Rambling Man

Today was oddly reminiscent of the Asheville trip, in that there was lots of fuss in the run up to travel, but everything ended up being pretty much routine. I went to Connecticut to see my mom and dad. My train was at 9:18 and I normally leave the house at around 7:40, drop my daughter at 8, and get home around 8:20. I expected to stop home and organize myself, then head to the station, but I grabbed the important stuff as I left, just in case. As it turned out, today was a case. Lincoln Drive had several accidents on it, which led to delays in both directions and assorted traffic going everywhere trying to detour. As a result, we didn’t get to school until 8:20, but I wasn’t worried because I still had an hour and I could have walked to the station in an hour.

Needless to say, it was impossible to get back to the city, and as I headed toward the last refuge of the vehicularly challenged, Germantown Avenue, at 8:50, I called Amtrak and changed to a later train. Then the miraculous happened and the traffic disappeared and I was suddenly sailing toward the station at 9. At this point, I’m in serious grumble mode, because I know I’m going to arrive at the parking lot at 9:12 and be in time to either just make or just miss the train. So I figure I’ll call Amtrak, and it takes them a long time to get a live person on the phone, and by the time I get an agent I’ll be there and know whether or not I’m on time.

As I write this, it sounds preposterous, because it is, but it actually worked. I pulled into the parking lot and just as I crossed over to the station an agent picked up, as I entered the station at 9:15. Changing the reservation was delayed because he misunderstood the spelling of my name, but it got changed over at 9:17 and I got my tickets and walked down the stairs to the platform as the train pulled into the station.

Oh, and by the way, traffic reports suck.