I love riding the trains. Especially one that can take us from Portland, Oregon all the way to Chicago, Illinois.  Lisa and I are on board Amtrak’s Empire Builder, and for the next 40 some-odd hours this will be our home. We have a teeny tiny cabin called a  roomette… It is basically two seats that face each other and in the evening they close together to form a bottom bed and then there is a bunk on top of us that is folded down. Guess who gets to sleep upstairs?

For our journey, our sleeping accommodations also include all food and drink, served in the communal dining car for breakfast lunch and dinner.  Of course we have also armed ourselves with plenty of snacks, including some wine. We also have audiobooks and podcasts, magazines, books, a cribbage board, games on our Kindle, and some movies downloaded on various devices. We are so lucky and grateful to be able to take a couple of days to travel across America in this fashion, in comfort and relaxation.  This is our spring break, day 1 and our entertainment is just sitting back and watching the beautiful scenery pass by our window.  We lucked out because we are on the right hand side to watch the mighty Columbia River glide by as snow-capped Peaks Loom large in the background.  Loving this train travel,  onward ho!