We boarded our train around 9:30 Wednesday night…

As far as the train trip, everything went pretty much as scheduled and planned. We did decide to see if we could raise the upper bunk with Stephen still in it. Answer: Yes.

At a couple of stops along the route…

And at our last train breakfast for this trip…

We arrived back in to Fort Worth just about 25 minutes late. Our good friend Caroline was there to pick us up and take us back to her house to get our car.

Then we hit the road for home…

It has been another fun trip for us and as usual (and is one of the main purposes) I feel we have had good family time and feel closer to one another.

Until next time…

We finally got to start a day a little later after a couple of very tiring days. We packed up the rental car and checked out of our hotel. We stopped at Chick-fil-a for breakfast.

Then we got to experiance something we had so far been able to avoid. Los Angeles traffic. Having lived most of my life in Houston, I am not really nervous driving in it. Fun fun.

We then arrived at the LA Zoo…

And of course, Stephen’s picture with the flamingos.

 Then we had some time to kill so we stopped by a rail place called Travel Town…

Then we drove up to the Griffith Park Observatory…  (notice the Hollywood sign in the background)

We went back to Union Station to return the rental car. Problem was the car place closes at 5 and our train does not leave until 10. So after checking into the lounge, we walked over to Philippe’s and had a french dip sandwich for dinner.

Then back to Union Station to wait…

We will board our train and go straight to bed so that is all for tonight.

Today was Disney California Adventure…

And the perfect Mickey ears for me…

Our train leaves at 10:00pm tomorrow night so we will have plenty of time to see some more stuff tomorrow. Then we begin the journey home.

Pretty simple day to today. Disneyland…

We found Nemo…

Monorail…

It’s churro time…

Stephen and I do not care for rollar coasters. However, we LOVED Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We rode it 5 times. Here is Vicky and Michael on it…

At the Fantasmic show…

On our way out…

We checked out of hotel #2 and headed over to the Aquarium…

To take a look at some sea life…

And pet some sea life…

Including touching jellyfish…

After a quick lunch, we headed to the Queen Mary to check it out.

We then headed out for hotel #3 in Anaheim. It is right next door to some amusement park, cannot remember the name. We will be spending two long days there so not sure about posts the next two days. We shall see.

We drove around a bit this morning in Hollywood. We all got a glimpse of the Hollywood sign. Then we headed over to the Lebrea Tar Pits.

Just FYI, Michael pulled out the selfie stick today so you will see some results of that in today’s post.

We then made the 30 minute drive down to Long Beach where we grabbed some lunch at Acapulco restaurant.

Then we headed over and toured the Battleship Iowa…

They had this really short basketball goal on the deck…

Isn’t she adorable!

Or am I the adorable one?

The USS Iowa took President Roosevelt to the Tehran Conference to meet with Churchill and Stalin. This was the bedroom he stayed in. They made several modifications for the President including cutting out a door, adding a large bathtub and building two temporary elevators.

We got done earlier than expected to we ran down to Cabrillo and stopped in the the aquarium.

Vicky and the boys saw a beach so they ran over there to dip their feet in the water.

So now we are in hotel #2 down in the Long Beach area. Need a good nights sleep so we can have another full day tomorrow!

Oh, and how about one more cute picture…

The day started early with our train arriving into Los Angeles EARLY. That’s right, I said our Amtrak train was early. 4:45am.

We headed into the station and checked into the sleeper lounge where we had to wait until 7:00 for the rental car place to open.

Once we got our car, we stopped by Philippes for breakfast.

Then off to the Natural History Museum…

After a quick lunch, we walked next door to the California Science Center…

We then went to check into hotel #1.

We then went to dinner and drove down to Rodeo Drive…

We are now settled down in the hotel to get some good rest. Tomorrow should be another full day!

Now just waiting for the rental car place to open. Enjoying the new sleeper lounge! 

The day started early for me. As most know, I am a train nerd. So I decided to stay up a good portion of the night to watch all the train switching going on. You might think that switching three cars from our train to another would be simple. However, you have to take into account that the two trains were facing opposite directions, the cars had to be in the same order and there is no where to turn the cars around. They had to be switched around without turning them around. It was interesting to watch and it kept me up until around 2:00AM.

Our first train on the left and our second on the right.

It was weird because when we got going again, our car was headed in the opposite direction.

Today has been a not so normal train day for us. Because we are in the same car and rooms for the whole trip, we really felt moved in. In fact, we have had the beds down for most of the day and just been relaxing (and catching up on sleep!)

We did get off a few times today. Here we were in Alpine, Tx.

And in El Paso…

And of course we went to the dining car three times…

And spent time hanging out together…

Michael got to meet Wyatt Earpe and Doc Holiday when we stopped in Tucson, AZ.

So now we are settling in for the night. We will arrive Los Angeles pretty early in the morning and then our LA Adventure begins.

Until tomorrow.

Tuesday afternoon we drove to Fort Worth from Amarillo. The 5 or so hours went by quickly. We met up with our good friends Caroline and Ben and had dinner together and then they hosted us at their house for the night.

We had a leisurely morning waiting to go to the station until we knew how late the train would be. We finally headed out around 12:15, grabbed some lunch at Freebirds, then Caroline dropped us at the Fort Worth station.

 We still had a while to wait so we tried to occupy ourselves.

Our train finally arrived a couple of hours late. We climbed aboard and settled in.

After a couple of hours, dinner time. Steaks all around!

We got to step off the train in Austin.

Our sleeper is the last car on the train so we get to enjoy the view out the back window.

Now everyone is settled in for sleep (except me). We are about to pull into San Antonio where they will disconnect our car and hook it onto another during the night. So when we get up, we will be on a different train.

Until tomorrow.

It is that time again for the Mashburns to head out on an adventure. We have been through Los Angeles many times over the years and even stayed there one night. This year it is time ffor us to really stay and explore.

Here is the itinerary…

• Tuesday, June 23rd – Drive from Amarillo to Fort Worth. We will get to stay with a good friend who lives there.
• Wednesday, June 24th – Board Amtrak’s Texas Eagle #21 to San Antonio.
• Thursday, June 25th – During the early morning, Amtrak will switch our sleeper car from the Texas Eagle to the Sunset Limited #1. So go to sleep on one train and wake up on another!
• Friday, June 26th – Arrive at Los Angeles Union Station
• Friday, June 26th through Wednesday, July 1st – Explore the Los Angeles area
• Wednesday, July 1st – Board Amtrak’s Sunset Limited #2 back to San Antonio
• Friday, July 3rd – Amtrak switches our car from the Sunset Limited to the Texas Eagle #22, we are scheduled to arive back into Fort Worth in the afternoon where we will drive back to Amarillo.