Wednesday, December 01, 2010

The Train Ride.

As I mentioned in my last post we took the Amtrak train home to Florida for Thanksgiving.

Griffin has always wanted to ride a train so my wonderful husband decided to book us a large private room on the Amtrak headed south.


This is south bound 91 train ... Whoo Whoo! This is actually a picture of it after we arrived in Florida. It was dark when we left Richmond so I didn't get a picture before we left.


Our room was nice. It had a nice long couch and an additional chair for sitting. We also had a private bathroom, sink and shower area. The couch pulled out into a double bed and there was a pull down unit over that like a bunk bed. Griffin slept in the bunk bed area. Mike and I "slept" in the double bed. Slept is such a relative term ... it was actually VERY hard to sleep on the train. Even for someone like me that can sleep anywhere.


Mike enjoyed having the chair and table area for his computer.


Love this picture of Griffin in the dining car. The train was rounding a curve and I took a picture so you can see him with the train in the background.


We enjoyed several meals on the train. Our trip actually took 20 hours to get there and 20 hours to get back home on the return trip. Our meals were included in the ticket/room price. They have excellent food. The first evening we enjoyed a nice thick, hearty steak. The dinner on the way home was mahi-mahi with etouffe. Delicious!


This is a picture of us at the Winter Haven train station. Waiting for our train to pick us up and head back home. Seems like the train is always running "20 minutes late". While we were waiting a freight train came through. Griffin thought that was AWESOME!


Bett took us to the train station and we were surprised that Bonnie and Jerome came to see us off too!

That citrus plant you see in the background is W.G. Rowe ... they make Noble orange juice. It smelled so good!

A funny thing happened while we were on the train. Pop & Nana asked us to call them when we were close to the Davenport crossing. They wanted to come down to wave goodbye to us. They arrived and pulled over near the crossing. While they were sitting there a police car pulled up behind them to find out what they were doing. They explained to the officer what was happening and he laughed and thought it was neat. He waited until he heard the train coming and then turned on his blue flashing lights so we could see them better. Wasn't that nice? It was great "seeing" you Pop & Nana as we passed through your neck of the woods.

We did enjoy our train adventure ... it was quite the experience!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Promise Me!!!!!!
The next time you come to Winter Haven you call/txt/email me!!!!

I'm glad you had a great trip :)

Anonymous said...

Missy,

Sounds like a fun train trip. I agree with you I can not sleep on the train either and wonder how people do. We took the train from La to Portland it was my first time. My husband has taken it from here to New York. We would love to do it again. To bad the train isnt a little cheaper though. So glad you all had a good time.
Terri E

Bonnie said...

Great pictures. Love the one of Griffin in the dining car with the train in the background. And how awesome was that Police Officer with Nana and Pop? I'm glad you made it home safe.

Teresa AKA: T said...

Awe Missy what an awesome thing to do... And the cop thing just gave me chills... Thanks for sharing

Cecile said...

We have always wanted to take a train trip with Cole and it looks so fun we may have to do that this summer:)Griffin is so cute you got some great pictures the memories will last forever:)And the cop rocks!!