of the room no later than 11, so we packed everything and went to the lobby. I kept trying to upload more videos to the blog but didn’t have time. Ramon called and Evelyn wanted him to pick us up early. I retrieved the luggage from storage and we were in his limo by 12:30. The freeway was slow, so Ramon turned onto Broadway and took us through downtown. It was faster than it had been on the freeway. We were at Union Station, checked in to the baggage center, and seated in the large waiting area by 1:15. It was much less comfortable and noisier than at the hotel, but Evelyn was happier and less worried. Not calm but less worried. We hung out a while and then walked to track 12, boarded the train, found our compartment and began to play some cards. We then went to the observation car and looked at the mountains and more energy producing windmills. The area seems to be very dry but that is probably normal. We called the Winstons and Doris and talked for a while. Weslaco has had much rain while we were gone and Waynesville is expecting frost tonight. We went to dinner and sat with some ladies who had been competing in a Sweet Adeline competition held in Pasadena. They sang a song after dinner. It was quite poor but they had no tenor and a weak lead. They also sang a song they hadn’t done for some time. We had steak and peanut butter pie. They were both delicious. We walked the length of the train for exercise and returned to the roomette. We prepared for the dreaded night of sleep. I scouted the train and found some compartments unoccupied yet sold. The patrons will not be boarding until tomorrow afternoon. We did learn that Evelyn was comfortable on the top bunk if we used both matresses up there. This was fine because the coushions on the bottom were soft enough without the mattress. I asked the attendant for a blanket and an extra pillow. I will see if that works out as I expect. Lights out at 10.