Menu
We woke up early for a nice breakfast at the hotel (we were the first ones in the restaurant) and then we grabbed an Uber to head to the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal for Amtrak. Traffic was light and it only took us only a few minutes to get to the train station. The Terminal itself wasn’t very busy either. Can you find where I’m sitting? There was some very nice artwork (see one example below) on the walls of the train station that we didn’t get to see when we first arrived since it was so late.
We boarded the train – called the Crescent – without any issues. The sleeper cabin setup was similar to the first leg of our trip between New York and Chicago. This last segment of our trip was going to be a long one but we were looking forward to sit back and relax!
Unfortunately, this Crescent was the worst part of the journey. The new variant of Covid, Omicron, had already started to make Amtrak personnel ill and there was a shortage of people on the train. The problem though was the lack of communication by the personnel about delays with food, and other details of the trip. They could have cared less. Jim and I remained calm but we did let them know this was the worst Amtrak train we had taken so far – as if they cared what we said! A lot of people were not happy at all and there were a lot of complaints everywhere…
The food was decent but it was far from the quality, style, and service from the Sunset Limited (our train between El Paso and New Orleans). Too bad that Amtrak isn’t doing anything about the Crescent to make it a much more pleasant trip.
Leaving the City of New Orleans we crossed Lake Pontchartrain which made for some beautiful photos even from a fast-moving train. The light was quite gorgeous on this winter morning with the sun playing with the clouds. It seems that it would be fun to spend time on the Lake or hiking the shores of the Lake. Another trip maybe. We followed the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world. Very impressive.
We slept very nicely on the train for our last night. Must be getting our “train” legs now. We had our breakfast in the cabin. With this train, no one was using the dining room as it wasn’t much of a dining room.
The weather outside the train was grey and rainy. It was interesting to see the various landscapes of our journey – from rivers to forests to fields to lakes.
Around lunchtime, it is when things started to deteriorate. They ran out of food on the train and could no longer serve the passengers. We had to wait to be in Atlanta, GA for the train to be replenished. At last, at about 2:00PM they served us our lunch which was really a slightly better fare than a fast-food meal.
Not wanting to ruin our last hours of our journey, we played Milles Bornes, worked on our photos, and had a pre-arrival snack with wine and macaroons we had bought in New Orleans. Always a bit of competition to finish the wine, as you can see!
Almost time to leave the train… no, we didn’t take the pillows with us in case you’re wondering. The weather in New York City wasn’t too bad. There was just little fog hanging around the skyscrapers as you can see on the Empire State Building. We grabbed an Uber and we made it home in a very reasonable amount of time for Manhattan.
For our New Year’s Eve dinner, we ordered food from our favorite Chinese restaurant, No. 1 Chinese (yes, it’s the name of the restaurant) in our neighborhood. It was nice to be home and we felt really energized after spending time away from the City.
© 2022 Voyage bien. All Rights Reserved
Website development – Profit Web Ideas