Amtrak Rail Pass

The Amtrak Texas Eagle: Fort Worth to Chicago including a stop in Marshall, TX

Highlights from Pacific Surfliner: Los Angeles to San Diego including Pasadena, La Jolla Cove, and Balboa Park.

My morning flight to Seattle from DCA, was my first from the airport since February's aviation disaster that killed 67 passengers and crew, so I was a little nervous. But as most flights do, this one went off without a hitch and I arrived safely in Seattle. The route from SEA-TAC was different than I'd remembered from my 2019 trip. I was able to take the train into town and the light rail to two blocks from my hotel in the Lake Union area. Good public transit is always a p

Like its predecessor, the train trip on the Northeast Regional was not that exciting. Unlike the Lakeshore Limited, however, I would probably take this trip again. I would just need to remember that it is a commuter train and is not designed for leisure travelers. The luggage storage was minimal and the seats were cramped, reminiscent of your last basic economy flight especially when compared with the other long haul trains in Amtrak's fleet. Also pursuant to it's status as

The way that the Rail Pass works is that each segment counts against your allowance of 10, even if that segment was added by Amtrak due to track work. So, technically speaking, this part of the trip is comprises of Segments #4 and #5 but for simplicity, we will just refer to this as segment #4! The dates for the Lakeshore Limited fell on a day for track maintenance and we transferred to an Amtrak bus upon arriving at the Albany New York station. Because it was mostly overnig

The scenery was fabulous but the staff made the trip even more memorable! Even if the trip was routine for them, they made it special...

Despite a few unexpected fits and starts while I returned to the DMV, I was back on the road or rather, the rail, again headed toward Chicago. And although a number of things did go wrong, some things did go right, after all, while visiting my storage unit right outside of Baltimore, I saw geese, my favorite! As I mentioned when describing Segment #1, I found out about this mysterious Rockville station. Keeping with the spirit of adventure tied to this 30 days of explorati

As often and lately frequently is the case, things didn't go according to plan. Instead starting my trip from Atlanta, I needed to travel back to the DMV. Since the California Zephyr was the trip that I really wanted to make sure I completed, I wanted to do it first. As "luck" would have it, after previously being rejected to attend the Microsoft AI Tour in New York and DC, I'd gotten accepted to attend the event in San Francisco, so now I had a specific date to schedule a