Sleep, Snow, and Sunrises (written in Chicago, IL)

Best investment of the trip was a $57 sleeping bag liner from Wilderness Voyagers.  I slept in the lounge car, the one with all the windows.  And when it came time for bed, I took off my shoes, put on my jacket and gloves, climbed into my liner cocoon and drifted off to sleep using my purse as a pillow.  I didn't sleep much, though, because I was too afraid I'd miss something.  In Alliance, OH, I woke up to snow.  Then, in Cleveland, I woke up to more snow and the Cleveland Browns stadium and a windmill.  

When I woke up for the day, I went downstairs and got a muffin and some milk from Tony.  I then sat down to watch the sunrise over Indiana farmland.  Coming up over the fields, the sun had a mesmerizing pinkish-orange hue.  It was truly beautiful.  After the sun finished rising, I asked Tony when we would be getting into Chicago.  I thought it was going to be a half hour, but it was actually an hour and a half because of the time change.

Breakfast was interesting.  Delaware came down to the cafe car, and the three of us (Tony, Delware, and myself) chatted for a while. There was also another women there.  She looked bit older and spent a fair amount of time talking about her mission trip to Russia in the early 90's.  It was her grandson's 15th birthday.  She had been in PA celebrating, and now she was coming home to Indiana.  

Speaking of birthdays, when I woke up in Cleveland, I spoke to an older gentleman for a while.  He was going to Colorado to celebrate his mother's 90th birthday.  How awesome is that?  And I found out earlier that today (12/18) would have been my Great Grandma Clopton's 109th birthday, and apparently, she loved the rails, too.  Guess being a rail fan runs in the blood.

Gonna wrap this up now.  Hoping to find someone to take my picture in front of one of the X-mas trees in the Great Hall.  Can't wait to see what I find while exploring the downtown Chicago area.  I think I might hit up Millenium Park, Grant Park, the lakeshore, and a burger joint called Billy Goat Tavern, but who knows...................not me, and that's the point.

P.S. Delaware's name is Patrick.