Looking back on the train trip from South Bend......

Today is a retro-blog.....dating back to the train trip from South Bend, Indiana to Ashland, Virginia in mid October to be with Kristy while she battled the Bone Marrow Transplant. I left Elkhart/South Bend with great anticipation, hoping to see her win the battle and the war on Leukemia. In retrospect, I certainly wished that I had completed writing this blog when I first arrived in Ashland, as I did not know then what we all know now. But those were busy days, and there was not much time for reflecting on the train trip that I had enjoyed so much. After Kristy's death, I really didn't feel like writing about the trip that started out with so much optimism and enjoyment.

Having said this, today I will recount the train trip on the Twilight, an Amtrak Superliner, that runs daily from Chicago to Washington, DC.

Now, I have always loved the train, and we have taken the train from Fredericksburg to New York City and had such fun on the trips. Once, it snowed about about 14 inches the night before our train trip to NY and what a treat!! Everything was covered in white....Philadelphia and Newark look so pretty when the grime and graffiti are covered in a beautiful layer of fresh white snow!

It was getting quite cold when I left South Bend, but no snow as yet. Bob took me to the station and I boarded the train with two other women... an Amish woman headed to Toledo and a nice South Bend gal named Sue.


Sue....my fun traveling companion!

Sue hadn't been on the train before, so she was a little unsure about enjoying it, but I think she became a convert! We boarded around 9:30 pm and around midnight we were hungry and thirsty, so we found our way down to the lounge and sat talking and sharing a beverage for a good while. It sure makes time fly when you have a good conversationalist to share time with! Sue was on her way to South Carolina to see her daughter and granddaughter. We managed to spend a great deal of time talking and eating during our trip and I felt truly blessed to find a great "train friend" to help pass the time in such an enjoyable manner. Thanks, Sue for sharing your trip with me!

I hadn't been on a "Superliner" before; this was a double decker train, with seating and berths below, and seating, lounges, dining room car and observation rooms above. This made the upper seating very quiet and soothing, as they were large and roomy with fully reclining seats; it made for a truly comfy trip. The conductor indicated that they only run the Superliners in the Mid-West and West, due to the height of the bridges in the Eastern part of the country.

About the time we passed near Toledo, it began to snow. And snow it did, all the way thru the Cumberland Mountains of Maryland.

It was like a winter wonderland.......

Some photos from the observation car of the snowy landscape....

the trees were still showing their bright fall colors and the snow frosted them white...

the little Church in the wildwood.....

a Pennsylvania valley in Fall splendor...

passing the Jefferson Memorial leaving Washington DC...

into Virginia and on to the station in Ashland!!

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It was good to be back in ol' Virginia and I was glad to see my brother-in-law, Allen, waiting at the station...but it really was a magical trip for me. It was almost as if time had been suspended for the duration of the trip, and I just knew that all was good and right with the world. It was a good choice to take this train trip home at that time, for many reasons. I'm so grateful I did.