The Adventure Begins

M and I were excited to take our first train trip together. We had been warned that Amtrak often runs late, but we nonetheless made arrangements to get to the station very early on Wednesday morning. We decided to stay at Matt and Sloan's house, since they live pretty close to downtown Pittsburgh. On Tuesday night, Sloan cooked up a fabulous dinner; naturally there were cupcakes for dessert. I sure am going to miss those cupcakes while we are hiking. Matt volunteered to drive us to the station at five, so we all went to bed pretty early.

3:30 am
Amtrak called to let us know that the train was running late. Isn't that nice? Can you imagine the airlines doing this? We reset our alarms and went back to sleep.

4:30 am
Matt's alarm went off, so we got up to let him know the train was late. He went back to sleep.

5:15 am
My mom called (she thought we were already up and on our way to the station).

5:45 am
We couldn't sleep anymore. Too much excitement!

We finally got on the train around 9:00 am, therefore arriving in Washington, DC about five hours behind schedule. However, we really enjoyed the train trip. The train had a "sight-seeing" car, with large windows, and the tracks follow the rivers through the mountains of central Pennsylvania. The rivers are still filled with ice from the recent cold snap, and the hills were snow-covered. We spent a lot of time knitting and looking out the window. The train even had a snack bar with a vegan burger! Not the most delicious thing I've ever eaten, but nice to know that Amtrak provides options! We'll be spending a few days in Washington DC and Annapolis, visiting M's relatives and one of my friends from the summer job I worked at.