On the Train, Chicago to Seattle

Our train departed Chicago Union Station right on time at exactly 2:15pm on Wednesday afternoon.

A word about the service on this train:

Our Car Attendant's name is Gul and he is a real treasure.  After we were on our way out of Chicago, he brought us classes filled with ice for our bottled water (each compartment is provided with two bottles of water a day).  He then brought us some snacks of nuts, coated pretzels and candied fruit.  A short time later, we were served Mimosas in our compartment by this super attendant.  I refused it because of the orange juice due to my diabetes.  The then returned shortly with a special glass of champagne just for me..  A chocolate chip cookie followed along with a cup of coffee for me since I was not supposed to eat a chocolate cookie.

We rolled through a lot of the Illinois countryside and then into Wisconsin.

We arrived in Milwaukee, WI at 3:40pm.  HI to 1SamMom.  Got a snapshot of the train station and some really large upright for what appears to be a bridge over the rail tracks.  Can't really tell because of limited sight lines this close up.  Anyway, we stopped here for a few minutes to pick up and discharge passengers AND to allow the smokers to get off and have a smoke break.  As we left station in Milwaukee, I was able to snap a quick picture of something to do with Harley Davidson, not sure if it is the headquarters or not, but the letters Harley Davidson were huge.  I was also able to snap a picture of Miller Brewing Company facility.

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The train moved through several small and medium sized towns, including Columbus and "historic" Portage.  Perhaps 1SamMom or Mr. D can tell us what the history is for Historic Portage.  None of the train's staff seemed to know.

We finally arrived in Wisconsin Dell and I was able to snap a couple of pictures of the river and some of the tour boats.  Unfortunately, none of the famous Wisconsin Dells "Ducks" were in evidence. (there are amphibian boats that the Army used to refer to as Ducks).  The Dells had been famous for these things as far back as I can remember, and now several locations, including Washington, DC has started using them for their tourist industries.

Then our dinner in the dining car was another very interesting experience.  We were called for our reservation at 6:45 that evening.  Shortly after we settled into our table the Maitre 'D seated two ladies at out table.  They were from Canada and were traveling on Amtrak to Seattle and then up to Vancouver, British Columbia.  One of the ladies was 78 years old, was an artist (painter) and spent a lot of her time in a cabin she owned up on the northern shore of Lake Huron.  She and her daughter were taking this trip to attend some celebration with family.  We all had an excellent dinner (they had the Poached Trout, Char had the Stuffed Chicken Breast and naturally, old Harv had the Flatiron Steak).

Gul had prepared our compartment for the evening and we were able to turn in rather quickly.  Grabbed a quick shower, brush the teeth and off to bed.  Sometime during the night we stopped for quite a while in Minneapolis/St Paul while the train's engine was evaluated again.  At some point, during the night, they switched out our engine.

The engine problems created a situation where we wound up about 3 hours late.  We have not been able to make that up naturally, but we are soldiering through and the Amtrak people are being just fantastic when we all awoke the next morning.

After doing our morning rituals, Char and I headed down to Breakfast where we were seated with two really nice people from Fargo, North Dakota, which was the stop that we had just left as Char and I were headed to the dining car.  Normally we would have been quite a ways through North Dakota by the time we woke up.  The original schedule would have put us into Devils Lake, ND.  One Amtrak staffer approached me about the delay with and apology, he indicated that the engine had blown something and was spewing oil, and they had to replace it with a different locomotive.  I told him not to worry on our account, we were on vacation and the train trip was part of that vacation.

We passed through Rugby, ND which is the exact geographic center of the North American Continent.  We thought, WOW what neat things we are learning and experiencing by traveling on the train and seeing a part of the country that we had never been through.  I had spent some time in Minot, ND as a young airman on TDY but our only exposure to this area was long ago when we lived in the Minneapolis area for a year.

We took very few pictures across North Dakota, since the landscape was pretty much the same thing, prairie land and ranches.  We saw herds of cattle, lots of horses and quite a few sheep.  We also saw some well drilling equipment and were not sure if they were oil rigs or if they were drilling for water.

We had a delightful lunch with some folks who lived in Olympia, WA and the lunch menu was really quite good.  I am continually impressed with the ability of the Amtrak people to constantly provide exceptional service, freshly prepared foods and a nice selection of menu items from which to choose.  Our lunch menu had a seafood dish, two salad based entrees, an Angus Burger and other items.

We have been having some problems with our communications capability, our broadband wireless is having "dead" spots off and on, and usually it is when we are trying to get something accomplished.  I am now having problems downloading today's pictures from my camera to my laptop.  ARRRGHH, Windows VISTA is a piece of garbage!!!  It loads the interface the first couple of times with no problem and today, it cannot recognize, or find, the correct drivers.  I will continue trying to get the pictures downloaded but i cannot this evening, I will put them up as soon as we get into a more settled area.  Char is having problems with her broadband wireless modem as well, so it is not just me.  Of course she is trying to do some work for her company and so her problems are a lot more frustrating than mine.

In Montana, somewhere past Havre. 7:30pm Thursday.

We stopped in Havre, Montana to take on fuel and got off the train to stretch out legs a bit.  There is an old steam locomotive in the Havre station and I was able to take a couple of snaps.  I was also able to view our train cars after the engine problems, we have oil streaks all down the sides of the cars and they are also on many of our windows.  Evidently that earlier engine was in serious problems, to be blowing the fuel oil or what ever it is.  Great work by the Amtrak and BNSF train people getting us to a point where another locomotive could be moved up and connected to our cars and continuing our journey.

We had just finished our dinner meal when we arrived in Havre and the couple who are occupying the compartment across the aisle from us were our dinner companions.  He is Tim and she is Joyce and they joined the train in Chicago.  They live in a suburb on the north western side of the city.  We enjoy these meal sharing adventures.  We get to know our fellow passengers and have met some really interesting folks.

It is now totally dark outside our train as we rush down the track through Michelle's Montana countryside.  I will say this much Mitch, it is beautiful country. I can certainly see why you all refer to it as Big Sky country.  Unfortunately, there is nothing further that I will be able to report on tonight, simply because we cannot see anything outside our window.

I will try to bring up the software to load my Canon digital photos as soon as possible and will insert many as soon as I can get them downloaded.

I would strongly encourage folks who are planning any sort of travel to seriously consider riding out national passenger rail system, Amtrak!  It  is fun, relaxing and comfortable.  Our country is so beautiful, that I doubt any train route would fail to provide many enjoyable hours of watching our countryside roll by your windows.

More later, for now, take care.

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