September sees us taking Amtrak out to the west coast to see family and then on a road trip from Bellingham, WA to Quartzsite, AZ. Amtrak was a mixed bag starting out with a phone call telling us that our train scheduled for the 11th of September had been cancelled! Cancelled, how do you cancel an entire train load of people?? We were able to reschedule for the day before and we assured that we could have a sleeper cabin from Chicago to Seattle, even at a discounted price. So, all looks good. We go coach from Albany to Chicago and then on arrival in Chicago are told that our sleeper car is not available. No way, I'm going to sit in coach for 48 hours. After a long time on the phone, they were able to find a cancellation with sleeping accommodations that we were able to get. So, all in all it worked out fine - sleeper cars are OLD, but bunks are comfortable and food (covered in the cost) is quite good. And, when we arrived home we found that they had given us a rebate!
In Renton, WA (suburb of Seattle) we had fun playing with the kids (Abbie almost 6 and Noah 3), being with Jon and Rui, taking walks, visiting the Seattle Spheres which are an Amazon workplace with 40,000 plants from the cloud forest regions of over 30 countries housed in huge glass spheres. We also went to the Seattle Aquarium and even got to attend a State Fair. The Aquarium had the most amazing, huge octopus as well as lots of other sea life. The state fair was a chaos of food, rides, attractions, people and noise! Lots of fun, but once every few years is enough!
Now it's time to head up to Bellingham, WA celebrate Sharon's birthday, help pack up a UHaul and start the journey to Quartzsite, AZ. It's a full pack on the UHaul and we start out with 1 car, 1 UHaul, 4 drivers (Ann, Billy, Sharon, Kip) and 2 big dogs (Lana and Jasper). Our 2 walkie talkies make communication between the 2 vehicles fun - "Subie 1 this is UHaul 1". Subie is for the Subaru. 4 days, 3 nights and we drove through some beautiful but desolate country. I was amused at the first sign that read "last gas for 100 miles", then "last gas for 115 miles", then "last gas for 167 miles"! In Idaho we met up with Nancee (Billy's youngest sister) for a fun lunch. The dogs did great - Sharon and Kip were good to find a park or other place to stop every so often to get them out and let them run a bit. We were all glad to arrive! We stayed for a few days and then Billy drove Ann to Phoenix (OMG, the crazy, wall-to-wall traffic in this area!) to catch a plane back to Vermont as she had to attend a birthday event for her son, while Billy took the Amtrak train down to TX to see sister Suzie (near Austin) and then all the way back to Albany.(No sleeper car this time!)
