I left my apartment with plenty of time to spare Tuesday morning to catch the local shuttle that would drop me off at the closest Metro station. After a couple of Metro trains, I ended up at the Union Station in DC. I'm a little paranoid about punctuality and being late - have been all my life. For me, on time is what other's consider about 10 minutes early. Well, I overshot that by about 2 hours Tuesday morning! Yep, I arrived at Union station 1 1/2 hours before my train was scheduled to leave . . . about 2 hours before it actually left. (Little did I know that Amtrak has the opposite problem of punctuality . . . in that they aren't!) Oh well.
I don't remember visiting Union Station in DC before. Once I printed out my boarding passes and found where I would board the train, I decided to meander through the station. One of my friends had told me about it a few days before I went, but it still blew my mind at the grandeur of it all!!
Of course, I HAD to get a picture of the station clock! :-) (perhaps some of the people in charge should pay attention to this informative piece of art) I digress . . . ALL of those statues appear to be life-size, and there are probably a hundred of them all around the foyer. I loved all the skylights and windows there. It really opened up the space. The front area had some specialty shops with unique artifacts from different countries. Between the grand entrance and the trains was a small mall. It was pretty amazing.
We did finally board the train, and they actually shouted "All aboard!" :-) How fun is that?!? I've never traveled by train before, so this was a fun adventure for me. Thankfully, I got a window seat so I could watch the scenery. Our 1st stop was in Alexandria where I got a great shot of the Mason's Lodge. (or whatever it's called)
Our next stop was in Fredricksburg, but I could get a good picture with all the trees outside my window. It looked very quaint. Next, we had a stop at Quantico where I took a quick picture for my Sean-Sean.
It seems like there was one more stop before Richmond, but I can't think of what it was right now. There were some beautiful "doll house" homes in a town called Ashland. I tried to get pictures of them, but we were going too fast for the pictures to turn out. I'll have to remember to go back there sometime!
We arrived in Richmond about 20 minutes after when we were scheduled to arrive, so my friend was there waiting. Bless her heart! We had such a great visit - sharing everything from war stories from work (she's also a NICU nurse) to overseas travel. She also took me on a driving tour through downtown Richmond. It's a really nice city - and VERY small (especially for being the capital of VA). We talked non-stop, catching up on each other's lives. Needless to say, we didn't get one single box unpacked!!!!
A pretty lake we crossed on our return trip to DC
York dropped me back at the local train station this afternoon for my homeward bound adventure. Well, (no surprise here) the train was about an hour late. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem for me on my day off. An annoyance, yes, but a problem, no. Well, in my "great planning" of the trip, I decided to take the shuttle from my apartment to the Metro station like I said before. The problem arises in the fact that the shuttle only runs during rush hours (granted, up here that means between 3PM & 7:30PM for the evening runs). I had timed my return train ride to arrive in DC by 5PM, getting me to my Metro station to pick up the shuttle by around 5:30PM. Even if the train was a little late, I still had until 7:05PM to get to the last shuttle. (I'm sure you can see where this is going.) With my train being an hour late, I missed the last shuttle. Great . . . stranded at the Metro station as it's starting to get dark.
Thankfully, the night before I left, God prompted me to go get a little more cash to take on my trip. I didn't think I'd need it, but I went ahead and found the ATM. Yay, GOD! Once again, He's taking care of me in all my little adventures!! After wandering around the Metro station for a little bit, I found the taxi line, and a nice man from Ghana gave me a rather expensive ride back to my apartment. No complaints; I got home!! (and that extra cash came in VERY handy!!)
All in all, it was a great trip. Next time, I probably will try to get an earlier return trip in case it's delayed again. Maybe I'll even try a longer trip sometime. The only draw back for riding a train is that I can't sing along with my music without getting some strange looks from those around me! :-) I'm so used to being alone in my car and belting it out whenever the mood strikes that I had to keep catching myself while on the train - especially at the particularly moving or exciting parts of a song.
Moral of the story . . . if you have a LOT of free time to travel to a destination and if you love pretty scenery, I highly recommend taking a train! Have a great day!!
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