May was Grand Tour 2012.  We rode the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to Los Angeles.  The ride was very comfortable.  The west Texas scenery was repetitive (we expected that).  We got off in Los Angeles, did some sight-seeing (translate to looking for antique shops) and did the VIP tour at Universal Studios on Saturday (very good!).

Sunday, we drove to San Diego, where I did the Backstage Pass tour at the San Diego Zoo and hubby visited some museums.  The Backstage Pass tour was wonderful.  Hubby was disappointed in the museums.

Monday was a really good day.  We did some antiquing in the San Diego area then we headed north to meet with one of hubby’s subscribers who makes and imports kerosene lanterns and parts.  He graciously showed us around his business then took us to his home and showed us his private collection.  His business is a family business and employs a few people from outside the family.  His two sons, nine and thirteen, are interested in the business and engaging to talk to (the thirteen year old more than the nine year old, but that’s an age factor).  We all went to dinner, and we thoroughly enjoyed the company.

Tuesday we had one final stop to make before heading back to Los Angeles.  The last remaining Lambretta shop in the United States is in San Diego, so we had to see it in person.  (Hubby has five ’55 Lambretta motor scooters — most of them parts bikes, but he’s restoring two.)  It was a wonderful little shop run by a couple.  We asked them to hold off shipping the parts until this week, so they should be arriving soon.

Back in Los Angeles (by John Wayne Airport), we relaxed for the evening and did laundry.  Wednesday morning, we drove back to Union Station, turned in the car, and boarded the Coast Starlight.  The Coast Startlight is Amtrak’s flagship train, and we enjoyed the benefits.  The Coast Starlight features a Parlor Car dedicated to the sleeping car passengers.  The Parlor Car serves a limited, lighter menu (we didn’t eat there), has a movie theater downstairs (shows two movies a day), and has a wine tasting in the afternoon.  We did participate in the wine tasting both days.  Except for the cramped table space which was excruciatingly painful for my arthritic knees, the wine tasting itself was wonderful.  We arrived in Seattle on time and got checked into our hotel for the evening — just in time for me to catch Spurs playoff basketball.

We had most of Friday to spend in Seattle before catching the Empire Builder in the evening. We hiked up to Pike Place Market and worked our way back to the hotel (which had graciously stored our luggage after we checked out that morning). Hubby had some antique stores mapped out, and we checked them out.  We had lunch at The J&M Cafe and Cardroom.  There weren’t a lot of people in there when we stopped in, but the atmosphere was laid back, and our waiter contributed to that. They make their own potato chips. Our sandwiches were delicious, and the beer was tasty (for some reason, I felt like a beer that day, and I didn’t regret it). They appear to be supportive of local live music, so if you’re into that, you might want to investigate.

We headed to the station to wait comfortably for our train.  Our trip had been completely on time, so we hadn’t bothered to check train status.  This time, our train was late arriving.  I eventually put two and two together and realized the car that had struck the train in North Dakota on Thursday had struck OUR train.  That’s why it was late.  Since we were waiting in the station over the dinner hour and weren’t on the train to be able to get dinner, Amtrak brought in complimentary Subway box lunches for all ticketed passengers (which was a great deal for coach passengers, since their meals aren’t included in ticket prices).  We waited, and when the train was finally ready for boarding around 10pm, we got on and got situated.  This was the best place for us to be delayed, since we were supposed to arrive in Sandpoint, ID, at 2:30 am.  Now, we arrived at 8am.  Since we didn’t want to sleep on that leg of the trip (to avoid sleeping through our stop at 2:30 am), we’d only reserved a roomette.  We couldn’t check luggage, so we had everything with us in the roomette.  We wound up putting two suitcases in the luggage area by the doors, and we were pretty comfortable.  Since we’d planed to sit up, we decided to do what we’d planned, and we both had a pretty comfortable evening, dozing from time to time.

We arrived in Sandpoint, ID, walked down the block and under the tracks to the hotel, and checked in.  In our room, I quickly showered and repacked for meeting Valerie, who was coming down from her home just over the border to take me to Canada to see their farm.  Everything went according to plan, and hubby headed off to enjoy the car show, which was conveniently taking place in Sandpoint that weekend.

While in Canada, I got to experience BRODY! And Moxie. And Coonie (not pictured below).

Brody is almost too smart for his own good, but I thoroughly enjoyed his lapdoggedness (thoroughly my choice — Valerie and Jim have raised him to have impeccable manners unless he’s invited to snuggle).  Moxie was warm and snuggly.  Coonie was a little more stand-offish, but she wanted some attention, too.  I also got to see bees, chickens, piggies (with wonderful names like “Ham,” “Pork Chop, “Bacon,” etc), cows, beautiful countryside, the Farmer’s Market, Valerie’s office, and the shops of many local artisans.  After knowing Valerie via cyberspace for ten years, I was finally glad to meet her in person.  By association, I’ve known her husband, Jim, for a few years as well, and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting him in person, too.

Sunday morning, Valerie and Jim brought me back across the border.  Entering Canada the day before, the border guard asked a couple of questions and didn’t even look at our passports (not surprising — the border security pressure is largely US-initiated).  Re-entering the US, Valerie and Jim had no trouble, but the border guard asked me some unusual questions.  She seemed to think taking a train trip around the US was particularly unusual.  And she wanted to know how I knew these “fine folks.” (As if I’d hijacked them at the train station or something).  All easy questions to answer, but that’s the most hassle I’ve ever gotten returning to the US after being away.  I didn’t even get a welcome home. Sniff.  Once that was completed, we picked hubby up at the hotel, and we headed to Coeur d’Alene for Valerie’s first Rainbow Party to celebrate the release of Rainbow’s End. We had a nice group, and Valerie did a wonderful job. The guys were checking out the sites in Coeur d’Alene.  Once we finished with the book signing, we visited Costco and went back to Sandpoint for dinner.  Hubby and I had a wonderful time in Sandpoint and surrounding areas.  Valerie and Jim headed back home, and we repacked our luggage for the next leg of our trip.  We were catching the Empire Builder at, you guessed it, 2:30 am.  Nearly a dozen people were getting on, including one loud, somewhat obnoxious drunk.  We had a different experience this time.  The Empire Builder picks up cars in Spokane, and our sleeper car was on the end of the train (usually they are at the front of the train).  Another item of interest was a private car riding on the back of the train.  Typically, we don’t get a lot of exercise on the train, but for a day and a half on the Empire Builder, we walked from our car through five coach cars and an observation car to get to the dining car three times a day.  My pedometer recorded a lot of steps on this leg of the trip, and that was a good thing (except the jostling left me wondering if I was going to wrench a knee — thankfully, the knees survived).

We arrived in Chicago on time and got our rental car.  We drove around Illinois and Iowa for a couple of days working through hubby’s antique shop list. We found a couple small items.  Then, late Friday afternoon, we headed up to Wisconsin to spend the weekend hanging out with my mom, dad, and grandmother.  We put together a couple of jigsaw puzzles, drove around central Wisconsin, and celebrated birthdays for my brother-in-law and my nephew on Sunday.

Monday morning, we headed back to Chicago to catch the Texas Eagle for the final leg of the tour.  The Texas Eagle we rode in 2010 had a great dining car crew, and we were fortunate to get them coming and going.  We’d heard about another dining car crew on the Texas Eagle that wasn’t so great.  I think we got that crew this time.  Dining car service was slow and mechanical at best.  Our sleeping car attendant was on his last trip before retiring. There seemed to be either an undisciplined kid who repeatedly pushed the call button or a short in the system.  Whatever the cause, the attendant turned the call circuit off.  That would have been fine, but the overhead room lighting was also on that circuit.  We got enough ambient light from the three reading lamps and the sink light to get by, but it was less than ideal.  Additionally, our cooling system was full on cool (we learned downstairs was hot as Hades), so the attendant stuffed some washcloths in the vent, and that gave us some relief.  The cooling wouldn’t have been a problem, except hubby, knowing we were headed back to Texas heat, put our jackets and vests as well as the travel blankets we hadn’t needed all trip into checked luggage.  I had a long sleeve shirt (hubby inadvertently packed his in, you guessed it, checked luggage), and hubby had a lightweight bathrobe.    It all worked out just fine, thanks to wash cloths stuffed in the vent.

We arrived home a little early on Tuesday evening.  Overall, it was a magnificent trip.  If you’re planning a long Amtrak trip, we highly encourage you to insert breaks.  Extended train time can be tiring.  I used some of the time as a writing retreat (nearly 3,000 words), and it worked fairly well.  I took over 700 pictures.  The top bunk is incredibly uncomfortable.  Hubby and I agreed to take turns sleeping up there.  For me, it was painful.  For him is was a hassle.  The beauty of a bedroom is having a private bathroom and sink (very small).  Some people will complain about how small the bedrooms or the roomettes are, but both are comfortable (the bedroom, with a six foot couch and chair is more comfortable).

I have pictures from various aspects of the trip and can provide more information.  If you have questions or things you want to see, please let me know in comments, and I’ll do some more posts.