Today was crazy. Doing everything necessary to shut the house down for three months in addition to tying up all the loose ends of the bicycle trip created a fair bit of buzz and tension but we made it.
Our daughter Leah picked us up in the afternoon and took us to the Albany Amtrak station where we were joined by Leah’s wife Donna and their two and a half year old daughter Sarah (one of four grand-daughters and two grandsons). Had fun watching trains with Sarah, who was very excited about the whole train thing (somehow she decided trains were going to Coney Island?) but she also got it into her head that she was getting onto a train, so of course there was some upset as we boarded. We’ll miss all the family but particularly the grand children.
The Amtrak part of this trip should prove interesting. Our train left Albany on time, which is a great start and not necessarily a given for Amtrak. We’re on the Lake Shore Express to Chicago, which is just a single overnight and we have something called a “Viewliner Roomette” which provides us seating and converts to sleeping arrangements for two. This turns out to be a fascinating study in space utilization that crams a toilet (!), a fold down sink and two comfortable seats into a space about the size of two phone booths. The space converts into two bunk beds for sleeping. The sleeper car has a fulltime onboard attendant to help with whatever needs you might have and there is a full service dining car with meals included as part of sleeping car booking. In our case our attendant is a pleasant guy from Eastern Europe with heavily accented English. This turns out to be very appropriate as I’ve decided the whole roomette thing reminds me of nothing so much as a space capsule for two and specifically a Soviet space capsule – everything almost sort of works.
Bonus (maybe) – leaving at 7:00 pm, I figured we were too late for dinner and we didn’t grab anything while leaving but we’re in luck at will be eating at 8:00.
Bicycle trip specific – I updated all the Adventure Cycling route maps in the morning before we left (while watching the final time trial stage of the Tour de France where Contador put the icing on the cake). Adventure Cycling maintains and sells maps of various bike specific routes across and around the country. As cyclists using the routes submit updates on road changes and such with camps and motels addendums are published on their website. Since we had bought our set back in 2001 there was quite a bit of updating to do. It’s a cumulative process where you must review every one issued since your map print date, so it’s pretty interesting. Also fascinating to watch various inns, restaurants and camp sites close up, reopen and even close up again during this time span. No great surprise when you consider that the route by design goes thru some pretty sparsely settled areas.
Also, got an email that our bikes have arrived and are waiting for us in Florence, OR. We’re going to the Lighthouse Inn in Florence which has been cited by several transam blogs as being a good value, convenient and cyclist friendly. We’ll arrive there Sunday night, I’ll use Monday to assemble our bikes, Tuesday for a loop out to the Pacific ocean and then we’ll set out Wednesday morning on the ultimate trip.
Michael
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