Cherry Blossom Special

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We are back from our April 14-15, 2012 Cherry Blossom Special train trip to Washington DC with the NCDOT's Transportation Museum. We enjoyed the trip. They had to add a car and a 2nd trip in May and they still have a wait list. It seems demand is high for these kinds of trips! I know when we booked, we got an email one evening and by the next afternoon we were reserving 2 of the 5 seats left! If you're interested, you should get on their email list.

So, this was the first time they have ever done an overnight trip. They did well all things considered, but they have a few kinks to work out. Hopefully, the May trip will be even better! Most of the problems seemed to have to do with the Holiday Inn on Eisenhower in Alexandria. It was set out in the middle of an I-95 cloverleaf and not really equipped to handle 150 or so people at once. Also, we had a bus driver for our green group that was not familiar with his equipment and that cost us time and a small accident with a traffic barrier dragged under the bus. It is not clear why there were troubles the first day with the bus and the new driver. I will just conjecture that since it seemed there were heavy crowds for the Cherry Blossom Parade that day, that maybe there was a shortage of experienced drivers and we just got caught in it. It was awkward and I still feel bad for our poor driver. You would have thought that going at night we would have had the place to ourselves, but NOT! We were not there to see the parade, but I guess we got caught in the crowds anyway. We did not know it was the 100th Anniversary of Japan's gift of cherry trees to America when we booked the trip. But, that made it special even without actually seeing any cherry blossoms or parades!

We were served hot and cold beverages and snacks on board the trip that were complimentary. Since they told us we could preorder lunch or carry small coolers, we packed our own small insulated lunch bags/boxes with cold drinks as well as snacks. Since we weren't expecting them to provide anything with the trip, we were surprised and had more than plenty to eat and drink on the train!

They sold souvenir t-shirts for $20 and Clay got one. I got a Starbucks mug as my souvenir. Thank you Stuart Jones! Stuart Jones built our house in 1990. For the past several years, he has sent us a $10 Starbucks gift card around Valentine's Day. For the first few years, I used the card to buy a bag of coffee. Then, in 2010 I bought a mug in Portland that I love and it was the perfect souvenir especially since the gift card did not go to waste and I didn't have to drink any Starbucks! (Can you tell I am frugal and I don't care for Starbucks coffee?) In 2011, I got a North Carolina mug. In 2012, I got the Cherry Blossom mug and I already love it. So, thanks again to Stuart Jones!

Oh, speaking of special events, Oakwood Cemetery had one while we were gone. Too bad we missed it.

I want to comment on Raleigh's Amtrak Station, there is very little parking. Their website says 60 overnight spots, but that is certainly far from accurate! We got there before 9am for the Carolinian which was expected to depart at 10:25am (actually was after 10:35am) and the parking lot was completely filled. We did not see any spots open up while we were there and we kept checking. The good news is that street parking is free on weekends and that is where we parked without any issues.

The biggest disappointment of the trip was probably that we wound up having only about 45 minutes to get dinner on our own at Union Station. It would have been nicer to have more time to enjoy a meal instead of picking up fast food in the food court. It is still not clear if that was a scheduling issue or it had to do with getting in a bit late on the train, or driving in a circle around Union Station and having our traffic barrier mishap. Perhaps we were always only scheduled to have an hour or less and they expected us to eat at the Union Station food court. If that is the case, it would have been nice if the trip literature had spelled that out specifically so people have proper expectations.

We had to wear name tags the entire weekend. They had our green dot on them, to show which bus we were assigned. They also had our train car on them. It seemed that we had been assigned the Powhatan Arrow and pink. But, loading somewhere before us was a group of 4 that had gotten split up. So, by the time we arrived we got edited name tags to show we had been moved to the Clinchfield car (which is what we thought we were buying originally anyway!) and the green group.  That was fine with us.

The highlight of the trip was probably the walking tour of Old Town Alexandria with a guide and a group of 15. That was well done, even though our guide said she normally does a 3-hour minimum tour and she wasn't sure it condensed down well to one hour while avoiding the other groups of 15 each from our 150 or so. It was tricky running into them and avoiding them as well as the sights they were seeing, but it worked out better than the free for all with no guides or guidance last night. Though we enjoyed seeing the monuments at night. But, we were amazed at the large crowds and the lack of information provided as to what we were seeing or should be looking for when we disembarked.

Photos follow! Sorry they aren't better. To limit baggage, Clay only took his old Olympus pocket camera which is notoriously bad in low light!

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Antarctica, done!

Well, we've checked off our seventh continent! I've also finally completed the trip blog for that feat. Clay posted a photo only blog. Check back next month about this time and we should have posts for the train trip to Washington, D.C.

Best laid plans and all...

We saw on the national news last night that the cherry trees in DC are already in bloom! Pretty sure this means that we have zero chance now of seeing them on our upcoming spring trip. Boo! We had all been discussing this previously, but now it is for sure. Since our December and January weather had been like March and April, while last October was like January, our own local cherries trees had already bloomed once and as they started to leaf had been hit by a 3-day frost. Now they are starting to bloom a second time. We had hoped that since DC had snow on the ground on several of our warm days, that perhaps their blooming season would stay on a normal schedule, but evidently not. Oh, well.

Our spring bulbs have all sprouted and we have actually seen daffodils in bloom here! We were talking about how we had all never seen the DC cherry trees in bloom and thought it must be because it is hard to predict exactly when to go to see them. With the weird climate changes these days, it becomes nearly impossible! We're a little disappointed, but still looking forward to the trip.

Oh! Happy Groundhog Day!

Choo Choo Cherries!

We have another short weekend trip planned. Sadly, it seems that Bob Garner is out of the NC trips business since his website hasn't been updated since maybe prior to August when he canceled the vineyard trip. Happily though, we have managed to get ourselves on the NC Transportation Museum's email list and they do quick trips. We enjoyed our first trip to Toccoa, GA so much that we immediately signed up for one to Washington, DC to see the cherry blossoms. It is on Mom's birthday, so we invited her to come along, but she decided it wasn't worth the time and bother to get up here. I completely understand and we'll be celebrating her birthday for her. Check back later for a full report. In the meantime, I have started a separate blog for Antarctica next month.

Bonita Springs, FL

We had enough time in Florida this year to do some touristy things. Here they are...

First, if you are a reader you may have read Randy Wayne White. We love the Doc Ford novels! So, when we learned that he has 2 restaurants in the area, we put that first on our to do list. On our way to the Ft. Myer's Beach location, I spotted a sign for an archaeological site. On our way home, we stopped in at The Mound House. It was closed. But, what we saw looked beautiful and interesting. We will have to try again next year. Lastly, we finally visited the Koreshan State Historic Site. It was the home of a weird religious sect. I mean really weird. They believed that the Earth was a hollow sphere and that we live on the inside surface. They even had some measurement devices remaining on display to prove it!

Happy New Year!

Long time, no post!

So, I guess it seems like we've had nothing going on since I haven't posted here in a while. Nothing could be further from the truth. But, we have stayed pretty close to home. In the past 3 months or so, we have replaced all the HVAC and ductwork in our house. We also replaced the roof, all the siding and exterior trim, 8 windows, the porch floor and ceiling. All that work going on, we didn't even make it out to a movie in over 2 months. But, with all that we still managed Thanksgiving dinner in Durham, we delivered Parker's BBQ to the family in Grifton for a Christmas gift exchange and we finished up with a week in Bonita Springs, FL with Mom. So, we've actually been pretty busy.

We have 2 big trips coming up soon and I will plan to post here links to separate blogs for those trips.

Happy 2012!
 

Train to Toccoa Georgia

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It seems like it has been a long time, but I just haven't posted mainly because I didn't get photos from Clay, or any good photos in a timely manner. But, we went to Ayden, NC for the Collard Festival, we went to the Raleigh Greek Fest, the 1st Annual Oakwood-Mordecai Oktoberfest, the Cooke Street Carnival and we went to the NC State Fair. So, it isn't like we've just been sitting at home. In fact, by traveling this weekend we missed the annual Oakwood Pig Pickin' and the Oakwood Confederate Cemetery Lantern Walk.

Anyway, I saw this trip advertised in October 2011 issue of Our State Magazine. This subscription is our annual Christmas gift from Clay's brother Warner and his wife, Vivian. Thanks W & V! The ad was from Salisbury, NC and the NC Transportation Museum. Now we have done a long weekend trip here before and spent a day at the museum (which is enormous and amazing) and a historic homes tour along with other historic sites nearby while spending our nights at The Rowan Oak B&B and having a fancy dinner at La Cava (excellent, still remember the chocolate souffle) and more than a couple of meals of Western NC-style BBQ. So, we were looking for something completely different if we were going back again somewhere and we found it.

The one day round trip train trip was $145pp. We were in Coach Class. Evidently, First Class and Dome Class were about double our fare and in addition to 2 meals, they got to ride in collectible cars. We were in standard Amtrak coach cars. They were nice enough, but Clay and I both remembered having foot rests in Amtrak coach last time we traveled that way. Not anymore apparently. Anyway, by the time I saw the ad and went to the website, all ticket classes except the cheapest were all sold out. People in the cheap seats could still go to the commissary car and buy sandwiches, snacks and beverages. We could also have prereserved a box lunch w/beverage delivered to our seat (we didn't, but noted that they included a souvenir insulated lunch bag which was a nice touch). Also, you could carry on small coolers of food and drinks (we didn't, but did have a couple of sodas, water and some snacks in a backpack).

It seems that Autumn Train Excursions are an annual event of the NC Transportation Museum. I'm not sure why this had never come up on our radar before. On Saturday, October 29, they went north to Roanoke, VA. Now this is another place we had previously done a weekend trip, so that held no appeal. Also, it turned out they had snow, rain, freezing temps up there that day, so just as well! On Sunday, October 30, they went south to Toccoa, GA. We chose that one since it went somewhere we'd never been. In addition to the 2nd or 3rd tallest waterfall in the USA, they were having a street fair, Harvest Festival. We would only have about 3 hours off the train there, so that sounded about right.

Since we had done the deluxe version of Salisbury before, this time we did the budget, freeway exits version. Very different! There were a lot of people in town this weekend, to judge by the shortage of available hotel rooms! They claimed there were about 1000 people on our over 1/2 mile long train on Sunday, so that may have accounted for it. In any event, we wound up at the Days Inn at I-85 exit 76 in Salisbury, NC. It was a great deal at $103.87 total for 2 nights with Clay's AARP discount. It was clean, convenient and very cheap! It was fine, but not really nice. We enjoyed the free HBO and free Internet, not so much the free breakfast. We certainly got our money's worth though given that all the other freeway exit motels looked about the same and they were twice the price.

So, to be sure that there would be no problems, we drove over on Saturday to pick up our tickets. You could buy your tickets online, but then you had to print out a confirmation letter and exchange it Friday, Saturday or Sunday during certain times in certain places for your actual tickets to ride. We got there in the early afternoon and went straight to the museum to get our tickets in Spencer, NC. Then we drove straight over to our motel and checked in. After checking out our room and unpacking, we went out to the nearby shopping center and had a light lunch at East Coast Wings. Then we went back to the room and watched Gulliver's Travels on HBO. We didn't see it at the theater when it was out, because it was only shown in 3-D at our local theater and that gives me a headache! I always enjoy Jack Black. After that and Clay's nap, we went back out for dinner. We wound up at Capriano's in the same shopping center. It was an interesting mix of Greek and Italian food. The prices were surprisingly low for the amount of food. We enjoyed it and filled up. Back at the hotel, we went to the vending machine by the ice machine and had microwave popcorn for a $1. Then back to the room and we watched Love & Other Drugs. We had seen it before and I still found it just as disturbing, if not more so. On Thursday, my tremor expanded its territory from just my right leg to my right hand. One day, I will have to get further medical opinions on this thing since I cannot find any information about resting benign essential tremors being unilateral. But, that is a whole other subject and we are not going there today. Just sayin', it's why I can't like Love & Other Drugs. Otherwise, it is pretty enjoyable entertainment. Then to sleep. We had to get up early, early for the main event. All aboard was scheduled for 6am on Sunday!

Complimentary breakfast at the Days Inn starts at 6am and we needing to be boarding then, so we got up even earlier so we could get breakfast at the nearby IHOP. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. The help was cleaning up from what was evidently a costumed rush of young people from about 4am to 5am, so we just missed them, but we got caught in the aftermath cleanup. No real complaints, it was as expected and we were on our way to Spencer.

The train was about 1/2 mile long. Our assigned train car on our tickets was 5. We had to walk about a mile from where we parked our car to where we boarded the train, then we had to walk through 5 train cars to get to ours. We were 5 cars back from the engines. We counted 4 engines! They explained to us that yesterday in Roanoke, they wyed the train to turn it around for the return trip. In Toccoa, they can't do that. So, they moved the locomotives from the front to the back and all the seats that could be and were occupied had to be flipped so we would be facing front again. So, going down in the AM we were the 5th car from the front. Coming back in the PM, we were the 5th car from the back. Also, the seats didn't line up as nicely after being flipped. The windows didn't line up as well, and it seemed the leg room was reduced. At least we didn't have to ride back facing backwards!

Everyone got loaded between 6 and 7am and we were off right at 7am on the nose. It was still dark for the first hour or so and the tracks were very rough to start out, so we couldn't go very fast. It made me feel bad. I was on 2 meclizine and seabands and MotionEaze. Eventually, the track improved, our speed increased and the sun shone and all was better. I made the trek to the souvenir and commisary cars, from car 5 to cars 11-12. I bought Clay a pack of nabs per his request. I had preordered his souvenir T-shirt with the tickets and we had picked it up yesterday at the Gift Shop with the tickets. I should note that it looked like they still had plenty of them available onboard. We had only one short stop in each direction. That was Spartanburg, SC to pick up and drop off passengers.


Clay spent most of the trip watching his 6-hour BBC Pride & Prejudice video on this tablet, or on the Amtrak complimentary Internet or sleeping. He sat by the window so he could take pictures. I will post some of them now.

We arrived in Toccoa, GA about noon. We went directly to the line for shuttle buses to the falls. That was a nice touch, providing complimentary round trip buses. It was crowded but scenic and we got t-shirts as we passed through the Toccoa Falls College Bookstore to reach the trail to and from the falls. Then, it was back to downtown Toccoa for the Harvest Festival. It was nice. It was bigger than Ayden's Collard Festival I think, but with fewer rides. We ate some good street food. Clay had ribs and I had a Creole Roast Beef sandwich on onion roll. We shared a corn and cheese patty thing at a crepe stand. Clay bought a big bag of kettle corn. How have we been missing this? I know we see this alot at fairs and festivals but we have never had any before. Just as well, I went at it like a crackhead! I loved it! Anyway, we walked the whole thing and contributed to Toccoa's economy and we were very welcomed there. They have a population of about 5000 and we added 1000 for 3 hours. They welcomed us, treated us great and waved us off when it was time to go. Couldn't have been nicer. Couldn't have been a more beautiful day. I'll end with photos from Toccoa, GA.

We got back to Spencer on schedule at 8pm. It felt much later. We wound up further away from the car than this morning and we were next to last off the train! We went straight back to the hotel and to sleep. We were very happy that we decided for Clay to take Monday off work and spend the night here and wait to drive home in the morning. We slept in on Monday but still made it to the Days Inns' complimentary breakfast before it ended. We needn't have bothered. It was crowded and not well done. Though they did have 2 self-service waffle irons! Anyway, all the rest was a non event and we got home just before it started raining again! We had a great weekend.

In a very strange postscript, Toccoa was in the news. Truth is stranger than fiction.

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