April 24 2024 Train Ride

  We made it!   Logistics were taken care of as far as bike prep and packing and this morning left about  6:15 to pedal down to the train station.   This was a chilly trip in the 37 degree air! When we arrived, we were grateful to see that a couple of friends came to see us off. The train was on time and we got our bikes on the train successfully with us handing them up to the conductors.  

Later on when our tickets were checked,  the conductor noticed that we only had one bike reservation not two. We explained that when we booked our trip, we found out that there was only one reservation available no matter what day we selected. At first we thought that someone had already booked the available spots.  But the agent checked every day out into July--each day, only one!  However for the return trip there were 3 reservations available each day. So Kay went down to the station early the next morning to meet the train. She talked with a conductor and he agreed that didn't make sense and that each car had room for 3 bicycles. He said just go ahead and plan your trip and that they would be able to get both bikes on even if we had just one registered, as didn't want that to prevent our vacation.   Today's conductor did some checking, then he was fine with us having the two bikes on even though we had the one reservation.  For all the other legs of our trip we had the two bikes signed up.

  On the train, Jim got to practice sewing with dental floss as one of the handles came off on one of the old panniers.

  Also riding the train was a couple that we've known for years as clients. We had a fun time chatting with them as they also do some bicycling.

   We arrived in Chicago on and in 50 minutes there was  a train leaving for St Louis, which was unavailable to us to schedule when we got our tickets as the turn-around time is too short. However we decided to try to rebook on that train and we were successful!  This was nice as we got to St Louis about 3 pm instead of in the evening. So were able to ride to the arch, see the Mississippi River and then ride to our daughter & son-in-law's house which was a fun challenge riding through the city.  Ride with GPS did a pretty good job at picking out good city roads for us to ride on. 

  We also met a grandmother on the train, who was going to visit her new granddaughter and help out her daughter who graduated from MSU med school  and is a pain specialist at the VA hospital in St Louis.  She also has a son in Chicago who specializes in retinal diseases. 

    Excitement at our daughter's house--they are temporarily taking care of a puppy who likes to bark at night, so Jim got to take a walk at 4 am when the puppy woke up and started to bark.