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Another fitful night of almost sleeping. The coach seats are better than airplane seats, but not exactly beds. By morning we were just about two hours behind schedule. We didn't fall any behind that, but we didn't make up any time, either.
Don treated the whole crew to lunch in the dining car, a very generous gesture. The service on this train is immensely better than on the way out. The dining car staff are actually jovial, quite a contrast.
We arrived in Chicago a little over 2 hours late. We thought we had made up some of the lost time, but there was much switching and waiting as we neared the station, and that burned up a lot of time.
There not being enough time for leaving the station, we piled our bags in the "great hall." I watched them while the scouts visited the arcades and had dinner. Don and Bob then relieved me, I went scrounging myself.
There's a raging thunderstorm outside. It feels so right. (Except that the humidity is 97% instead of 25%.)
The City of New Orleans finally departed at 8:20 pm, a half hour late, because it took them so long to load the bags. The baggage handling techniques seem to be rather archaic.
After traveling a few miles, we stopped and sat until 9 pm. Apparently (it is still pouring rain), a switch we needed to pass over was under water. We finally backed up, almost to the station, and then passed through on another track. We were now about two hours late, and hoped that Amtrak would give the people meeting us correct information about the delay. On the Southwestern Chief, the crew was very good about keeping us informed of delays and their causes. On the City of New Orleans, on the other hand, no information was volunteered. Not a helpful attitude
I called my wife from the phone on the train to let her know about the delay. It turned out that that was a good idea, since 1-800-USA-RAIL didn't admit that the train was delayed until well after we should have already been in Champaign.
We arrived in Champaign a bit after midnight. We had made up some of the lost time, but not quite the scheduled 10:20.
And our trip was over. Everyone was tired and looking forward to a night
in their own beds. But we'll all be looking back on this trip as a high
point of our lives.
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