South West Chief

Vacation Fall 2011 (11 of 12) :

Our friends Jim and Sandy are Amtrak afectionados and have travelled most of the network. Ali and I were 60 this year and they very generously gave us sleeper tickets from Kansas City home to San Jose. Thank you very much, Sandy and Jim.

The train departed Kansas City at 10:45pm. Perfect. We were able to enjoy dinner with Janet and Larry, drop the rental car and arrive easily on time for the train. Be brought some California Champagne to celebrate all the great things in life, including become a US Citizen in July and completing our travels to all 50 States.

When we awoke, the train was in Colorado and arrived in New Mexico about lunch-time. We had a one hour scheduled stop in Albuquerque and Ali and I had a little walk in the downtown. On our previous visit, we were trapped in our hotel for 2 days in a snow storm just after Christmas 2006. It was dark (as only the desert can be) by the time we reached Arizona. The train was delayed by a couple of hours, however we easily made our connection in LA for the Coast Starlight.

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