My title may have oversold the train trip Ken and I had to San Antonio. Although all those elements were part of the trip, they were not the focus. I just liked the sound of the title.

If I had a bucket list, it would include more train travel. I received a surprise from my husband for Mother’s Day – a train trip! We took our excursion the first week of June. Of course, when he mentioned a train trip my imagination immediately flew to the movie, North by Northwest, with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. I could see us having a white tablecloth dinner in the dining car and retiring to our intimate compartment for a romantic evening. Well, not so much. The dining room did indeed have white tables (uncovered) with blue cloth napkins and courteous service. The food was above average. But the intimate compartments cost three times as much as the reclinable coach seats, and we are not in that class. The seats are very cushy and comfortable, and Ken was able to stretch out his 6’1” frame easily, but we did not have the privacy of a separate room. Oh well, we’re not driven by our hormones so much anymore after sixty-one years together.

Our destination was San Antonio, a nineteen-hour trip starting at 8:00 am MST and ending in San Antonio at 5:00am CDT. Not my idea of convenient departure and arrival times. We lost two hours en route due to time zone changes. Our train originated in L.A., and we joined the train in Tucson with eight more stops before it reached San Antonio.

 I made sure we were in an IM-level train car. IM stands for Impaired Mobility, assuring we were close to a restroom. Ken’s Parkinson’s makes it hard for him to walk distances and navigate stairs.

We were indeed located in the IM car, which is the restroom car. There are only twelve seats, along with seven restroom cubicles in that car. Most of the seating is up a three-tiered flight of stairs above us. Everyone in the upper-level seating had to descend the stairs to our car for bathroom necessities. Our seating area was separated by a door, so we were not bothered by the coming and going of others using the restrooms. All seemed to be as planned.

Seats, arranged two by two, were staggered so that we were not directly across the aisle from another pair of seats, providing a bit more privacy to each pair. The woman who sat across the aisle and slightly in front of us was coughing. She and her companion had been on the train before our stop in Tucson and looked settled in with their carry-ons around their feet. The coughing continued after the train resumed its eastward journey. In fact, the coughing did not let up through nineteen hours of the trip. She would have a break of five or ten minutes every hour or so, but it was incessant for the whole trip. At first, I was annoyed, then mad, then I realized she had no control. She coughed into her shawl, and when it was soaked, she changed to tissues that piled high in a bag at her feet. Her companion coughed now and then also. After a couple of hours, I realized the woman must have asthma, or COPD, or something of that sort. She had no control over her heaving body. She couldn’t sleep because it didn’t let up and, if she dozed, she woke whimpering. Her companion got up a few times to bring water, snacks, and coffee to the afflicted woman.

Others in the car were obviously very ill in one way or another and immobilized. One woman was in a fetal position under blankets and barely moved the entire trip. Her husband got up and walked around a few times for only five minutes, but she didn’t wake to go to the bathroom or drink water or anything. If she hadn’t moved occasionally, I would have thought she was a cadaver. Ken was not at all like any of them. We escaped our ‘car of agony’ to go upstairs to the lounge area to get away from the coughing.  We could see out the big windows as we crossed the Texas plains. Later, we went up the stairs to the dining car and had a great dinner. That was when we realized that we didn’t need the IM car because even though Ken had to go up some stairs, it was not an impossible task.  The train was packed, and changing seats at that point was not an option. We endured our torment, knowing it was nothing compared to what the coughing woman was experiencing. We could move about and leave the car at will.

We were seated at dinner with a sweet lady, Leesie, 75 years old, she told us. She had just come from LA, staying for six months with her son, who has MS. She lamented the care he was getting and wished she could have stayed longer. A very sad mama. She was on her way back to her home in North Carolina. A retired registered nurse, she spent twenty years as the night nurse in New York’s Sing Sing prison. She was the lone nurse every night. Lots of stories there. Dinner was too short to get her entire history, but she was a very interesting dinner companion.

Our dinner included three courses, an appetizer, a main course, and dessert. I had a salad, NY steak with potato and green beans, and chocolate cake. Ken had shrimp scampi, a pasta dish, and chocolate cake. We each had a complimentary glass of red wine. The steak was the best I’d had in a long time, very tender and flavorful. Our waitress and waiter were very attentive.

Night fell, lights were extinguished except for guide lights along the floor of the car, so passengers could sleep. I am generally lulled to sleep by rolling wheels. I fall asleep within 30 minutes at the start of a journey, when Ken and I go on road trips. There is something about the motion that puts my brain on snooze. This night, however, sleep was impossible for us with our coughing neighbor. The coughing was so steady, it became background noise after a while, and we were able to get a few winks here and there.

Then, in the pitch dark, around 1:00am, the train slowed and came to a full stop. The intercom communications between the conductor and passengers had been silenced at 10:00pm, so passengers could sleep. We received no information as to why we stopped. We sat on the rails in total darkness and silence for over an hour. Of course, my overactive imagination worked at creating scenarios of Comanches galloping over the hills to attack the train, robbers in masks boarding the train to rob and kill us, and all sorts of dramatic reasons why we were dead stopped in the middle of the night. I wasn’t really scared. I was intrigued. Ken and I whispered our concerns. The coughing didn’t let up. Then the train slowly began to gather momentum again, and the steady clackity clack was reinstated.

An hour or so later, the train came to an abrupt, shuddering stop. Again, all the lights went out, the air conditioning stopped, and the engine was quashed. No sound, no explanation, just darkness and silence, except for the unrelenting cough. Hmmm. I peered out the window but could only make out a rock wall close to our side of the train. After thirty minutes, the train resumed its trek.

 Dawn began to lighten the sky. Shapes appeared on the prairie, mostly cows and a few scrub trees. The lights came on, and the conductor resumed communication. He told us the train had encountered a flash flood that sidelined us the first time. Then, it hit a cow on the tracks that had to be cleared before we could continue. No Comanches or train robbers after all, just flood water and one hapless cow. The poor cow must have been caught on the tracks in a narrow place where rock walls closely bordered the rails and had no way out.

We were two hours late getting to San Antonio. When I made our hotel reservations, I was told they had a shuttle service to the train station, which was only about four or five blocks away, across a freeway. It was 7:00am. I called the hotel. No, they answered, they did not have shuttle service, nor had they ever had shuttle service. I was misinformed. What?  I was tired, sleepy, and discombobulated. Now what? They gave me the number of a cab company. I called. $25, they said, for the five-minute ride to the hotel. Not happening, I told them.

I remembered our daughter told me to download the Uber App for the trip. I had done as directed, but still had no idea what to do with it. I was not in the frame of mind to develop a new skill. Ken was dead on his feet, standing in the parking lot of the train station, exhausted from lack of sleep. I noticed a car pulling in to pick up a passenger from the train. I went to him and asked if he was Uber. Yes. I asked how I could get him to take us to the hotel. He said he could be back in 30 minutes if I used the Uber App. Not what I wanted to hear. Deep frustration was beginning to well up. The woman who was his passenger asked, “Haven’t you used Uber before?”  I answered in the negative. She said, “Let me see your phone a minute.” I gave it to her, and she quickly connected me to Uber and showed me how to order a ride. I did, and a lovely man named Jacob was there in five minutes, charging $7 for our ride to the hotel. Now I’m an Uberite with 5 stars!

You’ve heard of sea legs after a long boat ride; well, we had train legs for hours after we departed Amtrak. It is a strange sensation that you are in motion when you are standing still. It affected our walking, creating a rolling motion for a little while.

Despite the lie told by someone representing the hotel, we had a wonderful stay. The Drury Plaza on the Riverwalk is an excellent place in the heart of San Antonio to spend a few days. I explained to the manager my disappointment and frustration about the shuttle confusion, saying it put a blot on the hotel’s name to have people lying about their services. The names I was given over the phone were not people who worked at the hotel, so it must have been a third-party reservation, even though they answered the phone,“Drury Plaza at the Riverwalk”.  Grrrr. Traveler Beware! There are so many things to watch out for when traveling.

The hotel served free breakfast from 7 to 9, so we dropped our bags in the room and went to breakfast. Both of us were as hungry as sleepy. The buffet-style breakfast was served on the huge mezzanine above the hotel lobby. Everything ‘Breakfast’ you could think of. We had our fill, then hit the bed as soon as we got to our room. Sleep. That was all we could think of. We both disappeared soundly into slumber for three hours.   

Ken stayed in the room to rest, and I went out to explore the Riverwalk and see what I could see. We had been to San Antonio once before at Christmastime in 1984. We watched Santa being escorted by boat down the river, waving at everyone and throwing candy to the kids. The area has grown and changed since then. The Riverwalk, with its trees and flowering gardens, was extended. I walked a 1-1/2 mile loop, glancing into shops and restaurants along the way. I talked with some of the sidewalk marketeers and a couple of the boatmen who shuttle people around the Riverwalk to get insights on the area. The total Walk is fifteen miles, and 4-1/2 miles are in the downtown area of San Antonio. The Alamo was within walking distance, but I’d been there before, and it was hot, so I skipped it. Hot is different in San Antonio – it’s humid hot and wraps around you like a blanket, making it hard to move.  You feel lethargic. I’ll take Tucson’s 100° dry heat any day.

The hotel itself is a fun place to explore on an air-conditioned ramble. It was originally the Alamo National Bank that opened in 1929. The décor throughout reflects that era. In 2007, it was reimagined as a 24-story hotel with two towers, balconies overlooking the city and Riverwalk, a large workout room, outdoor and indoor swimming pools, and all the amenities of modern hotels. The lobby is magnificent and harkens back to the building’s original purpose as a bank. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and many of its original fixtures are still in place. The original chandeliers hang from the fifty-foot lobby ceiling. The stained-glass window, bronze framework, marble walls, and travertine floors are also original.

Our stay included free breakfast and free happy hour with three free adult beverages each day. Happy hour offered a full meal of options served buffet style like the breakfast, Mexican, and Italian entrees, plus pulled pork sandwiches, hot dogs, soups, and salads.

Our day was spent recovering from the sleepless night before. At 5:00, we went to the Mezzanine for Happy Hour and met a nice couple, Paul and Kim, from New Hampshire. We sat with them, chatting about a variety of subjects as we had our cocktails. We found common ground on every subject. They left to have dinner at a restaurant, and we contented ourselves with the wide assortment of dinner items at the buffet.

The next day, we arranged to meet the Jensens, our relatives, at lunchtime. They moved to San Antonio in January and live within thirty minutes of downtown. Charlene, our niece, and Al, her husband, met in college at Texas Lutheran University near San Antonio in 1986. Al is a Lutheran pastor. His calling led them to live all over the western states, raising their kids mainly in Oregon and Arizona. They had been at a church in Montana for a few years and were happy to get back to the warmth of Texas, where their love story began. Mary, Al’s mother, was with them. They treated us to a nice lunch at Rita’s on the Riverwalk. Afterward, we showed them around the hotel, stopping for a while at a large balcony on the eighth floor overlooking the Riverwalk and downtown. When they left, we went back to our room.

Ken needed to rest. I wanted to see the historic San Fernando Cathedral near our hotel. It is the oldest functioning Catholic Cathedral in the U.S., founded in 1736. I walked a couple of blocks to the Cathedral, where the ashes of the Texas Alamo heroes, Bowie, Crockett, and Travis, are interred in a chapel at the front of the church. I walked inside to get a look at the sanctuary and found that I was at a wedding, Karolina and Bryce’s wedding, to be exact. A chamber orchestra began playing a beautiful piece of sacred music as the wedding procession came into the cathedral. I sat in a seat at the side of the sanctuary and listened to the music and the introduction of the bride, groom, and family members. Before the mass began, I quietly slipped out the side door.

I decided to walk across the street to the historic Spanish Governor’s Palace to take a peek through it. It is now the Bexar County courthouse and houses a history museum. I walked in the front doors. I looked back and there was a wedding party assembling on the steps of the courthouse. I watched as a few pictures were taken, then the wedding party came into the building. I was informed that the courthouse was officially closed on Saturday, and only the wedding party was allowed in. I left without seeing any of the museum. I don’t understand why a history museum would be closed on Saturdays, but it was.

I think that is a record, crashing TWO weddings in less than an hour.

I returned to the hotel. We went down to Happy Hour. We had our cocktails and just before we went to get our meal, Kim and Paul showed up. They had been on the opposite side of the mezzanine and saw us across the lobby and wanted to say hello again. They were leaving the next day for a hike and knew we were leaving for home. It was nice to reconnect. Traveling is a great way of making new friends.

Our train back to Tucson left San Antonio at 2:45 am. Again, not a great schedule, forcing us to try to sleep by 7 that evening. We got up at 12:30, gathered our stuff, and went to meet our Uber. I made arrangements, in advance this time, so Lorenzo was there to meet us for the five-minute drive back to Amtrak.

Another five-star ride! I’m a veteran now.

I asked to have our seats moved to the upper level. We didn’t need or want the IM anymore. The train was not as full this time, so they accommodated our change. We hiked up the stairs to nice seats above the rail line. The difference came when the train started. We noticed there is a lot more movement on the upper level. The train sways around turns in the rail, feeling a little top-heavy. It was like riding atop an elephant in one of those big chairs that rock back and forth with each step. The train was dark and quiet. Because of the early hour and my proclivity of falling asleep with motion, I conked out. But I woke up when breakfast was announced.

We had another nice meal in the dining car. This time we were seated with Craig, who was traveling back home to L.A. after working in New Orleans. That is a 45-hour trip, and I thought 19 hours was a long trip. Oh my. He was not as chatty as Leesie, so we didn’t learn much of his story.

George, on the other hand, the snack bar attendant was a wealth of information. I went down to the snack bar to get a Coke, and he and I had a chin wag for nearly twenty minutes. He has been with the railroad for thirty-two years and plans to retire next May. He had lots of stories to share of his thirty-two years. He loves his job but said his wife has the beginnings of Alzheimer’s and he needs to be home more to take care of her. His current schedule is sixteen days on the train and sixteen days home. Other than the route from LA to New Orleans and back, he hasn’t ridden a train. When he retires, he’ll have a lifetime pass and said he would like to ride the East Coast route.

It was so pleasant to be in the upper-level car. We could see across the landscape rather than at the ground level. Our trip back to Tucson was uneventful – cough-free, flood-free, and cow-free, a real blessing. We saw a box-car sculpture set on the open plains and a Prada store in the middle of nowhere next to the tracks with no town in sight. A blimp was tied down in an empty area of the sweeping prairie. We assume it was a weather blimp, but there was nothing around it.

Train travel in the US is so much different than in Europe. More expensive for one thing. The sheer expanse of the US makes most trips longer than any in Europe. East coast travel would be more like European travel because up and down the East coast population centers are closer together.

Our daughter, Karen, was there to meet us when we pulled into Tucson station only fifteen minutes behind schedule at 7:15. She escorted us home, safe and sound and we fell into our comfy bed by 9:00. I felt the motion of the train when I woke up in the night, but went quickly back to sleep when I realized I was in my own bed. Now that I’m a seasoned train traveler, I look forward to another ride to a different destination.