Monday - Thursday January 9 - 12 (Home base, Bryan and travels to Chicago)

Monday
I was supposed to go to a Dairy Farm late this afternoon, one of the people at the Doughbox has a son who works there, it would have been great fun as well as interesting! As I was not feeling 100%, a bit of a sore throat as well as a bit of a sore tummy I decide it was best not to go, next time possibly!!

It was a gloomy day again and still fairly cold and breezy and it snowed in the evening leaving a nice dusting everywhere.

Tuesday
All that lovely snow got washed away as it rained for most of the day, it was very gloomy with extremely high winds!! I was a little better but Lisa was still not the best although she improved during the day. She was able to go to work at the Doughbox. I did my washing and ironing, then packed my smaller suitcase and most of the larger one. Guido was insistent on helping me, lol!

Wednesday

I did not sleep very well and although I felt better the lack of sleep did not help! It was another cloudy day although we did see the sun briefly later on. It was not so cold but the wind started up again towards evening. 

I had some nice time with Guido today and he loves his little house! He even helped me again to do more of my packing.

Later we headed to Bryan as we were meeting Amy and Becky for tea. We spent a wee while with the fur babies where Nigel showed his athletic skills again and the others did their best, lol.

We then headed to the China Garden for dinner. The food was good and plentiful and was very reasonably priced. It was good to catch up with Amy and Becky again, a very pleasant evening!

Thursday

I woke up at 5.15 am so plenty of time to finish up. I checked the train and it was running five minutes late, when I checked half an hour after it was over 30 minutes late. I made my farewells to the four leggeds and we then headed to Bryan and breakfast at Seasons Bistro and Coffee. we had a great breakfast and the coffee was good too. i kept checking the status of my train so we were able to take our time over breakfast.

It started to rain just as the train drew up and it got much heavier as we made our way out of Bryan. There was a lot of surface water along the way. the temperature was dropping as we travelled further west. I must say I am not a fan of people who hold long conversations on their cell phones, especially when they are loud and have the volume up so loud the other person can be clearly heard!! 

I met the most officious Amtrak guy ever on the trip, he came round two hours before we reached Chicago and told us to put our seats back in the upright position. He did not like being asked why and I am sure I was not the only one who did not comply. Much of the lateness was due to the fact that we had to follow freight trains on two separate occasions. When we were able to pass them we would start flying along again! The whole rail system needs reviewing, we sat for ages just past South Bend with freight trains ahead of us.

I enjoyed a nice hot coffee at Starbucks in Union Station and a nice lady next to me watched my luggage while I used the restroom. I then put my warm gear on and made my way out to the Canal Street entrance to await the Airport Express Shuttle. I was outside nice and early and finished my coffee. As there were no rubbish bins outside, and being a tidy Kiwi, I shot inside to throw the cup away. I was gone 20 seconds came back out and my luggage was gone!! An Amtrak police woman was around but was not that helpful. 

I knew no-one had taken it inside and could not see it walking up or down the street. I went to one side to check, then saw two buses loading up on the other side of the entrance. The police woman followed me but my luggage was not in either one. I then noticed the wall had a gap so went to look and there was my luggage pushed against a gate. There was a guy standing against the wall and I think he had some mental issues. I simply said, please do not take things that don't belong to you, he did not say a word! I grabbed my luggage and quickly made it back to where I had been, phew! Funny thing was, the guy later boarded one of the buses so it would have disappeared out of Chicago. 

I am not sure what he would have done with a lot of female clothing, lol! Not sure why I have all these escapades!!

The shuttle was about ten minutes late which was not bad as traffic was quite heavy. He had a few more pickups to make and then we headed off towards O'Hare, along the way we saw that there had been an accident on the other side of 94, there were several police cars and a couple of fire engines. The traffic was backed up for miles and the highway is 3 or 4 lanes wide, it must have been hours before the backlog cleared!

I spent the evening catching up on several things and, of course, did not manage to get to bed early, lol!! There had been some snow earlier in the day and it was snowing lightly when I looked out before going to bed.