Day 2 or our Amtrak Rail-Pass trip

Saturday January 16th....

We slept like new born babies(?). We were asleep then awake, asleep then awake, asleep....We had taken a sleep aid so actually did pretty well considering it was the first night aboard a rocking train sleeping in a lazy Boy-like seat instead of a bed. We woke up about 6:00 which is normal for both of us. We moved to the Observation Car where we could sit at a table and watch the scenery and spam our friends on Facebook. We ate a couple pickled eggs to carry us over till we got to Chicago about 3 hours away.

We arrived at Chicago Union Station about 30 minutes late at 9:30 am. The Train backs underground to the station and you don't have to worry about snow or rain.

Once inside we headed for a REAL bathrooms to do our business and clean up a bit where there was a lot more room than was available in the train restrooms. Shawn says the train rocks and rolls and you will likely fall when you go to the restroom but its not a big deal cause you can't fall more than about 3 inches without hitting a wall.Next we stopped and took a photo op stop and then sat down to a luxurious breakfast bar!

Union Station is huge covering about a whole city block and 3 stories tall. The old ornate part of the station is a single room but the other half has 3 stories of shops, restaurants and fast food joints as well as ticketing counters for busses, light rails, Amtrak and assorted support for each. Shawn has an excercise tech gadget and it says we walked about 3 miles today and never left the station!

We walked around, studied the maps and had a gourmet taco lunch with 2 exotic fillings.

Although there is no Baggage Storage service in Chicago there are lockers for rent and the bigger ones are plenty large enough to store all our stuff in a single locker.

We Boarded the Empire Builder about 1:45pm and pulled out of the station heading for Milwaukee and then Northwest to Minneapolis, Fargo, and then west till we can't go any further We got almost to Minneapolis before the first snow covered ground . Soon after darkness came and we couldn't see anything bu passing lights from the train.

For dinner we broke out the "King Of The Road" supplies and proceded to "Dont Ask Dont Tell" cook our dinner in boiling water in our electric water heater. We sat in the Observation Car and plugged the water heater in and sat it on the seat beside us so it wouldn't attract any attention. As soon as the 1/2 full water began to boil we unplugged it and slipped the food pouch into it to heat. A few minutes later we repeated the process for the second course of the meal.

Tonight it was easy to do "Don't Ask Don't Tell" things cause there was nobody to ask and nobody to tell!