Ithaca, NY, to Madison WI
Tuesday, November 23rd- Sunday, November 28th, 2010
Armed, as one must be when facing Amtrak, with the spirit of adventure, Robbie and I set out from Cornell at 11:30am on Tuesday morning. Our bus ride to Syracuse went off without a hitch, and we caught a movie (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1) in the Syracuse mall before returning to the train station to wait.
We hadn't exactly realized until boarding the train that our tickets in a sleeper car gave us first class, VIP status, but we discovered soon enough, as we walked into a tiny cabin with our names and destination already tagged on the door.
Me: "Wow, I'm exhausted. And kinda hungry..."
enter Ralph
Ralph: "Good evening, I'm Ralph, and I'll be attending to your every need. You've just missed dinner, but there's still food in the lounge car if you're hungry. Let me know whenever you'd like me to do your turndown service."
Us: blank stares of amazement "...Thanks!"
We managed the "turn down" ourselves, converting the chairs in the cabin into two (extraordinarily tiny) bunk beds, and actually managed to get some decent sleep before waking up the next morning to what we thought should be Illinois landscape.
Robbie, after situating the top bunk for me. It was tight, but would have been pretty comfortable if we had figured out the thermostat-- the blankets they give you are not designed for warmth.
Turns out, we woke up in Michigan.
enter Ralph
Ralph: "We're running a little behind schedule, but help yourselves to complimentary breakfast in the dining car, or coffee and juice just at the end of the hall by the showers."
Us: blank stares of amazement "Thanks, Ralph!"
The breakfast was fabulous (who knew french toast cooked at 190mph could be so good?), and we learned from other passengers that we had been rerouted up to Detroit, and were VERY behind schedule.
...Several hours later...
Robbie: "I'm starving. When do you think--"
enter Ralph
Ralph: "They're going to serve lunch to the sleeping car passengers, if you two are interested in cheeseburgers."
Us: blank stares of amazement "Thanks, Ralph!"
Seeing as we were supposed to be off the train by 10am, they only had lunch food for us VIPs-- very lucky for us, as we were starving, and hadn't brought any food. When all the sleeper car passengers ate lunch together, we could definitely tell that we were not the typical demographic. Most were around 50, and clearly traveled like this a lot. We finally made it to Chicago in the late afternoon, and even then, the drive out in rush hour traffic was a nightmare. It was late evening on Wednesday before we finally reached home at last.
Some of our escapades in Wisconsin-- I introduced Robbie to the true Sconnie spirit of hockey games, and we bought each other hats for the occasion
We discovered later that it was a derailment on a major Amtrak rail that caused our rerouting and delay, and luckily no such thing happened on our return journey. We arrived just a half hour behind schedule, safely returned to our Cornell campus to start exam prep... yay.
