Right on time, we boarded Amtrak #4, The Southwest Chief, in Lamy, New Mexico. Here is a video of the train arriving… (video had not finished processing when I posted, so if it won’t play, try back later)

We got right on and settled into our rooms.

By 4:00, we were all getting real hungry. Our stomachs were on Central time (we were in Mountain time). We got the earliest reservation for dinner at 5:00.

Before dinner, we spent around 30 minutes in the lounge car watching the country go by.

We went to the dining car at about 5:05.

I had a beef dish, Vicky had roasted chicken, Stephen had a hot dog and Michael had pizza. All was really good and we all either had cheesecake or Oreo dream for dessert.

After dinner, we returned to our rooms. After a 20 minute stop in La Junta, Co where we got to step off the train for a bit, we made our beds and turned in.

I did not sleep a whole lot. I usually don’t the first night on the train. Don’t want to miss anything. I did sleep some. I woke up at 5:30 am to find Stephen’s head peeking over the side of his bed staring at me (he said he was looking out the window). Anyway,  no more sleep after that. He and I got dressed around 6:00 and Vicky and Michael got up around 6:30.

At 6:51 we arrived in Kansas City. For those who read last year, this is where we had to get off the train and on to a bus because of flooding. Fortunately this time, we were going to see the route to Chicago on the train this year.

Our train is on the left.

We went to the dining car and had breakfast while still at Kansas City. All the boys had Railroad French Toast and Vicky had something called the “Continental.” Looked a little to healthy for my taste. The trained pulled out of KC while we were still eating.

After breakfast, back to the rooms for hang out time (and a little, very little, dosing off time for me).

Because of the arrival time into Chicago and the time the dining car staff needs to close down shop, they did and early lunch as first come first serve.

Vicky and I split a hamburger and a warm turkey sandwich (we each ate half) and the kids had pizza.

After lunch we had about two hours until arrival into the Windy City (that is Chicago, not Amarillo). We hung out in our rooms until we got close. Then we started packing everything up in preparation of disembarking our first train.

We arrived around 25 minutes EARLY into Chicago. We checked into the lounge for sleeper passengers and then headed out to walk around downtown.

We walked under the El (elevated trains).
Then went to our favorite Chicago pizza place, Giordano’s.

We are now back in the lounge waiting to board our second train, The Lakeshore Limited #48 from Chicago to New York.