Like our last trip, there was a slight hiccup before we actually got going, while last year was my dog getting sick, this year it was two hurricanes that laid waste Texas and Lousiana. We watched the Amtrak site daily to see service updates, even going so far as to look at both UP and BNSF sites to see what was up and running and what was not. Our train, the Sunset Limited, was canceled on Thursday for our Sunday departure. Amtrak emails as well as texts for train updates, so I was on the phone immediately trying to change trains, because we had been looking at switching anyway, I knew what options were available to us. We could either leave a day later, so that we would get to LA for our reservations the day we had them or, we could take the longest train on Amtrak's system, the 65 hour Texas Eagle; we ended up on the Texas Eagle.

Amtrak was able to make the switch, honoring our price for the canceled train on our new train, which was awesome as the price usually is about double. We also had to switch from the Crescent to the Capital Limited to get to Chicago and meet up with our train.

Capital Limited

The Capital Limited is a train the runs from Washington DC to Chicago or the reverse. We had to get on a Marc train to get down to DC, which we did. We arrived in DC about two hours before our scheduled departure of 4:00 pm, which gave us time to get some lunch. We then headed to board the train, because we had a room we were diverted to the Amtrak Lounge, offered some snacks and drinks, then boarded before everyone else.

A group of nine people was taking the train all the way to the Grand Canyon and one person in their group, Barbara, was on a different car, so I offered to switch rooms with her so she could be closer to her group, they were very grateful.

Our room on this train was up top, which I originally thought would be better, but I found I prefer the lower level roommettes, there is more walking around room, you're closer to the bathrooms, and because there are fewer rooms and no reason to be downstairs except for the bathrooms, it tends to be more quiet downstairs.