Travel Can Be Difficult

Happy New Year!  We had a wonderful visit with our daughter’s family in Connecticut.  We flew Delta to Atlanta, then picked up a flight to Connecticut. We took a 7:00 pm flight because we thought we might need an extra day on the boat for weather issues. All was well until my bag didn’t arrive. It was midnight and we didn’t get home until 1:30 am. 😔  And yes, I finally got my bag at 5:00 pm the next day. 

Christmas was great!  The grandchildren are the perfect ages:  7, 5, and 2. 

We planned to return to the boat on the auto-train. We had looked into renting a car in Melbourne, but it was $5,000!!  So on Wednesday, January 5, we set out to drive the 7 hours to Washington, DC to catch the auto-train by 2:30 pm. But about 40 min after leaving home we were on the interstate still in Connecticut. It started to be freezing rain. Apparently there was a multi car pileup ahead of us. We all stopped and had to wait 4 HOURS for it to be cleared. We had left home at 5:30am but we could not make up the time to get to the train in time. Because of this, we lost our sleeper room and had to try to sleep in the coach section.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.

So we stayed in Annapolis that night, and drove the last hour and a half Thursday morning. Got to the train in plenty of time, our car was in line and we just sat there for over an hour. Finally Amtrak employees came by to say the Florida train was 4 hours late 🤦🏼‍♀️

So we were in the Amtrak station waiting for them to board our cars so we could get on the train that should have left the station at 4pm.  The train actually left at 9pm. So we started out 5 hours late. Then at 11pm there was some sort of medical emergency. The train stopped at the Richmond, VA station and the paramedics came onto the train and took the patient off on a gurney. This put us another half hour behind schedule.   We also stopped and waited for freight trains a couple of times. Apparently, the train rule is that an on-time train takes precedence over a late train.  😮

So we finally pulled into Sanford, Florida (Orlando) 6 hours late. Then our car was off the train within 40 minutes, which is really quick. It could have been 2 hours. We then drove the hour and a half back to Melbourne.  When we entered the boat, we could tell that the power had been turned off. We had left our refrigerator with food and now it was all spoiled.  And not only that, but we had to clean up the mess with no sleep, which took an hour and a half. We had chips for dinner.  I was not happy. 😡 

Our son came over after work the following day, so it was worth it all to see him!  So we are now in Florida for January and February.  It was 11 degrees in the morning one day while we were in Connecticut.  People here in Florida are complaining if it gets to 70 or 72.  I think we’ll try to get by. 😂  

The George Washington Bridge in New York.  "Oh, the traffic won't be bad at noon on a weekday." 

Not a bad view of a beautiful sunset out of our hotel window in Annapolis:

The Auto-Train the next morning. Our filthy CT car.

Since the train didn't get to the station until it was 4 hours late, they loaded our cars in the dark

We finally left at 9:00 pm, five hours late.  And we had to wear our Covid masks
the entire time we were in the station and on the train.