I have a few days off after working 12-14 hour days over the past week and it is most welcome!

With this much time off I decided to take myself to Chicago! I’ve been a few times for work and an interview, but never for pleasure so I think it’s time.

Chicago is about 4 hours from Ann Arbor and after three hours sleep and twelve hours of work, who wants to drive? Yeah, not me.

I looked at flights and then I remembered Amtrak! KS and I have passed the station many times and we’ve talked about taking a trip and train travel. It always makes me nostalgic for when I was a kid and my grandma M, my dad’s mom, would Come to NYC, meet my family at Penn station and she and I would get on Amtrak and head to Philadelphia.

It was always so much fun- being on the train, going to the snack car, all of it, and I thought this would be like that, not so much.

Now, I did take the train from Buffalo to NYC when I was in college, to go home, but it’s been a long time and I was worth friends.

It’s incredibly reasonable. The roundtrip ticket was less expensive than what I would pay for parking at the hotel, if that tells you anything. Someone else gets to drive and I just sit back and relax.

Or so I thought.

There are three sections- Coach, business and quiet. Business is what it sounds like, get some work done the quiet car is just that, quiet, no talking, no cell phones and music or movies with headphones only. Guess where I am…

Let’s just say going back will be Business or the quiet car. No talking, mouthing off, obscenities, especially with kids on the train, drunks, showing off, screaming kids, parents screaming at their kids, so happy to have headphones!

I also forgot how much the train cars shake. It’s definitely been an experience and I’ve enjoyed it, no matter what the trip and fellow passengers have been like, watching the scenery go by while the sun was still up.

I have a feeling the hotel will make up for all of that. Tell you more tomorrow!