The train staff on this particular train were excellent. We were warned by our sleeper car attendant on the first leg that the crews out of New Orleans weren't very good. We found, however, that the crew we had was the very best from the entire trip. Albert, our sleeping car attendant on the Crescent, was very friendly and efficient without being annoying. He remembered our names and left chocolates on our beds when he made them.
The scenery wasn't overly exceptional, but that wasn't a bad thing. It was nice to see green and hills again after spending so much time in the desert on the previous leg. I tried to convince dad that every empty field we traveled through in the South was a Civil War battle site, but he didn't believe me. I can't understand why...
I got to add both Mississippi and Alabama to my list of states visited, bringing my current total to 42 states. That's not so bad at all. Other than that, I don't have much to say about those states. Dad was happy to leave them, he has a particular dislike for Alabama, especially Birmingham.
We slept through South and North Carolina and southern Virginia, so I didn't really get to see much of the mountains there. Most of my pictures from this leg, in fact, are pretty bad because the the window was dirty so my camera wanted to focus on the spots on the window rather than what was outside. Also, the direction of the sun for much of the trip made weird glares to deal with. I wasn't so good about taking pictures once we got north of Washington, DC - I've been that route several times either by train or car in the past and the scenery for the most part was made up of towns or trees really close to the train tracks, making for some pretty boring pictures.
One kind of weird thing about this train was that most of our meals were eaten as just the 2 of us instead of with other dining companions. The train just wasn't that full. That was fine with me, though, I've pretty much grown tired of the same conversations at every single meal with new people. I've also grown tired of the menu options...
Two important things should be noted. First, I am the Grand Champion of both Uno and Cribbage (though Dad did make a good run at coming back in both). Second, Dad nearly killed me. In a completely unprovoked attack on my person, Dad cut me and drew gushing blood on my leg. At least that is the story I am going to tell. (In reality, I probably threw something at him to get him to stop snoring or something and he tried to get back, where in the process, he scratched my leg, drawing blood.) I hope he feels bad.
Dad is clearly jealous of my masterful Uno playing skills that he flings the cards everywhere in disgust.
My mortal wound. I reopened it when I took off the bandaid. That made it hurt more than the initial scratch.
We got into Penn Station a little early and were able to switch our ticket to an earlier train to CT. Originally, David was going to pick us up in Hartford, but he asked to pick us up in New Haven instead since he was down that way. So we got off in New Haven (that little train was 20 minutes late, go figure) and we left for home.
The trip was a great experience and I'll post some type of final post in the next few days, but for now I need to catch up my mail and my missed TV shows, sleep in my own bed, play with my cat, stress about my move, and get ready for school. Welcome back to the real world!
1 comment:
welcome home :)
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