Vacation #12: More changed plans

We got to Penn station on time taking the second cab who stopped. The first driver was a bit disdainful that we didn’t want to carry all those bags close to a mile. The second driver was quite helpful. We got to the station just a bit earlier than we had planned.

At Penn Station there was a long line for the ticket counter. Everyone looked a bit tired and somewhat in a state of worry/panic.  We joined the line.  It was hard to keep in mind that we had to just go with the flow.  What if the line took too long and we missed our train?  What if we had inaccurate information and there really were not seats for us on this train?  Thoughts can get a little dicey with lack of sleep and unexpected circumstances.  I could hear two women talking about whether they could get a wedding dress safely into the baggage compartment.  Wow.  What would it be like to be trying to get to your own wedding?

Our ticket agent was very helpful, and even spent quite a bit of time trying to get us a refund for the additional fees assessed on the changed tickets. I kept wondering what the people behind us in line were thinking as we waited at that desk for her to research options.  Was our delay costing them seats?  But then she returned.  No luck. But we did have tickets.

Then we waited again.  We joined the crowd sitting on the floor surrounded by their bags.  There was a seating area, but it seemed to be an area where tickets had already been checked.  We did not fit that category.  

Occasionally a train number would be called and we would jump and check our tickets, and then realize it wasn't ours.  Finally it was ours and we joined yet another line for the train. 

The first leg of the journey we were lucky enough to find seats together for the four of us. We changed trains at New Haven, Connecticut, and sat near (but not with) each other until the train became more empty. 

While we rode, Chuck began talking to me about our plans.  He was ready to reconsider the plan for staying in Vermont, so that we could try to get Tim to orientation more closley to on time. The new plan depended upon two things. We needed to be able to get an affordable rental car that would be easy to return in Chicago. It would be nice to be able to get a train from Chicago to Newton leaving Chicago at 2:45 pm on Sunday. 

As soon as we pulled into the station at Springfield, Mass. Chuck started looking for a place to check into rental cars while I went to the ticket desk to try to change our Chicago-Newton tickets back to Sunday.  Hertz was $250 for one day.  Nope.  The ticket agent could get us on the Sunday train, but we couldn't book until we had a car, so the ticket agent quickly found us the phone number for Enterprise.  $25 for one day.  Could that be right?  Would they take us from the car rental site to the train station for that price?  Yes?  Take it!

Becca was waiting on us to get all this figured out and noticed a young couple with British accents trying to find a way to get to Burlington, Vermont.  As soon as she realized that we would not be filling their car back to Vermont, she offered this couple a ride as far as White River Junction.  

Then Becca and Joseph took us to Enterprise.

We got a Ford Fusion from Enterprise and we added a gps to make Chicago easier. We were promised that we would be able to drop the car off at another Enterprise and be given a ride to the train station. The price was amazingly cheap, even with the upgrades, in view of the fact that we were going to be putting 900 miles into the next 24 hours.

We said good-bye to Becca and Joseph, and then had lunch at McDonalds so we could look at the route online. Then we set off. I slept for a while in the back while Chuck drove and Tim got the gps set up. We’d only had tiny amounts of sleep since the day before so we traded drivers as often as we needed to and took turns sleeping. The gps always showed the miles to the next turn and the direction of the turn. You could know well ahead of time where to place yourself among the lanes and when you could relax and just drive without worrying about missing a turn.

We had supper at a Taco Bell and continued to drive until around 12:30am. We used the gps to get phone numbers for motels and made a reservation at a Motel 6.

After sleeping four hours, we quickly got back on the road. I drove until we were nearly to Chicago and then Chuck took over. Again the gps was pretty helpful nearly all of the time. We called Enterprise to find out the location closest to the train station. At first we were told that there were no open locations and that we would have to drop off the car at a closed location and find our own ride back to the station.  That caused a fair amount of consternation, since we were counting on that ride to the station.

Chuck was driving during that phone call and I was on the phone.  So he would give me a question to ask and I would continue to try to find a way to make this all work with the main office for Enterprise.  Finally we did find a location that would open early enough to help us, and was within a mile of Union Station. We were to call after 9am to make the arrangements with that place.

When we called we could never get a person, so we decided to just show up. That was complicated.  The gps could not find an address matching the one we had been given.   We tried other methods of looking through the streets of Chicago to try to find an intersection close to the rental car site. Then we tried to drive there. At that point we had to rely on our wits more than on the gps because the tall buildings were blocking the information flow to the gps. We found the location, got breakfast at the Einstein Bagel restaurant next door, and then were taken back to Union Station.  

The Enterprise employee was kind of a cocky rich privileged college grad (was that judgemental?) who seemed to not be too interested in making things simple for us.  He made us wait quite a while before giving us a ride, even though he was free to go.  Then he dropped us off at Union Station as far as you could possibly get from the entrance we needed.  But it was a ride.   That was what we had been promised---a ride, not necessarily a great ride.

We called Darrel Gascho, the leader of Radical Journey, and left a message.  Then we settled ourselves outdoors along the river next to the station. Tim was expecting to be picked up by 11:30am. Our train would leave at 2:00pm. 

Later we found out that Tim’s rides would not be so early because the hurricane had changed other people’s travel arrangements as well. We expected that he would be picked up shortly before we left on our train. We settled into the food court and found an outlet to charge Tim’s phone. Chuck and I took turns adding notes to Tim’s book.

Then it got close to our boarding time so we called again. They were still delayed and would be at least another hour. We had to leave Tim sitting alone in a corner of the food court with his laptop and phone and suitcase.  We said good-bye to Tim and headed to the train. That was a long lonely walk.

Boarding the train was an adventure. There were several families on our train, and one mom with three daughters had a huge quantity of luggage. Chuck leaped forward to help them while I pushed our bags along through the line by myself.

After boarding, the conductor made several announcements asking passengers to bring their small luggage to the overhead racks so that there would be enough room for the larger bags. Only a few people followed this suggestion, and the conductor began bringing bags upstairs herself. Then she moved quite a few to to the overhead storage in the lower level seating area. Finally she made another announcement, letting people know that since they did not come to move their own smaller bags, she had done it for them. If they could not find their bags later, they should not panic, but just keep looking. They would be around somewhere.

She made her announcements about this train and then came down the aisle to check on people. There were two older women near us who spoke only Spanish. The conductor knew only a little Spanish and Chuck offered her his dictionary. Then he tried to help with some of his own Spanish and the ladies enjoyed him.  By this time the conductor loved Chuck.  He had been so helpful with the luggage and was now rescuing her with the Spanish.

I got out my new skein of sock yarn and set up for winding it to a ball. The Spanish speaking women got very excited, because they were crocheting. We spent a lot of time trying to explain to each other what kind of things we were making, and they taught me the method they were using to crochet the tabs of aluminum pop cans into quite interesting purses.

In the observation car I met four women sitting together knitting so I began a conversation with them. They had been at a Stitches conference near Chicago and were on their way home to Laurence, KS. We talked knitting until it was their time to go to the dining car for supper. Chuck joined me in the observation car until our time for dinner. We were seated with a couple from England. She was a public health nurse. He was a retired navy officer. We really enjoyed visiting with them while we ate. Chuck ordered a southwest chicken scampi, which he traded with me when he realized how spicy it was.  I ordered a pasta with marinara and eggplant, which was delicious.

We went back to the observation car and talked until it was dark. Then we found our seats again. I worked on this journal and slept.

In the morning, early morning, we arrived in Newton and in our broken Spanish, said good-bye to the women we met on the train.

Of course, as many people already know, plans don't quit changing.

The hurricane moved into Vermont, where we would have been staying, had we not changed plans.  We would have arrived in Chicago much later than we hoped because of the floods.  Trains took a while to get back to regular service.  We were glad for Chuck's determination to look for a rental car.

Also, it was good to be in car with Tim on that last day of travel.  Being alone in a car provided a lot more options for conversation, and that was good for me.

Two days before Tim was to leave the United States for Bolivia, Radical Journey decided not to send the team to Bolivia.  The Bolivian government had not been honoring visas for MCC, and the team had used MCC to get their visas.  The Argentinian church in Buenos Aires welcomed them for a week and a half while they obtained Paraguayan visas.  The Paraguayan Mennonite church scrambled to find jobs and host homes, and welcomed the five young people with open arms.

Tim's blog is on the side bar: Bolivia Blog 2.0 (Paraguay version).

There.  The vacation story is told and I can get back to current life posts---if I can find the time!