Gyaaaah! OK, I'm sitting down and forcing myself to write about my trip...

So, I stayed at the Red Roof Inn when I was stuck in Baltimore, and when I got there after the long, exhausting day I had (see my previous posts), I asked them if there was someplace to eat nearby. Being the genius I am, I of course did not really have anything to eat all day. So they told me that there was a restaurant/sports bar at the Marriott across the street. I go over there, and a guy who was also staying at the Red Roof Inn who saw me walking over there sat down with me. He's an attorney from the Chicago area (apparently, according to Michael, this is not uncommon behavior for lawyerly-types). Then he proceeds to order some beers. Of course, I stupidly succumb to the peer pressure (even though he's not my peer...hahaa). So there I am, drinking a beer, nothing in my stomach, and since the place is so crowded, the service is slow and the food takes FOREVER to get out.

When I finally get back to the inn, I had a moderate hangover and I had another whole day of travel to look forward to. I couldn't go to sleep, so I explored the inn (outside, see the pictures of my foggy breath), and found a bottle of water to down. Basically, I turned a crappy end of the day into an even crappier day, all because I was too afraid to stick up to my principles. That's something I really need to work on.

Thankfully, I woke up the next day not feeling all that bad (I think I fell asleep at 3 and ended up waking up at 6 or something) and got ready to experience the joys of Amtrak.

This is a nice picture, but it doesn't show how freakin' cold it was. I guess the temperature wasn't that bad, but there was a really brisk wind blowing from the north, so as soon as you stepped away from the south side of any building, you just got blasted. This poor guy had to shovel all the snow off the platform (although I guess he might be fairly warm due to all the exertion). One of the conductors even mentioned that this was the nicest platform he came across that day because all the other platforms were all filled with snow and slush.

Apart from him there was also this lady standing out in the freezing wind with only an umbrella to protect her. Simply crazy.... There was a section of the platform which was covered and which everybody huddled inside while they waited for the train. I don't know why she decided to wait at the far end of the platform (where the shovelling guy hadn't even reached yet).


Train tracks are weird. I don't remember there being very many turns when I take Caltrain to the city. But there are certain stretches of track where the train is definitely tilted in one direction. It's kinda hard to see in this picture, but it almost looks like the train is going to fall over. And it's not like the train is going very fast since it just pulled out of the station, so the tracks don't really need to be banked or anything. When I was on the train to D.C., there were definitely portions of straight track where the train was leaning to the left...weird...

Visual evidence of the wind. Southwards, you can get a good view of the tracks. To the north, all you can see is the ice and slush the wind has covered the window with.

This is of the upper level of Union Station, where some of the fancier restaurants are. It was nice to be able to walk around a look at a lot of the stuff (although toting the luggage around too was not that nice. This was about the time that I decided that walking around D.C. with my luggage after coming up from Charlottesville was not going to work). Learning my lesson from the previous day, I made sure to eat plenty of yummies since it lunch time and the train was not due for a couple hours. I think I had a cinnamon bun and a banana/walnut muffin. Yum.

So I finally get to Charlottesville, and of course since the train is delayed then I've thrown everybody's schedule out of whack and Michael can't come to pick me up anymore. And I call Felicity to see if she can pick me up, but she can't because she just got a call from the airline that her flight has been cancelled and she's scrambling to reschedule. Once she got everything sorted out, she called me and said she was on her way. Of course, out there, it means that she has to shovel the driveway and wait for her car to warm up...I think she ended up showing up about 40 minutes after she said she was out the door...hahaha.

It was all good...it was a sunny day (but still cold) and I took a lot of pictures. And knocked over my camera and broke my tripod...boooo...

Felicity gave me a whirlwind tour of the grounds and then we met up with Michael & Co for some dinner. It was nice to finally put my luggage down and enjoy having arrived!! =)