Family Vacation 2005, Day 1....

Yesterday, a group of us boarded the Amtrak Auto Train in Virginia. It was me, Jennie, Nicholas, Thomas, Alexis, Ellen (Jennie's sister), Daniel (Ellen's son), Geralyn (Jennie's sister), Vinny and Jeff (Geralyn's boys). The train was scheduled to leave at 5:30, however the train was delayed coming into the station so we had a very long wait in the terminal. Oh well...

About 90% of the passengers on the train were snowbirds. A bunch of old retired folk heading down to Floriday for the winter. There were only a handful of folks with children and we all got thrown into the same car. Not a bad deal until it came time to sleep and some kid wouldn't stop crying and woke up a couple of the kids from our group a number of times.

Dinner was in the dining car, about 4 cars away from ours. The food was better than I expected. The women had roasted chicken and I had baked cod. All of the kids got the "Choo Choo Chewie" meal: chicken tenders, macaroni & cheese, and veggies. Vanilla ice cream all around for dessert (except for the women who had cheesecake).

The seating arrangements were nice and roomy, however, sleeping was a whole nother matter. There was a large padded footrest that folder up from the bottom of the front of the seats and actually rotate up above the height of the seat to form a nice barrier. It worked great to lay one of the kids sideways across the two seats. The footrest prevented them from rolling off. The train car wasn't full so we were able to spread out. We didn't want to leave Alexis all by herself so I took her for the night. I'm a pretty big guy, and trying to find a comfortable position to sleep must have been amusing to watch. The seats only reclined back a little, but definitely not enough for my liking. I'm not looking forward to the trip back home in a week.