Rain rain rain.  That was our theme for our final day in St. Louis.  We ventured forth into the rain with one piddly travel umbrella.  You know, one of those umbrellas that packs up really, really small and therefore the coverage is barely big enough to fit one person.  We tried to share this, but after a while I just gave up.  Let me get wet.  And so I did.  It was cold, it was windy, it was rainy.  It was only a mile walk to the Gateway Arch, so how wet could I get?  Within two blocks of walking and unsuccessfully attempting to avoid the puddles, my feet were wet, the bottom of the pant legs were soaked and there was no more fight left in me to try and stay dry.  Lisa fared a little better, but her jacket was not waterproof – it was water “resistant.”  We braved the elements and strolled quickly through CityGarden, stopped by the courthouse and took some photos of the Gateway Arch — we decided not to go up the Arch since it was such crappy weather.  Saving this for ‘next time,’ especially since the museum is under construction and everything won’t be ready until this summer.  Next time!  We were able to dry and warm up at the “Inside the Economy Museum” at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, but as soon as we went back out we got wet again.  So we finally headed back to our hotel to pack up and move on to our next spring break spot, which we will highlight tomorrow.  But for now, we are dry, we are warm, and we are ready to sleep.

Last year during our spring break we were in ninety degree weather, hot and dry and spending a day voluntarily getting wet at Wadi Wadi water park.  This year we are in forty degree weather, cold and wet and spending the last few days dodging the rain.  Ah, the surprises of travel!  Actually, it isn’t a surprise.  We’ve tracked the weather for a week now and expected rain.  However, we just didn’t expect this much rain.

We were played it smart yesterday by spending our evening inside a museum and away from the rain.  Today the forecast was for cloudy skies, with no rain in the forecast until 8pm or so.  Naturally, we trusted the weather guy and so we left my umbrella back in the hotel.  For our morning we spent almost three hours at the St. Louis Zoo under mild forty-five degree temperatures and cloudy skies, just like the forecast predicted.  Which was perfect, since we were outside for most of the time touring the zoo grounds.  Our next stop was for lunch and to tour the St. Louis Art Museum.  But wait — isn’t this indoor activity something we should be doing if the weather turns wet?  Yeah, but we were only there for an hour, so no big deal.  Our next stop was to be the botanical garden, pretty much 100% outside but we had plenty of hours for that.  Actually, no we didn’t.  When we left the art museum, we were greeted to rain.  Not steady, soaking rain.  But rain nonetheless.  So we ditched the plan to tour the botanical garden and instead we took a brewery tour (and free drinks!) at Anheuser Busch.  The rain relented during our visit, and afterwards we had just enough of a dry window to walk around the historic Soulard neighborhood to get some famous St. Louis Ribs.  Unfortunately, the place that was recommended was only open through lunch time.  I mistakenly thought that it was open for dinner.  Dang!  We settled on a nearby taco joint, then walked through some drizzle to the Lafayette Square neighborhood.  We couldn’t quite make our bus connections work, so we ended up just walking back to our hotel and our awaiting Executive Lounge for some light snacks and desserts.

In the end, everything worked out okay.  We are on vacation, so not everything is going to go smoothly.  Lisa has been great to remind me of this fact, since it seems that every time that we wanted to catch the light rail it just happened to pull away as we started walking down to the platform.  It happened right after we got off the Amtrak train yesterday.  Happened when we tried to go to the museum.  And on the way back.  And this morning going to the zoo.   And this afternoon.  That is five times out of five times!  Lisa said that I should just take a picture of the departing train because that is our view from the top of the stairs.  Sure, the wait between them is only ten to fifteen minutes, but that can through bus connection times out of whack.  We lucked out by actually getting those buses, it was just the light rail that we’ve had poor luck with.  But c’est la vie.  I just gotta let it go, laugh it off, and enjoy the time I have to wait because I could be doing something else that is totally not enjoyable, like getting a root canal, weeding the lawn and slicing bags and bags of onions.  Missed my light rail?!  Fine.  So be it.  Raining on my vacation?!  Fine. So be it.  Tomorrow is a new day.  It couldn’t possibly rain again could it?  And I couldn’t possible miss another light rail train, could I??

We arrived to Chicago just over an hour behind schedule, which is pretty impressive considering that we were three full hours behind schedule late Sunday night.  Chicago’s Union Station is huge, beautiful and undergoing some restoration.  We had a small issue collecting our baggage after we deboarded the train — all the bags come out in a carousel just like in an airport, the only problem is that our bags never came out.  Fortunately we were not the only ones — there were a couple others lingering around waiting for their luggage and eventually after the intervention of an Amtrak baggage attendant, our bags finally came out.

For our limited evening in Chicago we walked over to get some deep dish pizza and also made a stop for dessert at Magnolia Bakery — an outpost from New York City, but one cannot pass up their famous banana pudding!  We checked into our hotel to relax for the rest of the night, but first I also had to pick up a to-go order of a Chicago hot dog and fries – of course I had to!

This morning I wanted to go running along the Riverwalk and through the park, but the rain was just enough to convince me otherwise.  After 48 hours on the train, my body was really needing some activity.  Walking around with our luggage to our hotel helped, but I needed just a little more.  So I walked up the 22 flights of stairs back to our room instead.

We took a Lyft Line ride back to Union Station, and that was quite the adventure.  Lyft Line is basically like a carpool, so we picked up two different people en route, which added another fifteen minutes to our ride.  We allowed enough time to catch our train, but for a $3 savings off of the regular rate it wasn’t really worth it.  Plus the driver had this super strong air freshener that began to sting our eyes — we wanted to roll the window down but we didn’t want the rain to come in and we were close enough to our destination that we just toughed it out.

Our train ride today was down to St. Louis, MO on the Illinois Service, which is almost a six-hour journey that went by very quickly.  And when we arrived to St. Louis … rain.  Like lots of rain.  We took their light rail one stop to our hotel, but had trouble finding the lobby since it is housed in the old Union Station.  They’ve done a marvelous job repurposing the space into a multi-use venue, and the seating area just outside of reception is just grand — hopefully we’ll find some time to just hang out down there.

For the rest of our evening we got some happy hour small plates in the Central West End district and then spent two and half hours touring the Missouri History Museum because let’s face it, one of us really loves history.  And now it is time to turn in for bed since we have a big day tomorrow — no rain please!

At one point yesterday we are running 3 hours behind, but we have been able to make up some time and we are currently only running 1 hour late, which means we should get into Chicago after 5 p.m. tonight.  The conductor just made an announcement that this train will shortly be boarding tons of passengers, which will make it a full train. It is nice that Lisa and I have this private roommette to hang out in.  We have done coach class before and while it is fine for a full day of train travel, having sleeping first class accommodations is certainly worth it, though very expensive!

At dinner last night, we sat with a grandmother from Minnesota who was taking her 5th grade grandson from Portland to visit with family in Minneapolis for spring break.  What was pretty funny was that the kid was just bored out of his mind! He was complaining about not having internet service on his phone and although he brought some movies and books to read, he was just finding too much time on the train doing nothing.  Ah, to be young!

Lisa and I have thoroughly enjoyed this down time, to how’s the time while away as we are at the whim of the train schedule. The only things we really have to do our to answer the call for our breakfast, lunch, and dinner times. Other than that, we nap when we want to nap, and go to bed when we want to go to bed.  We both have fun just hanging out and listening to our audiobooks while we pass our Kindle game “Ticket to Ride” back and forth to each other and look out the window.

Due to the nature of intermittent internet access, this will be an ongoing post as the train slices through snowy landscapes and sparsely populated areas of Montana and North Dakota.  It is Mountain Time here, which means it was 5 a.m. Pacific time when I woke up at 6 a.m. here. It was still dark outside, and I wandered through the sleeping coach class cars to the lounge car and settled in to watch the sunrise and wait for the outside world to awaken from its slumber.

For the next couple of hours I just sat here transfixed at the landscape before me, as I listened to an audiobook and took little mini naps here and there. Lisa was still at the back of the train sleeping, but she eventually joined me in the lounge car and we proceeded to the dining car for breakfast.

As morning turned into early afternoon, we had lunch and met a interesting couple from Indianapolis… The guy was quite the social character, and it’s 70 years old is still very active in cycling and skiing. Our afternoon was spent just lounging in the lounge car, reading our books and magazines and playing an electronic version of hey train game, which is fitting for our activity.