Back home....... unfortunately!

Arrived back home last week after a long journey from Alberquerque via Chicago and London that took a couple of days. Since my last post I was all over the states .....

.... scene fades to show rememberances of past events......


..... After the crash landing of the balloon we upped stakes and returned to Illinois. This year we decided to go the northern route through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and then south into Peoria. This was so we could see the rockies but as with lots of great ideas the weather did not co-operate and the mountains were hidden behind a veil of clouds, rain and mist. Have to go another time.

Nebraska and Iowa are flat and boring. Drove through wind and rain on a journey best forgotten.

Back in Morton Ray had his second PODS removal cube delivered and we then spent three days loading all the crap, oops sorry, stuff onto it that was going to be shipped to his and Karen's new house that they bought while ballooning in Albq.

With this completed I decided to go on another trip to visit my sister in Massachucettes using Amtrak the US rail network.

26 hours on a bloody train. Seats were OK but nothing special and space was at a premium as there seemed to be just enough of them for the passengers who were herded into set coaches at the whim of the conductors, about 6 of them. Seems that even though there were no seat assignments as such one could not sit where one liked as passengers for certain destinations had to sit in assigned coaches. When asked why the reason given was so that the conductors knew where people were but still put little pieces of paper on the luggage racks saying the destination. Totally illogical, but that is the us for you.

Odd thing happened in Erie, Indiana. After being woken by a wailing banshee announcing breakfast was being served at some ungodly hour pre-dawn, I was accosted by a guy in a brown uniform asking if I was a US citizen, the conversation went as follows:

Brown shirt: Are you a US citizen?
Me: No.
BS: Do you have a passport?
Me: Of course! (thinks: What a dumb question! How the hell would I be here otherwise)
BS: Can I see it?
Me: Who are you?
BS: Border Patrol!
Me: (sounding confused) Have we crossed a border or something?
BS: No just a check!
Me: (hands over passport) So if I had just said 'yes' you wouldn't have gone any further? ( he had been ignoring anybody who said that they were a US citizen)
BS: No I would have been able to tell from the accent! (returned passport after close scrutiny of the data page but not of the visa stamp)

Still not sure what that was all about, maybe somebody had snuck over the Canadian border and jumped on a moving train during the night. Must be bloody desperate to escape from the economic depression of Canada for the so called land of the free!

Rest of the journey uneventful although as we went deeped into New England the scenery became better as the leaves were turning beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red.

Will be doing the catching up in installments... so keep checking back!