The Changelog - Travel

Visiting Indiana

nospam@example.com (John Goerzen) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:31:39 -0600

It was two weeks ago now that we hopped on an Amtrak train in the middle of Kansas at the bright and early hour of 3AM, bound for Indiana.

This has been our third trip with Jacob. He's 14 months old now. We never really enjoyed long car or airplane trips before we had a baby, and haven't really had the desire to try a long car trip since. So we try to take the train, or if time is short, fly.

Jacob enjoys the train. There's lots to see and do. The one thing he doesn't like doing is waiting for food to arrive in any situation, so when we have sit-down meals in the diner, things can get challenging.

We arrived in Indiana the same evening and spent a few days with Terah's dad out at the farm.

Jacob enjoyed grandpa and grandma:

Jacob got his first ever ice cream there. Despite the concerned "unknown food alert" look, he opened up quick for another bite.

The big hit of the visit there were chickens. I've never seen Jacob so thrilled about watching something before. He was so excited he was just moving his arms all around, almost jumping up and down. Here he is watching them:

Terah wants us to get chickens now. Just because we still have a chicken house left...

On Tuesday, we went north to spend a few days with Terah's mom. On the way up, it became overcast. Terah's mom calls it the winter "permacloud", which is the best description of it I've heard yet. I didn't believe Terah at first when she said that they don't see the sun for 3 months in winter up there, but I believe her now.

Jacob found a rocking chair just his size there, and was able to make it rock. But the big hit of this stop were refrigerator magnets, at Jacob height.

He spent a long time with them, and got pretty good at working with them, too.

He also thought he ought to check out the camera in great detail. So of course, the camera checked him out.

Terah's mom wanted to spend some time with Jacob, so on Wednesday, Terah and I headed up to Niles, MI to visit some antique shops. We found some postcards from small towns in Kansas dating back to the 1930s, an old metal fan (still works), a wooden "apothecary box" with pull-out drawers, and some furniture we might have purchased if we were closer to home.

For the first time ever, Terah was the first one to say "aren't you done shopping yet?" She was getting tired, so we started heading back. Magically her energy returned as we approached the road leading to the South Bend Chocolate Co. factory and retail store, so we headed in that direction. The next tours didn't start for almost an hour, so we bought some chocolate, looked around a bit, and then left.

Terah's mom had a good time with Jacob while we were gone.

Thursday was the O'Connor Thanksgiving. Terah's grandma and some other relatives were there. Here's Jacob with his great grandma:

Jacob enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner, and managed to keep finding things to munch on all afternoon.

That evening, we went over to Terah's Yoder grandparents and spent a few days there. Not long after we arrived, Terah's uncle showed up and brought his adopted greyhound with him. Jacob was very excited about this, though the dog wasn't so sure about Jacob.

Eventually the greyhound calmed down and Jacob got to see him up close and pet him. Jacob didn't even mind getting his whole face licked.

The next morning at breakfast, Terah's grandma had set out the high chair that she used as a girl for Jacob to eat in. I got some pictures, but Jacob was far more interested in asking to have food ready to eat.

Here's Jacob with his Yoder great grandparents:

Later Friday, it was the Yoder Thanksgiving. Jacob got plenty of attention. He also was looking VERY CAREFULLY for Waldo.

Jacob wasn't feeling the best all week, but despite having a busy week and feeling not so good, he did really well. He has been walking with help now, holding on to one adult finger with each hand. He really enjoys that, but is short enough that adults have to bend over a bit to help him. I imagine several people had sore backs after the week was over, including us.

On the train trip home, I took him to the lounge car to go walking. Usually he likes to walk as fast as he can for as long as he can, but there he would only go a little bit at a time. He'd stop at each group of chairs to look at the people, and most of them were really happy to see him, too. After he was done with the lounge car, we walked back through the coaches to our seat. As long as he kept walking, he again would stop at each row of seats to make friends with anybody that wanted to.

We tried to find a nice place to go for lunch during our layover in Chicago. But let me tell you, downtown Chicago -- at least the part near Union Station -- is dead on Sunday and the fact that it was just after Thanksgiving probably didn't help. We wound up finding a place in Union Station to eat. Jacob fussed for awhile, then went to sleep on my lap (he rarely manages to go to sleep while being held). Then on our connecting train back to Kansas.

It was a fun and busy week, but it's nice to be home too. Our train arrived in Kansas at 3:15AM Monday morning. So we went home to catch a few more hours sleep before going to work. As I went outside that morning, we had a gorgeous Kansas sunrise. As the sun was coming up, it was lighting the underside of the clouds with a vibrant deep red and orange color. The whole sky to the east was lit up like that, and felt so warm and inviting on a bitterly cold morning.

More on David Gunn and Amtrak

nospam@example.com (John Goerzen) — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 06:07:10 -0600

Here's an interesting read: Where Was Brownie When We Needed Him? David Gunn, Amtrak and Bush's Culture of Incompetence. This article makes the point about David Gunn better than I did, and is written by someone that saw how David Gunn has improved things.

New Orleans

nospam@example.com (John Goerzen) — Mon, 23 May 2005 10:59:52 -0500

We enjoyed our trip to New Orleans. Thanks, hexmode and Alexis, for the tips. The RedHat page on New Orleans was particularly good. We also got some excellent suggestions from a New Orleans native on the train.

Our hotel was in the downtown area (on Lee Circle), an easy 4 blocks from the train station, but we spent most of our time in the French Quarter. We started our day Sunday walking through town, and ate lunch at the Gumbo Shop. This was a great place to eat and was suggested to us by a passenger on the train. I had Crawfish Etouffe and Terah had the Jambalaya. New things for both of us.

We stopped by the St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in the United States. The history of the church dates back to 1721, and the present structure was finished in 1851. We had to return later to tour the interior, since there was mass going on during our first visit.

The French Market was also interesting, but since we didn't really feel a need for beads, we didn't buy anything :-)

We then walked along the river for awhile, then caught the Canal St. Streetcar up to St. Charles, and then rode the St. Charles Streetcar through the Garden District. Lots of beautiful architecture there. Before dinner, we checked out some museums in the warehouse district, but most of them were closed or closing soon. Next visit maybe.

Dinner was at Huey's, then over to Cafe Du Monde for dessert. Their Beinets were a new treat for us. Terah had no problem eating 2 1/2 of them! Like many restaurants in the area, this one had been around for over 100 years. Open 364 days a year "except for hurricanes".

For breakfast this morning, we made a special trek to the Croissant D'Or. Very nice place, and the raspberry tarts were excellent.

The atmosphere Sunday in parts of the French Quarter reminded me of some street scenes in Blues Brothers. Some of the narrow streets were closed off to traffic and musicians came out and started playing.

We passed through Jackson Square several times. A beautiful area, with a higher density of psychics per square foot than anywhere else I've ever been.

I'd like to take another trip to visit the things we missed out on: some buildings associated with the St. Louis Cathedral and various museums. We'll see how soon we make it back.

And we're off...

nospam@example.com (John Goerzen) — Thu, 19 May 2005 03:00:30 -0500

We're off on another Amtrak trip, this one to New Orleans by way of Chicago and Washington, D.C. Our train leaves at 3AM.

Some have asked us why we are passing through Washington on our way to New Orleans. That's because the point of the trip is not really its destination, but the travel. We'll get to see parts of the country we've never seen before, and with the best possible view, too.

This circuitous route will take a few days to get us to New Orleans, but that's fine. I find that somehow I always over-pack things to do while onboard the train. I usually get less reading done on the train that I do in a much shorter plane trip. Perhaps it's because there's more to do on the train than eat peanuts and stare out the plane window at nothing. On the train, we can meet interesting people, watch scenery close enough to actually observe -- and from much closer than is possible on an interstate or a plane. It's a great way to travel.

I've written blog posts in advance and scheduled them to automatically appear periodically while we're gone. I just hope the blog spammers stay away for awhile.

Kansas City

nospam@example.com (John Goerzen) — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 06:23:39 -0600

Last weekend, Terah and I had a brief train trip to Kansas City. We hadn't traveled much in awhile, so it was nice to get away for a bit. (Terah also wrote about this trip)

The first thing we noticed there was the beautifully-restored Kansas City Union Station. It was the second-largest passenger station in the country when it was built (New York's Penn Station was #1), and is an amazing sight. The photos on its website unfortunately don't do it justice.

The station was designed to accomodate up to 20,000 people, and at its peak, served up to 250 entire trains per day. The station has a fascinating history. It was the site of one of the most well-known mob killings; it was flooded in 1951; several presidents and other famous people passed through; and it was built at its present location through various political dealings amongst the railroad barons of the day.

They have a museum about the station right there in the station itself. The entrance to the museum was left untouched during the recent restoration effort (except for asbestos removal), so one can really get a sense of how poor the condition inside the station had become. The station was abandoned for a number of years. Parts of the ceiling were missing in places, causing great damage indoors.

Today, the station is abuzz with activity. When we were there, the magnificent North Waiting Room was being used for auditions for The Apprentice. We ate in the Union Cafe at the location of the old ticket counter, and got a great view of the building from there. The basement holds an IMax theater and a stage theater. I think waiting for our train Sunday was the most fun wait I've ever had. I had plenty of time to explore all the interesting areas of the building I could find.

After Union Station, we set out to explore Crown Center, a shopping and office complex that's basically a block away. There is a covered walkway system called The Link that connects Union Station with almost all the different buildings in Crown Center. Crown Center has your typical mall-type shops, plus a giant Hallmark shop and a Hallmark visitor's center that Terah enjoyed. There are also two hotels, many restaurants (not just the cheap/bad mall-type restaurants, either), a movie theater, and a live theater in the area.

For dinner Saturday, we ate at The American Restaurant, the only Mobil 4-star restaurant in KC. Very, very nice, though of course pricey.

Our only bad dining experience came Sunday at The Brasserie. I ordered one of the nicer items on the menu, and got a poorly-prepared piece of pork, together with a giant pile of french fries, and some vegetables that were buried underneath the giant pile of fries. The menu listed "pommes frites" as the side for about half the dishes. I remembered from my German that this meant "french fries", and suspected that it did in French, too. Sure enough. I really felt ripped off at that place. I could have found the same quality of food for $4 at Wendy's.

The other restaurant in the Westin, Benton's, had a great Sunday brunch, though.