Back to Routine

First, if your pictures are lined up from top to bottom when you log on, here is what they are:
1. Mark and me in front of the Babcock House Bed and Breakfast in Appamattox,
2. Me, Flyn, and Katie walking on the Richmond-Lynchburg road to the McLean house where Lee signed the surrender agreement with Grant,
3. Mark setting up Katie's new wireless router,
4. Jackie, me, and Cindy at breakfast in the hotel,
5. The table in the McLean House where Grant sat when he signed the surrender agreement.

We had a relatively easy drive up from Farmville to Lorton on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Yes, there was heavy traffic, but it moved right around the speed limit the whole way. We arrived at the Lorton Auto Train station about 1 p.m. and found an unusually large back up trying to get into the station entrance from three different directions. In fact, it was clear that no one was moving or had been moving for quite some time. People were walking around outside of their cars.

About 1:20, cars started to inch their way up to the station, and we finally got our car number about 1:50. On our way up there, we were able to ask an Amtrak employee who was directing traffic near the entrance if this was normal for the holiday weekend. After all, even though we have used the auto train several times, we had never done it on a holiday weekend. She said, no, this was due to an early morning accident.

The northbound train was just a few miles away from the station near the Quantico marine base at 7:30 a.m. and on the way to arriving at Lorton early when someone suddenly committed suicide by jumping in front of the train. At that point, the train was held up until 11:30 while the authorities came and did what they had to do with accident investigation and removal of the body. This meant that they didn't start unloading the previous train until it was the time when they should have been loading the new train; therefore, a long back up ensued. To Amtrak's credit, all of the employees were cheerful and polite as they tried to get a super packed train unloaded and reloaded. We actually left right on time at 4 p.m. Amazing.

We had the chance to talk to a second Amtrak employee while waiting in line and learned from her that the engineer who was in the cab at the time of the accident may retire/resign. She said he was very upset and might not be able to come back to work. So sad for everyone.

Meanwhile, we did spend two great days with Flyn and family after the holiday. After eating breakfast at the hotel with Cindy and Jackie before they went home Friday morning, we hung out with Flyn, Jim, and Katie and ate leftovers for lunch. Mark got Katie an early Christmas present of a wireless router for the house and set it up for her. She's thrilled to be able to use her laptop at home now.

Then we went to see the new Muppets movie, which was really cute. We ate a nice dinner of turkey leftovers with them before going back to the hotel that night. On Saturday, we again had a nice lunch at their house, and then Flyn drove us all over to the Appamattox Historical State Park. That was quite a lot of fun. We had never been there and neither had Jim. We walked around the whole park and also drove to some of the other historical markers along the way. We went in the McLean house where the surrender agreement between Generals Lee and Grant was signed. It was pretty cool to do that.

That night we had a fantastic dinner at an historic bed and breakfast in Appamattox called the Babcock House. Everyone enjoyed the dinner. The next morning we said goodbye to the Windlemeese clan and started that trip north to the train.

No problems on the train once we took off. I always enjoy the ride. Mark and I worked on updating the photos from the trip and added some picture captions. We read books, enjoyed the nice dinner, and slept better than we had anticipated we would. The train was absolutely solidly booked. In fact, the engineer announced that we were the longest passenger train on record, 16 passenger cars and 26 car carriers plus 2 engines.

When we got home, we went right to Downtown Disney in sunny and 80 degree weather. We had a boat load of fun picking out two Disney toys (one for a girl and one for a boy) at the World of Disney to give to Toys for Tots. Then we had lunch at our favorite fast food place there, Fresh A-peel/Pollo Campero. We had a fallafel-veggie burger with humus that was amazing. Then, we finally went home. Wow! Does it feel good.

Even though I was tired, I unpacked everything, showered, dressed, and then it was suddenly time to go to Denny's (no food in the house) for an early dinner because I had a 5:50 call for the Guys and Dolls rehearsal. It was exhausting, but it was so much fun to get together and sing with everyone again! They have a truly amazing director and support staff. The stage set-up and sound/light crew and tech was unbelievable!! The show will run for three nights from December 2-4 and has sold over 300 tickets for each night. In fact, the Saturday night show is sold out. I'm pretty excited to be part of this. We have a 6:15 call tonight for the last rehearsal, and tonight is my night for my "Believe" solo, which I will sing Friday night. I hope my voice holds up. It was a little shaky last night after fighting a cold for over a week at the start of this trip.

Today, Mark and I are going to practice for the synagogue show numbers that we are doing on Sunday. I have two shows to do that day. I know it will be fun but completely exhausting! We were going to go over to the outdoor water aerobics class at 10:30 this morning, but it's only going to be a high of 69 today. Hm...not really an outdoor aerobics kind of day in my mind. Instead, we might go play some mini-golf! Hope everyone reading this has a great day, too.