We are home safely, rested, and ready to sort through the photos and begin work on an album of our trip. Meanwhile, I will post what I wrote while traveling from Barstow to Springfiled by train. I had thought I would be able to post when we got to our hotel, but there was too much to do and too much to see and just not enough time to do it all. It was indeed, a wonderful trip.

Our travel adventure began shortly after dropping off three dogs and two birds at our friend’s kennel. That in itself was an adventure with two Maltese who just knew we were headed to PetSmart and a suspicious Doxie who thought she was on the way to Vet. Not to mention two parrots who were responding to everything with “Hello”.

On the way to pick up the train at the Barstow Station, we ran into a terrible downpour - a real gully washer. Now we are desert dwellers and as such, we always forget that the hot summer sun does bad things to windshield wipers. As ours became more and more ineffectual, they began to resemble black paint brushes on a water color canvas. Fortunately, we were close to our destination and were able to exit the freeway successfully.

A little shaken by the experience we decided to find the Amtrak station before heading back into Barstow for dinner. Well, the station is in an isolated and desolate area with fairly good lighting and a closed and barred terminal. It was so abandoned that we weren’t even certain a train stopped there. It looked completely shut down. After studying our tickets we headed back to town in the hopes that someone would be able to tell us if there was a new station somewhere.

We were assured that the train left from the old site. We had hot dogs and cokes and by this time it was about 7:30 so we decided to head back to the station and wait the three hours until departure. Parking the car for our long wait, we again realized that we were entirely alone and extremely vulnerable. This was definitely not a safe place and there were no public bathrooms anywhere. The cokes were beginning to work their way through our system and three hours and a possibly late train was looked on as less than adventures. We left and found the nearest fast food restaurant and settled there for at least 90 minutes.

Back to the car and back to the depot. No one else was there and we sat in dark silence for awhile until Bob decided to move the luggage from the car to where we hoped the Southwest Chief would pick us up. Still we were the only ones there and the possibilities of something sinister preyed on our minds. . . Or at least on my mind.

Suddenly, the headlights from a van were seen and we knew (hoped) it was more passengers. And it was. A very nice grandmother, daughter, and two small children on their way to Albuquerque. I don’t remember a time when I was as happy to see people I didn’t know. Talk about instant bonding! The six of us huddled together quieting our fears of being in such a desolate place.

Was the train on time? Of course not. It was nearly an hour late, but boarding was fast and easy. Our bed was made up and ready for us and after a short time of winding down, we were both asleep. Maybe a little more fitful than at home, but a hundred percent better than sleeping in coach.

And so ends our first day of the Great Amtrak adventure.

I just emailed the new webmaster with this comment, “If your screen lights up extra brightly, it is just my smile after seeing my original weblog back up on line. Thank you so much.”
I have tried to reach as many of you as possible by email to let you know about the change back to the old URL. I hope the rest of my blogger friends find there way here.

Bob and I leave this afternoon for our trip by rail to Springfield.. We board Amtrak’s Southwest Chief in Barstow just before bedtime and wake up tomorrow morning about the time our train crosses the border between Arizona and New Mexico. We spend the next day and the next night exploring the joys of traveling by train. We arrive in Galesburg, Illinois around noon the following day and from there we will rent a car for the short ride to Springfield.

I hope to have access to the web and be able to upload photos and posts. So do come back and check once in awhile. Ohhhh, I am so jazzed at having my site with all its bells and buttons back and running.