Hey everyone! I decided to do a little blog to tell you about my trip. I am traveling from Eastern Montana all the way to New Orleans! I am taking the Amtrak train and this first leg of the trip is on a historic train called "The Empire Builder" and it goes all the way from Seattle to New York (I believe) and it's one of the oldest tracks in the USA! Let's start by discussing the trip thus far.
Day 1 on the Empire Builder
I booked this trip slightly last minute and I've never taken the train this far, but I am familiar with the train. To be honest, I prefer train travel over all other forms of travel if I'm not in a rush. It's comfortable and soothing to take the train. The best part is I usually have plenty of room to set up my laptop and everything else I need. The one downside to train travel is that it is notoriously late. And that was exactly the case for this trip. I was supposed to be boarding at 7 pm, but the train was delayed by 3 hours.
I'm not 100% sure why it was delayed but I got a notification that it didn't leave Seattle on time and it was running 3 hours late. I checked the weather on that route and it didn't seem like it was weather related, so I have to assume they had to do some repairs to the train before they could take off. I wasn't super worried though. As long as I get to my connecting train in Chicago on time, then I'm just fine.
I decided to pack fairly light for this trip. I'm bringing one carry on bag and one personal item, but I'm also bringing some sandwiches and drinks so I don't have to pay the insane train prices. This is something I learned through the years of traveling on the train. It's better to bring your own snacks than to pay $20 for a fried egg sandwich or something lol.
Boarding The Train - Starting My Trip
The boarding process is way easier than getting on a plane. No TSA or scanners to deal with. You literally just go to a train car and walk on. I decided to choose the seat right next to the stairs, so I can quickly exit when I need to. I also chose a seat that is near the Cafe, just incase I wanted to splurge lol.
With the train being so late, I found it very easy to find a seat. The train wasn't full which makes things nice. I decided against getting a sleeper car as that was about $600 more and I didn't see the value in that. I was able to sprawl out across the two seats, since no one was sitting by me. Here is a shot I took before getting some shut eye. As you can see it's very calming when they turn on the blue lights at night.
I slept without any real issue and actually got a decent amount of sleep. The chairs are comfortable enough and I brought my pillow and blanket from home to give me added comfort. Nothing like sleeping with your own pillow!
When The Morning Came
I opened my eyes to see where we made it to. We were just crossing into Minnesota when I awoke. I have traveled to Minnesota a lot, with the most recent time being when I visited Wrestling Organization Online (WOO's) partnered wrestler Perry Saturn (@planetaryinc on Hive) during his hip replacement surgery. You can check out the series of videos we are releasing about that here:
Well, back to talking about the trip. As I was saying, I slept just fine and I was now traveling through the beautiful Minnesota landscape. I didn't grab too many pictures of the scenery, but I did happen to snag this one.
The stops the train made weren't very long. You could tell the train was trying to make up time since they were running 3 hours late, but by the time I woke up we were only about 2 hours behind. Which, again, I was fine with. Mostly because I had a 3.5 hour layover in Chicago and I wasn't super looking forward to being in that train depot that long, so I was praying for a bit of delay to eat into that time. Praise God my prayers seemed to be answered lol.
It was about this time I figured it was time to get some work done. I fired up my laptop and opened Adobe Premiere Pro to continue working on part 3 of the video series I mentioned above. This was also the perfect time to have a little breakfast. I made some turkey and cheese sandwiches for this trip, so I grabbed one out of my bag and started munching down as I did my work. Not going to lie, it's pretty relaxing working under these conditions. I could get used to this!
Mystery of the Late Train Solved!
Remember how I said the train was 3 hours late? Well, I asked one of the train employees what happened and if it was a mechanical issue or what. Well, come to find out it was a mechanical issue, but not for the train I was on. It looks like one of the trains in Seattle needed repair, and the train I am on had to wait for them to start moving before they could get going. So, I was correct to assume that it was a mechanical issue, but luckily it wasn't for the train I'm riding.
I feel like a true detective figuring that out lol. It took me a bit, but eventually I got there lol. All it took was me asking the right person the right question and boom there is the answer! Well, now that I have that figured out, I think it's time to go check out the observation deck.
As you can see from the image above the train is starting to fill up! More and more people are getting on the train the closer we get to Chicago. I want to say the train employee told me that 200 people were getting on the train between St. Paul Minnesota and Chicago! Luckily, I have been able to keep it to just me in my seats, so I have 2 seats I can sprawl out on. It's not like I really need it since I won't be sleeping, but it's nice to have my own space. I'm really hoping that once I transfer trains in Chicago until I get to New Orleans I am by myself.
It's a little harder to sleep when I can't lay flat and have to worry about elbowing the person next to me. But, we will see how that goes. I am going to sign off on this leg of the trip and the next post I do will be about the historic Chicago Union Depot and the last leg of my travels. Wish me luck and I hope you enjoyed this post.
Until Next time, Stay Safe and Enjoy Your Travels!
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 44.51800 lat -92.29669 long On the train heading to Chicago! d3scr))