After planning for months the day finally arrived, saying our goodbyes to our Grandsons Kenny Jr. and Richie who wanted us to bring them back License plates from Florida, and are going to take care of our dog Alva and water, turn on and off the growlite to the plants we started from seeds for our vegetable and flower gardens. Our son Kenny Sr. drove us in our car to the Patchogue Railroad Station the weather was cold, but at least it did not rain like they forecast on TV.
We boarded the 9:29AM to Penn Station in Manhattan, we had to change at Babylon and we were lucky in that the train was not packed, Adele bungcorded her two suitcases together while I carried one on my back and dragged one along. The one thing I that feared was bring the bags on the train to the city, but I noticed a lot of people with bags some going to Jamaica for the train to the plane, others like us to Penn Station for Amtrak. When we got to Penn Station we went up the escalator from the Long Island Railroad to the Amtrak part of the station. We found the computer terminal they call “Quik-Trak” scanned the barcode on the paper we printed out from the Amtrak web site and got our tickets to the Amtrak 3:15PM train 97 to Orlando Florida, we were very early as it was only 11Am when we got to Penn Station because we wanted to be sure for this was our first time getting an Amtrak Train. When I was young my parent did bring my sister and I to Atlantic City by Pennsylvania Central that ran out of the old Penn Station before they rebuild it to put Madison Square Garden on top of it.
We ate lunch at a pizza concession place in Penn Station, and then waited in the Amtrak waiting room for Dorothy and John, I took my first photo of Dorothy and Adele talking in the waiting room, I took two cameras one small Olympus Camera and one SLR Canon Camera . They arrived about 12:40PM they had taken the Amtrak from upstate New York right into Penn Station. We waited and we waited but finally it was about time for the train so we went out to the main area where the gate to the tracks were and a Red Cap gentleman asked us if we needed help with our bags, we told we didn’t know what gate the train on going to be on for they didn’t announce it yet, he said that he did and for a tip he would bring us to the train early, we told him for-get-about-it. The gate was finally posted they directed us to the last car on the train.
They assigned us seats 21 to 24 two on one side and two on the other side; the seats were nice wider apart than on the plane and with foot rests. After we got settled in the train took off and when it stopped for a short time in New Jersey I took my second photo out the back of the train it didn’t turn out to good, but what the hell it decided to keep anyway. The scenery out the train was as you would expect it to be, but passing through Baltimore Maryland with all it’s boarded up apartment buildings were signs of the ruins of the American Working Class. The train stopped outside of Baltimore to change Engines from electric to Diesel and we waited about a half hour there before going on. We ate some of the snacks dark Chocolate bars (100cal) and read our books (I listen to my audio book “A Distant Mirror”) I took a few photos of us in our seats reading and sleeping with the small camera. Then when the train stop at Jacksonville we got out for about 20 minutes I took photos of the train and tracks, I would like to have gotten a picture from the front, but it was a long train and I was afraid I would get back to the rear car. The train had a lounge with a few premade foods that were not very good. We looked at the dining car beyond that with its way over priced menu. We did have some wine in the lounge with Dorothy and at other times some coffee, we didn’t sleep very well in our seats, then we finally got to Orlando
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