Extended trip back to Denver via Chicago - 10,11,12 Sept
USA | Friday, 12 September 2008 | Views [839]
10 Sept - Wednesday
Up early and Ben dropped us at the station on his way to work in time to catch the 8.30am Texas Eagle which finally arrived at 10.30am. Now the plan was that we got off the train at Springfield Illinois and caught a bus to Galesburg, Illinois where we would meet and get on the California Zephyr to Denver. However due to the lateness of the Texas Eagle and it got later and later as we went down the tracks, we missed the bus at Springfield and were told to stay on the train to Chicago. Whoopie! We got our trip not only extended by a day but got put up in a hotel and got given $60 for dinner. When we got to the hotel we ventured out for food, we raided the local K Mart then Kent went looking for hot food and found a McD's and a Taco Bell open. However only the drivethru on each was actually open and they wouldn't serve him as he wasn't in a car – no imagination these Americans. We are unable to repeat here Kent's reaction to this and will disavow any knowledge of bad behaviour on any side.
11 Sept – Thursday
A wonderful sleep-in in a huge bed, tv watchin, all sorts of yummies for breakfast, and coffee of course. Picked up by the shuttle at 11am, back to Chicago Union station. No chance to do any wandering around as we only had an hour until the train was ready so we hooked into the station wireless after getting into our familiar possy behind the Amtrak ticketing machines and using their power, and uploaded more pics to the blog and caught up on email. Now we are finally on the last leg of our America trip, it is 4.30pm and we are still in Ilinois after 2 ½ hours of travel. The terrain has slowly changed from absolutely flat to lightly rolling countryside, still filled with acres and acres of corn and fallow crops. The farmhouses here seem slightly smaller than the Armish homes we saw in Pennsylvania and the siloes are a different shape and not as tall. The sun has disappeared behind a cloudy sky and it looks like we may be heading into rain, must be heading for Denver! :)
Tags: chicago, denver