Chicago Trip 2012 - Day 1

We boarded the Texas Eagle at Dallas Union Station at 3:20pm.  The train departed at 3:40pm.

Dallas Union Station

Dinner was at 5pm.  We walked through several cars to get to the dining car.  There were several choices for dinner.  Since being on the train was already an adventure, I decided to go all out and order the lamb shank - I had never had lamb before.  OMG it was so good; glazed and topped with caramelized onions, so tender the meat was falling off the bone and practically melted in your mouth, hot and flavorful and a good portion.  Who knew, and on the train no less?  It came with mixed veggies a roll and for dessert raspberry sorbet.  I had to laugh because other than the beyond-amazing entree, everything else was ok, but sort of like hospital food.  The sorbet was a small-sized Haagen-Dazs retail tub with a spoon built into the lid.

At dinner we sat across from a man who was going to Shreveport to see his grandmother.  He didn't get to finish his meal since he had to disembark in Longview and we arrived there before dessert.

We also sat across from an 80-year old Polish woman who lived in a suburb outside Chicago and was taking the train home.  During World War II her father and family were forced to go to a German labor camp.  After the war they immigrated to Illinois.  She was a very nice woman who preferred the train to flying.  Everyone we spoke to said they were on the train because they "don't fly".

We had a short stop in Marshall, TX.  If the train makes good time and arrives somewhere early, it has to stop and can't depart until the departure time on the timetable for that location.

After dinner I watched a movie on my iPad (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - haha), then it was time for bed.  I had the lower bunk on the way there and would take the top bunk on the return trip.  Make a note - coffee, juice and water may be free and unlimited to those in the sleeper cars, but do not overdo it!  Getting up in the middle of the night is a pain, especially from the top bunk.

I woke up at some point in the middle of the night to an odd sensation - it felt like the train was going way too fast and it would make these horrible jumps and jerks that made it seem like it would derail at any second.  You know that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when everyone has boarded the boat on the chocolate river and Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka has just led them into a tunnel?  Panic sets in as in the dark the boat keeps going faster and faster, and the lights are flashing, and the paddlewheel is racing round and round, and strange images and sounds fill the darkness, and Mr. Wonka gleefully, insanely doesn't seem to care or have control....well that's what it felt like to be lying down in a bed on the train in the middle of the night.

And then I went back to sleep.