A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal: Grand Tour 2015
I’m excited to be participating in the 2015 Blogging A-Z Challenge. I always have fun writing posts and seeing what posts others have written. My theme this year is travel, specifically, people and places we visited on our Grand Tour 2015 Amtrak trip.
My husband and I love traveling on Amtrak, and this year’s trip saw us through the remaining Western routes we hadn’t traveled until now. The California Zephyr, the Southwest Chief, and the City of New Orleans (technically, an Eastern route). To accomplish this, we also rode some old favorites, the Texas Eagle, the Coast Starlight, and the Sunset Limited.
As you read this, we’re taking a one day break from the California Zephyr in Reno, Nevada. The postings, to meet the alphabetical requirement, will be out of order, so to help you follow, here’s how the trip was organized:
- Begin in San Antonio
- Ride the Texas Eagle to Chicago
- Visit friends and family in Wisconsin
- Ride the California Zephyr to Reno
- Visit friends and some sights
- Ride the California Zephyr to Sacramento
- Visit friends and some sights
- Ride the Coast Starlight to LA
- Visit Paramount Studios, some other sights
- Ride the Southwest Chief to Chicago
- Meet a friend at the station
- Ride the City of New Orleans to New Orleans
- Do some antiquing and celebrate my husband’s birthday
- Ride the Sunset Limited to San Antonio
As an A-Z Challenge veteran of several years, I know how difficult (if not plain impossible) it is to find my way back to a blog I liked to follow it. To make it easier for you, I’m offering an easy blog subscription sign up. This will bring you not only A-Z Challenge blog posts but other blog posts as well. This blog averages four posts per week outside the A-Z Challenge. Just enter a valid email address in the box below, then check your inbox (maybe the spam folder) for a validation email — that protects you from having a “friend” sign you up for something without you being aware, and tells me you were the one asking to subscribe. I don’t want to put anything in your inbox you don’t want, but I do hope you want to stay current on my blog posts. If you decide you want to receive my bi-monthly newsletter about my fiction, please sign up in the sidebar box. If you’re visiting for the A-Z Challenge, please leave a comment and link your participating A-Z Challenge blog. I’ll make sure I pay you a visit. Thank you for stopping in, and I look forward to seeing you throughout the challenge.
Sounds like a great trip, I look forward to your posts.
Tasha
Tasha’s Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)
P.S. I have a little trouble reading your post because it displayed on my screen with no paragraph breaks – I’m not sure if this was a formatting error or not, so thought I would mention it.
Thanks, Tasha. It was supposed to have paragraph breaks. I’ll get that fixed.
Cool. I love travel related posts. And train trips – well, they are special. Looking forward.
Here is my reveal post.
As a European person I was shocked to find out that Americans don’t take the train all the time everywhere (I had this idea that the country was built on the railroads, you know). I have been wanting to take a longer train trip while in the USA, just to take in the incredible distances and landscapes you don’t get to really experience from an airplane.
Cool theme! I’ll be back to find out more 🙂
@TarkabarkaHolgy from
Multicolored Diary – Epics from A to Z
MopDog – The crazy thing about Hungarians…
This sounds like a real adventure. I would love to do such a tour someday.
I plan on taking a train trip from Chicago to California in the fall. I am looking forward to hearing more 😉
I love trains. What a great way to travel and see the country! Looking forward to reading your posts. Hope to see you while traveling the A-Z rails…
Michele at Angels Bark
All aboard!! We’re gonna see America on an Amtrak! I’m purchasing my ticket now.
Life & Faith in Caneyhead
I am Ensign B ~ One of Tremp’s Troops with the
A to Z Challenge
I always thought it would be fun to take a trip on a train! Years ago my mom and us siblings traveled from Pennsylvania to California on one. I still remember the adventures to this day! Great theme for the challenge.
betty
Great choice! We looked into an Amtrack trick after my husband’s friend told him how cheap it was. Not cheap at ALL! But I’ve since begun to suspect that my husband’s friend’s wife lies to him about how much their trips actually cost (“We’re getting a hotel room in Times Square for $100 a night!”) because he wouldn’t agree to go if he knew how much they were really spending.
Stephanie
http://stephie5741.blogspot.com
Now THAT is a theme I’m very interested in!!
I will be participating in my first #AtoZChallenge. I hope that you like Chinese food. If you do, please check out my blog at http://www.thechinesequest.com – an hour later you’ll want to come back and read another article! 😉
Late to the party, that’s me.
So glad to see you’re blogging this! I’ve always wanted to take a train trip–all those movies from the 30s and 40s, I guess. Almost got to do it, once. I had my ticket–over $400 from Dallas to LA–but Mom decided to DRIVE me to LA instead. Yeah. I was about 45 years old at the time. Data: if you don’t ask for a refund right away, you are not going to get one. Ah, well, driving is also a good way to see the country. Just ask Dinah Shore.
Oh, my! What a disappointment not getting your train ride!
Hi, just making the rounds to try and meet some of my fellow A to Z bloggers prior to the big day. You are so right. I can’t tell you how many times I have discovered blogs that I really like during the challenge, only to realize that I would never be able find the blog again. For some reason I didn’t consider how hard it might be to find the blogs again once the challenge was over. This year I am bookmarking my favorites. But, I signed up for your newsletter, just to be certain. I am looking forward to reading all about your trip. My husband and I traveled by train all through Europe, but we always forget that we can make train trips right here in the good ole USA. I love traveling by train. Hope you have/had a great time in New Orleans (my favorite place to live). I will be back to visit next week.
I am having a little mystery game for my crime fiction theme. There will be weekly prizes for solving daily clues and a grand prize at the end of April for solving the big crime. I hope you will stop by.
http://fictiontoolbox.blogspot.com
Super cool idea for A-Z! I am a wanderluster myself and look forward to hearing more about your trip! I’m from Canada so never done Amtrak, but have taken a Via Rail train from Edmonton, Alberta to Vancouver, British Columbia through the Rocky Mountains. I hope to some more train travelling in my future.