Are we there yet?

Trains have always been my preferred mode of transportation when traveling. It may be slow, but it offers the freedom to get up and move around not offered by planes or cars. That being said, this cross country expedition has been my first encounter with trains in the US. I must say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised and we are riding in moderate comfort!

The train we are on, the Southwest Chief, is an Amtrak route that stretches from Chicago to Los Angeles. For our purposes, we drove about 4 hours from Zionsville to Galesburg, Illinois, the fourth stop after Chicago. We boarded around 6pm Central Time and we will be arriving in Raton, New Mexico around 11am Mountain Time. That’s approximately 18 hours of train travel. The seats are much larger and recline much farther than those on airplanes, I was ‘easily’ able to maneuver with my monstrous backpack and got an acceptable amount of good sleep last night. So I would conclude that train travel has been a success!

We traveled through Illinois, briefly dipped into Iowa, followed by Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado before arriving in New Mexico. The train stops are in the most obscure little places. So most (really all) of the scenery has been Midwest agriculture that transitioned into Southeast ranches.

Amtrak sees a lot of scouts. Raton is very close to Cimarron and Philmont. Lots of scouts prefer this method for many reasons. As soon as I got on, one of the workers on the train asked if that was where I was heading. And I’ve seen a couple other backpacks comparable in size to mine that I can only assume are going to Philmont as well.

I haven’t even gotten there yet but I think that I can officially say that the adventure has begun. 

(Sorry I'm a bit behind! Things are crazy here! I got here yesterday and all is well. I'm super busy and going out on my first of many training treks tomorrow. My first day off is June 9th so you may not here from me until then, we'll see)