The beauty of a cross-country ride is the extended, uninterrupted time on board. When we took our first trip, I was concerned my husband would be anxious and not like it. On the contrary, it was the first time I’ve seen him truly relaxed. It’s as if his mind accepted it couldn’t expect him to do work, so it let him go, and he completely enjoyed the trip.

We look out the windows, we play card games, we set up the GPS on his laptop and follow the trip via his mapping software, and we relax. We nap. We chat. Sometimes I do some writing work. Sometimes we head to the Observation car and get a little different view. We enjoy our random changing dining companions (most of the time).

My husband is very resistant to the idea of a cruise, but he doesn’t have the same objections to riding the train. Sometimes, during an extended stop, we get off and walk up and down the platform and check out the station we’re stopped at until it’s time to board again.

For this trip, some of the most beautiful scenery was on the Southwest Chief in New Mexico. The area west of Denver on the California Zephyr was lovely as well.

Thank you for visiting for the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. Today’s entry is “Grand Tour”-themed, about our Amtrak trip we took last month. I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions in comments. If you don’t want to miss an entry, please enter your email address below, press sign-up, then check your inbox to click the validation link to get these blog posts in your inbox.