My First Train Trip -- Leg Two of Two

Leg Two of Two

The next part of our trip was from Chicago to Cincinnati.  Because it's only a short trip and not overnight, we decided to take coach seats instead of a roomette.

The seats are spacious, not like the cattle-car ones on airplanes.  They have adjustable foot rests and plenty of room for our bags above our seats and in front of us below the seats in front of us.  The extra space between seats allows them to be adjusted without squishing the people in the ones behind us.

The so-called dining car was nothing like the one we had for the Flagstaff-to-Chicago leg.  You could get short-order items to take back to your seat or go to a place where a few tables were available and a dinner could be ordered.  Very few choices for dinner, especially since my wife and I are vegetarians.  We selected vegetable lasagna, pretty good but also very expensive.  On our way back home, I think we'll pack some stuff for breakfast since that train departs at 1:30 am and gets into Chicago around 10:00 am.  We have a much longer wait in Chicago going back.  I might check if there's anything around the terminal to see, or we'll just take more time to read books and use the Internet (if it works this time!).

The train had to stop several times to allow freight trains to use the rails, so we arrived at Union Terminal in Cincinnati around 4:30 am rather than the scheduled 3:30 am.  We then took a cab to our condo about ten miles away.

The total trip took about two days as compared to the four or five days we take to drive.  By the time we drive to Phoenix for a plane trip and sometimes stay the night before if we have an early-morning flight, then are wedged into seats for four hours or more after waiting in line and having a body check, a good part of one day or more elapses.  So a two-day train trip isn't that much longer, and the price isn't significantly more.

I'll follow this train-trip blog with at least one other for our trip back home.

My First Train Trip -- First Leg

Train Leg One of Two

We got up from our hotel bed at 3:00 am Friday morning to get ready for our 4:45 am departure.  I checked the train status and was informed that it was running thirty minutes late.  We were already up, so no additional sleep for us.  Since we had to park the car near the terminal, we left around 4:15 am.  When we got in the terminal we found that the train wouldn't be at Flagstaff until about 6:00 am.  Oh, well!  As some of you know, passenger trains defer to freight trains, so the delay was for the train to pull into a side track and wait for freight trains to pass.

Our roomette was much smaller than pictures portrayed.  We had taken two medium-sized bags (and a brief case for me and a cosmetic bag for my wife and a bag of snacks).  Getting up the narrow steps to our second-floor roomette was a challenge with all of that stuff.  Note to self:  put the bags into the cubbies on the first level and carry only a small bag for the things needed on the train into the room.  Here are some pictures of the hallway (about 18 inches wide), the roomette and the roomette with beds unfurled:

I'm a light sleeper, so I had little sleep that night.  The train didn't rock me to sleep, especially since it jerked around a lot.  The train whistle also was distracting since it had to be sounded every time the train was at a crossing.  My wife (being more agile than me) had the top bunk and had no problem with her sleep.

The meals on the train are included with being a "sleeper."  They were very good, and since Amtrak puts other people with you at tables for four, we enjoyed those who were also at our table.  They came from many other places and were traveling to  many locations.  What the trains really need are exercise cars since we ate more than we normally eat and had little space to exercise in.

The train made up its time, and we arrived in Chicago only about fifteen minutes late.   Being "sleepers," we were entitled to stay in the lounge to await our next leg of the trip.  Supposedly, the lounge had wi-fi, but it was not working.  I was told that it is up and down most of the time.  So I just read e-books and played some word games on my Kindle.

I'll cover the train trip from Chicago to Cincinnati on my next blog.  Stay tuned!

My First Train Trip -- the Night Before

The Night Before We Board

We decided to drive up to Flagstaff this afternoon rather than try to drive tonight.  We're staying at the Hotel Monte Vista, an old historic hotel.  We got a small room (very small), queen-size bed and an included (not shared!) bathroom.

Oh well, this is only for the night (or part of the night), and the price was reasonable with a 10% senior discount!  Lots of the rooms are named after famous stars (Zane Grey, Esther Williams, etc.) but no name on the door of this room!

We ate at Pato Thai, right next to the hotel.  The pad-see-ewe my wife and I ate was delicious!

We also took a walk before dinner to make sure we knew where we're going tomorrow morning.  Downtown Flagstaff has lots of one-way streets, so even though we're two blocks from the Amtrak terminal, the route isn't direct.  The ticket office was open, so we were able to get our 15-day parking pass this evening rather than tomorrow morning.  We also were able to figure out where the parking lot is!

Now I'm going to set numerous alarms to guarantee that we get up at 3:00 am tomorrow.  Don't want to miss the train!

There is no wi-fi on the train, so I'll probably have to wait until we get into Chicago Saturday afternoon or maybe after we get to Cincinnati.  Maybe I'll find a signal I can pirate!

My First Train Trip -- Getting Ready

Getting Ready

Every late spring or summer we travel back to Cincinnati to see two of our kids, seven of our grandchildren and one great-grandson.  This trip is usually by car (1850 miles taking a minimum of four days for us old folks) or by plane (always a major hassle with cattle car seating).  This year we decided to take a train instead.  This is the first time we've tried this, so I thought some of you might like to know how things go for us.  This might inspire you to give it a try or to not even think about it if our experiences are bad!

Amtrak is the most convenient choice for us.  We board a train in Flagstaff, AZ, at about 5:00 am, go to Chicago and then take another train to Cincinnati that arrives around 3:30 am, roughly two days after we start the trip.  The cost is a little more than air travel since we decided to pay for a roomette on the longer legs of the trip, then travel by coach for the shorter part to and from our old home town.  The roomette also includes meals and other nice perks.

We live in Prescott, AZ, about 90 miles from Flagstaff.  To avoid a late-night drive, we elected to rent a room at the Hotel Monte Vista the night before the trip.  The hotel is about two blocks from the Amtrak terminal.  Since we drove there, Amtrak provides 15-day free parking, but you must be out of the lot before the deadline or your car will be towed!  If this is similar to other terminals, it looks like you might want to find another way to get started, especially if your trip is longer than 15 days.  In our case we will complete our journey on the fifteenth day.

You can buy your tickets online, but I decided to talk to a human being, especially since this is a new adventure for me and my wife.  "Julie" is Amtrak's virtual agent, but if you say "agent" during her spiel and then follow it with "none of those" when she tries to give you more choices, you'll get to very courteous human agents.  I explained what we wanted and was given help in determining what was best for us.  I would suggest that you plan a train trip early and order tickets well ahead of your trip, especially if you want a roomette or bedroom suite.  The prices go up as the sleeper cars fill up.  In our case we paid about $300 for the trip from Flagstaff to Chicago but paid about $500 for the roomette on our way back.  The roomettes don't have toilets or showers in them, but there seem to be adequate facilities in each sleeping car.  The bedroom suites are about double the cost of roomettes, and one friend told us that you can sit on the toilet and take a shower at the same time in those suite restrooms!

We can check up to two bags each and can carry two bags onto the train, but we decided to forgo the baggage checking and just carry  all of our stuff in one piece of luggage for each of us.

We travel to Flagstaff tomorrow afternoon and board the train Friday morning.  I'll collect my experiences on the trip and write some more blogs.  I'm excited about this new adventure!

Rivers in Arizona

Viva La Verde

Last night I saw a wonderful video about the Verde River in Northern Arizona.  It is one of only a few riparian rivers that remain in Arizona today, and it now runs the risk of being a dry riverbed that has water only when it rains.  The primary threat is our lowering groundwater level and a pipeline that will start extracting water from the Big Chino aquifer to the cities of Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley; this aquifer is the primary source of the Verde River.  This movie is available to view on the Citizens Water Advocacy Group website (http://www.cwagaz.org/videos/158-vivavideo) and the Vimeo page at http://vimeo.com/63984592 . The movie is about an hour long, but I think you will find it both beautiful and troubling.

Android Apps On Windows 8

There are a number of apps on my Lenovo A1 Tablet that I enjoy using, but I'm mostly using my Windows 8 laptop.  I found a program that runs on Windows 8 (and has a Beta for Windows 7 that I haven't tried) and allows me to enjoy some of the Android apps.

Bluestacks can be downloaded from http://www.bluestacks.com/ :

 You can then download Android apps from several websites (Amazon, Google Play) and then use them.  Here is what my Bluestacks window contains:

To stop an application, I use the <esc> key.  To close Bluestacks in Windows 8, you left-swipe the charms bar (the black rectangle at the bottom of the previous image comes up), then click on the X circle.

I suspect there is is a limit to how much memory you can use for the apps, and the emulation that is necessary to run Android on Windows 8 may be very slow and may make some of the apps run too slow to be much fun; however, the apps I have installed work pretty good!

Give it a try, and you might like it!  Besides, it's free! And many of the Android apps don't cost anything and are better (in my opinion!) than many of the Windows 8 programs from the Windows Store.