We arrived in Covington Friday night to get our pets situated for the week at Mimi and Poppy's house. We had to be at the train station in Slidell, Louisiana (the second stop on the New Orleans to New York Amtrak train) at 7:30am for an 8am departure. I have to admit, I woke up a bunch the night before...like a kid before Christmas morning!
Our brother-in-law, Jeff drove us to the station. We had no idea what to expect when we arrived. We figured the station would be small. Not only was it small....it was tiny! But kind of quaint, in a way.
Slidell, LA Amtrak Station
Inside the train station
The boys were SO EXCITED to see the train pull up to the train station! There we were, standing outside with our luggage, waiting for the train. Felt like a step back in time...when people traveled by train all of the time!
Mixed in with ALL of my excitement, was a bit of reservation...because this wasn't just a little two hour train ride. This was a 14 HOUR train ride! Yes, to get from Slidell, LA to Greenville, SC was a 14 hour train ride. Because of the length of the trip, we thought it was appropriate to reserve sleeper cars for our trip. The train wasn't going to arrive in Greenville until 11pm (eastern). So, we thought we'd be more comfortable in two sleeper cars, each having two beds. Not only that, when you reserve a sleeper car, your meals in the dining car are included. Perfect!
Once we got into the train and got our things put away, we were ready to explore along with the boys. Each sleeper car had two chairs facing each other along the window. The chairs then push down to make a bed. The other bed is at the ceiling and can be lowered when ready to use. I have to admit, the "rooms" were smaller than I imagined, but completely doable. Each room had a potty seat in it and a sink with a faucet. There was a little table that could be folded out between the two chairs with a checkers board marked onto it. Our rooms were directly across from each other, so the boys could easily walk back and forth. And if there was something cool out of one side of the train, we'd all go to that side to get a peak. It was really the perfect set up!
I think one of the more surprising aspects of the train ride was how great the dining car experience was! We really had low expectations, but it was probably our favorite part of the ride. Sitting at a dining table, on a train, watching America pass through the windows...and the food was actually pretty good! It was a chance to chat with other train-goers. We thought it was interesting that about 90% of the people we met were also first-time train-goers also out for the experience of a good 'ole train ride!
I thought the excitement of the train would wear off within the first 3 hours or so...but honestly, it was the fastest 14 hours of traveling I've ever experienced! Between, going to the dining cars for meals, "playing" in the sleeper cars, and visiting our neighbors, we had a blast! I had anticipated having to bust out the laptop to play a movie or two for the boys. I also had purchased Leapsters for the boys for our trip (to pull out at any given moment we needed some help to get them through the trip). I'm pleasantly surprised that neither the Leapster or the movies were needed on the train ride! How 'bout that?!?
In Atlanta, the train stopped for about 30 minutes, allowing us to get out and walk around at the station. It was such a beautiful weather day for our train ride...couldn't have asked for a nicer day!
Later that evening we got the beds all set up and all laid down for a little bit of sleep before we arrived in Greenville. It took a while for the boys to settle down into sleep, because of the excitement of it, but they did finally fall asleep.
I'd give our train ride experience two thumbs up!
No comments:
Post a Comment