Thanksgiving in Plattsburgh

     WHOOOOOOP.....WHOOOP.....WHOOP!  Our journey back westbound to California began last night, pulling out of the Amtrak in Albany at 7:05 PM, right on schedule.  Don't quite understand why trains depart 5 past the hour but it seems to happen a lot.  We enjoyed the Christmas lights on the GE plant in Schenectady, and occasionally we hit some lights on a house in an unknown town we're passing by.  I think these town should have a sign somewhere identifying itself to those of us passing by.  I remember CORINTH painted on the high school roof with an arrow pointing to the landing strip out on Eggleston Street, so planes passing by knew where they were, and where the airport was. Today there's not much out there, except the Golden Arches glowing in the dark in most every town. We could see traffic on the NY Thruway headed for Buffalo, and we could see the lights dancing off of the NY Barge Canal that kept us company for a while.  We even caught sight of a green porch light, illuminating good wishes to all our Veterans.

     The only issue we can come up with that detracts from the enjoyment of crisscrossing this country, is the fact that Amtrak hooks this particular train up backwards when it leaves Chicago for Albany or Albany for Chicago.  By that I mean, the sleeping cars are directly behind the engine, and the coach passengers are at the tail of the train enjoying a nice quiet journey.             Those of us paying to sleep, are counting the RR crossings, and the # of train whistles it takes to announce our arrival at the RR crossings!  Ear plugs and melatonin helped tremendously with the whistle, and soon we both drifted off to dreamland.

        We had a great week with MAE in Plattsburgh.  Not sure she was real keen having her peeps move in on her for the week, but after we got the ground rules straightened out, things went quite well.  She didn't wake us in the morning as she headed out for work, which we really appreciated.  We brought down the turkey fryer from home, as Princess wanted to deep fry the guy.  Nothing like mixing boiling oil and alcohol!  But everything went well , and MAE put on a Thanksgiving feast that couldn't be beat!

     On Sunday night we ventured out into the chilling night air, and joined several hundred people down at the Plattsburgh RR station, to welcome in the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train.

For the past 17 years, the Canadian Pacific RR has been decorating it's northbound train, and making stops at several of the towns along the way before entering Canada at Rouses Point.  The goal is to collect food donations along the way, and fill up the area's food banks for the holidays.  That night they filled 3 trucks with donated food stuffs, and CP made a $4500.00 donation to the local JCEO.  

The train had the engine and probably a dozen boxcars all decorated up, and the car in the middle opened up to a band playing Christmas carols.  We had a nice light snowfall going,,,,just enough to get everyone into the Christmas spirit. They also announced that total food donations over the past 17 years totaled more than 3.5
million pounds!  Great job everyone!



      We departed out of Chicago just a little while
 ago, on the California Zephyr.  Again, a 4:05 PM departure time, but right on time.  We do have to credit Amtrak with running their trains on time.  We have 3 days ahead of us, and we'll be providing a few more details about train life in the days ahead.
     Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and a safe journey home.