"The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe..."

Weekend mornings are my favorites. I can have a fire, sit in my reading chair and have tea while I read the newspapers. Sometimes I just keep reading all day long. This morning, however, I've been busy washing all bed linens and covers, trying to rid them of the gas smell from the temper-pedic bed. When this bed is removed and the new one installed, I'm hoping most of the smell will be gone and we can move freely on the second floor once again. Staying nights in the basement flat has been very nice, however, and reminds us both of the year that we lived down there while the rest of the house was renovated.

Now that I have but a month left in my job, I'm running a couple of scenarios to best map how to proceed in the months that follow. I had thought to fly east to start my train trip from New York the second week of April. But now that I will attend the Santa Fe retreat, I'm looking too at an alternate scenario -- one in which I would leave Seattle on the Coast Starlight train to Los Angeles, then take the Southwest Chief train to Santa Fe, then go south to Austin. Then from there to Chapel Hill, then ride the Northeast Corridor trains to Washington DC, then Pittsburgh, then Princeton. Depending upon time and my inclination, I believe I would still have segments left to ride to Chicago and then take the Empire Builder the rest of the way home.

There are so many variables up in the air right now that I'm going to let them sit for now, though I will try to talk with someone from Amtrack next week on routes I'm putting together from their schedule.

My friend Ruth sent a note to remember that "One of my childhood memories occurred while visiting cousins in Santa Fe, and chanting “Atchison, Topeka and San’ ta Fe” at a railroad crossing, waiting for a freight train to pass."