My 2 Grand Adventure

Super Tuesday

I had to catch the 9am train from Boston to head for Chicago. I was a little ominous about the trip after my past experiences. That and the fact the trip was scheduled to take around 21 hours! Yes, an entire day on a train!

I never finished the Freedom Trail, which I'm not too bothered about as I saw most of it from the duck tour, and I never made it up the Pru Building, but I've already been up two tall buildings and there's still the Sears Tower in Chicago.

This is also the day of the US Presidential Election. Apparently they are setting up lots of events in Boston, Kerry's home town. It would have been nice to say 'I was there' but I have to get to Chicago and politics never was my thing.

The train journey starts OK. It's a 4-hour trip to Albany then we change trains for the long haul to Chicago. When we change trains the conductor says turn left for coach passengers and right for sleeping berths. What!?! The woman at the Amtrak station had lied to me, there was sleeping carriages on the trip. I'm gutted. I wanted to do the whole train cabin experience but now I have to spend all night in a train seat. I asked the conductor if I could upgade, but no dice.

The rest of the trip goes relatively uneventfully; we hit some more train traffic, we have to stop for half-an-hour when the electrics go of in the carriage and we loose the lights. Apart from that I finish my 3rd book of the trip, eat lots of train food and get a few hours sleep.

Across from me is a woman who seems to have brought a whole bedroom with her, she regularly phones home to check on the progress of the election. No gossip there though, the only response she gets is 'it's too close to call'. When everything goes dark, I curl up to sleep.

posted by Mark Slattery @ 5:33 pm