We never seem to sleep well on the nights before travel days, but the room is very comfortable so even though we wake early we are rested. The Amtrack ticket office opens at 7AM and Dick is standing in line to pick up our reserved tickets. We can board at about 9:10AM and since Carolyn will need to use the elevator, we are told to meet a porter at the ticket area and he will get us on the train. We relax a bit with this information as we have four bags and the camera and computer bag! We go for breakfast at the hotel’s nice buffet breakfast and Carolyn makes a couple of ham sandwiches to take on the train.
At the appointed time, the hotel porter takes us and our luggage down to the train station where the station porter meets us. He transfers our luggage to a dolly and takes us down to the train on the elevator and gets us loaded onto the train
...wonderful service everything goes like clock work and the train leaves promptly at 9:30AM. Things then go smoothly for the first 90 minutes of so. We pass through the suburbs of Montreal
and farm land to the border.
There is a scheduled stop of an hour for the US border patrol to do their thing. We are questioned and our passport checked almost immediately then we wait and wait. After about two hours two people are escorted off the train, all the people in the back cars are moved up to the front cars and the back cars are dropped off the train! Apparently someone had something with bugs in or on it....?!
Finally we are on our way.... the ride is a bit rough at times, but the seating is comfortable so that is a plus. We travel along the full length of Lake Champlain....the scenery is beautiful, but the ride is long.
We have to stop several times for freight train traffic jams and finally arrive in Albany at 7PM instead of the scheduled 5:40PM. We get a taxi to the downtown Albany Hampton Inn. Fortunately there is a restaurant in the hotel so we have dinner and crash...it has been a long day!
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