8:34 P.M. 

We woke up at 5:00 A.M. this morning. No, let me rephrase: Jeffrey, Emily, Amanda, and Daddy woke up at 5:00 A.M.; Mama and I had stayed up all night repacking. This was a result of a discovery we made on the previous evening around 7:00: The suitcases could not be zipped shut, and there were still [many] more things we had to pack. Daddy said we would have to cut down on the clothes we were taking to 50% . . . four shirts, two pair of pants, one pair of tennis shoes, etc. And did anyone hear me say previously that this trip would be for seven months?? Instead of removing clothes from my bag (well, to be completely honest, I will admit I pitched the itchy polypropolene long underwear which even Daddy agreed shouldn’t go), I rolled and packed them like sardines. Well, they’ll be wrinkled when I unpack, but what clothes don’t get wrinkled when you pack them in a suitcase? I did manage to reduce the space by 50%. Ahhh, more room for shoes! Don’t tell my dad, but I’ve got four pairs of flip- flops, one pair of dress shoes, Tevas, and a pair of tennis shoes ( . . . not counting the ones I have on now) stowed away under my clothes. When we arrived at the train station at 6:10 this morning, no one was expecting trouble. By not paying attention to detail, we read over the fine print on our Amtrak tickets, “No luggage over 50 lbs.” And so of course when our bags were weighed, all three of the red ones weighed in at least 15 lbs. over the limit. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I’m probably the one at fault for that hang up! Anyway, my dad decided he would run back to the house to pick up an extra suitcase. Reaching in his pocket for his keys, he remembered he had locked them in the car for one of our friends to retrieve later. So much for that! We ended up mopping the spill over weight into cardboard boxes. I’d never spent more than three hours on a train, so 30 hours was a (big) jump. This was the first time anyone in our family had traveled Amtrak; we’d used subways and small local rail lines in our previous travels. Traveling Amtrak was much different from what I’d expected. We didn’t buy tickets for the sleeper cars, electing instead to pinch pennies and recline our seats in coach class. We basically had the car to ourselves during the first few hours of the morning. Gradually, as our train made more stops (and we picked up more people), the place began to smell with increasing distinctness like sweaty socks. I guess it’s something you have to get used to on long train trips! The time I didn’t spend catching up on my sleep from the night before I spent reading a book, Deception Point, by Dan Brown. It wasn’t all that exciting because it had the same overall plot as Brown’s previous two novels, Angels & Demons, and The DaVinci Code, but it was a good thriller all the same. The author has a tendency to kill his characters off with gruesome deaths, throw the plot into chaos, and give the story a fairy-tale ending before the reader knows what hit him. If he would only change his story up a bit between books! If you want to eat a decent meal aboard Amtrak, you’d better plan on packing your own. At dinner, I split the $12.50 chef’s special with my brother: beef tips with rice and vegetables – how could it go wrong?  Apparently, the chef’s special was doing exactly that: serve your customer a frozen hunk of stew meat with vegetables vaguely resembling Swanson’s from the freezer isle. Top it off with undercooked rice swimming in oil, and ummm, you’ve got dinner? My mom and dad were so pleased at the way my brother, sisters and I got along together at the table during dinner, they allowed us to split a dessert (this is a rare treat in our family). Luckily, my siblings have inherited my good sense of taste in sweets and unanimously agreed cheesecake as the final decision. When the waiter brought out three slices instead of one, we protested, because we had only ordered one. The waiter discreetly pointed to the mysterious stranger who had been chatting with my parents in the opposite booth.  “Saves me the calories,” the man said with a wink and a chuckle as he patted his (hefty) stomach, and signed the check. > >

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9:47 P.M. > >

Well, it’s getting late, and I’m probably annoying the other passengers with my light still on . . . well, if they had slept during the day like I did, it wouldn’t be bothering them right now, now would it ? I guess I’ll eventually have to oblige their silent complaints by turning it off. For now, I’ll be evil and read some more of my book.