Trudy Myers's Blog, page 8

Our Adventures at Syfy Bartow

We knew getting toBartow would be tiring. Neither of us have been at our best the last few weeks,so we started the weekend tired and a little overwhelmed. For one thing, wewere both still working on ‘Bartow Projects’ right up until we started packingthe car. Scratch that, my hubby was still working on projects even as westarted packing the car on Thursday.

One of our neighborssaw us trying to get a folding table and a gazebo in the car and came over tosee if he could help. Those were the big, awkward things we were trying to packfirst. Most everything else was smaller and lighter, and we could manage them.But it’s nice to know we have nice neighbors.

We got most things inthe car on Thursday, and decided we had room to take a fellow Klingon whootherwise did not have a way to get to Bartow. He showed up on Friday about 11amand helped get the rest of the stuff in the car. Then we got on the road about2:18 pm.

I’m a little bit of a nervousdriver these days, especially when I’m driving roads I don’t really know well,so it was tough for me to keep my speed up near the speed limit. It should havetaken us an hour to get to our hotel in Bartow, but it actually took 1.5 hours.We found our stuff we would need for the night and settled into our room. About7, we walked over to Mike’s Grill for supper.

We got up about 7 on Saturday,and went to Mike’s Grill for breakfast, because we knew it was going to be along and hard day. People who come to the street festival can go home when theyget tired, but vendors have to unload their vehicle, pitch their gazebo, set uptheir table and get their wares displayed by 11AM, when the festival starts.Then they are expected to man their table until 6PM, when the festival ends,when they tear down their display, strike their tents, retrieve their vehicleand pack everything up.

We had to do thistwice, once for MoonPhaze and once for the Klingons. Happily, my booth spacewas right next to some friends, so I had help setting up the gazebo and takingit down. And there were many Klingons there for this event, so it looked like amild case of bedlam when I dropped off my two Klingons and all the Klingonstuff we had brought, but I knew they would soon have things up and running.

I assume the Klingonshad fun. I had a great day for MoonPhaze. I had 50% more book sales than I did atthe previous best event, which was a 3-day sf convention. I was very happy.

About 3:30, theorganizers told us that rain was expected in about an hour, so if we wanted totear down and bug out, that was acceptable. Around 4, it started misting, andpeople started packing things away. By 4:30, it was raining, and the organizerscalled an end to the event. By then, most of the visitors had left. I packedall my stuff up and stored it temporarily under a store’s overhang while Iwalked over to the Klingon area to get my car and load up the Klingon stuff.Then we went back to my booth area, where our passenger repacked the car to geteverything in, and we helped our friends in the next booth take down gazebos andload their van.

We were all cold, wetand worn out when we got in our car and headed back to the hotel. We got thereabout 7 and stopped at Mike’s Grill for supper, which included some wonderfulbeef noodle soup.

Tired as we were, wecount this event as a success!

Should it be it, its, or it’s?

I don’t know what thiscollection of words is called, I don’t think they fit the definition ofhomonyms. But there certainly is a bunch of confusion about them, so why don’twe try to figure them out? The truth is, I even catch myself trying to use thewrong one from time to time.

It

It is a pronoun used torefer to an inanimate object or animal that has previously been mentioned or isabout to be mentioned whose gender is either unknown or disregarded. I think weall have a pretty good idea of how to use it, but the other versionsleave us confused.

It’s

Let’s look at thecontraction next, it’s. This is not the possessive of it.As a contraction, it always stands for it is or it was. If youhave a sentence with it’s in it, and substituting in it is or itwas turns the sentence to nonsense, it’s is not the correct word touse.

“It’s décor wasunusual” is wrong because “It is décor was unusual” doesn’t make sense.

“It’s a shameshe did so poorly on her test” is correct because “It is a shame she didso poorly on her test” does make sense.

Its

I’ve had people tell methat its is the plural of it. But if you have more than one it,you usually switch pronouns to they or them, so its is not the correctplural to use for it.

Despite its nothaving an apostrophe, its is the possessive form of it.“The dog wagged its tail” is correct. “Its a beautiful day” isnot correct because it doesn’t possess the day. In fact, if yousubstitute ‘it is’ for its, you’ll find the beautiful day sentencemakes sense, so the correct word to use is it’s.

I hope I’ve cleared upany confusion you might have had about these words. Usually, if I run across itsor it’s in a sentence, I simply substitute it is to see if thesentence makes sense. If it does, then it’s is the correct word to use.If not, then I look to see what it possesses in the sentence. And ifthat doesn’t work, then I will probably rewrite the sentence.

 

SyFy Bartow!

MoonPhaze willhave a booth next Saturday (Feb 17) at the Syfy Bartow street festival. This isa festival we try to attend every year, but sometimes, life intrudes, and wedon’t get there. For instance, last year, my husband was sick in February, andwe didn’t make it.

This year, we willbe located in the next to last block on the east end of Main Street in downtownBartow (FL), between Florida and Hendry Avenues. This will be a new area for us;we have mostly been located on the western end of the festival. Booths will belined up along Main Street and several side streets.

We are planning totake books and some small cosplay prosthetics (ie, wounds, cyborg pieces, and soon) to sell. But our vehicle also needs to carry displays and stuff for the KAG(Klingon Assault Group) area, so I am limited in how much I can take. I alsohave to take a table, at least 2 chairs, a gazebo to provide shade, a cooler ofcold drinks and some snacks to get us through the day.

The festival runsfrom 11 AM to 6 PM. Hundreds of vendors, cosplay, a costume contest, foodtrucks, a car show, music and other entertainment… what more could you ask for?Attendance is free. Cosplay is encouraged. Hope to see you there! 

Our Adventures at the Book Festival

We spent last weekend at the Sunshine State Book Festivalin Gainesville, FL. This was the second time I was there, and the first timefor my hubby.

We drove up Friday afternoon, arriving just around suppertime. We unloaded our car (except for the books we’d brought) to our hotelroom, and then went to the hotel bar to have supper. The hotel also had arestaurant, but after seeing the prices at the bar, the restaurant was probablytoo pricey for our budget. At about 7 pm, we went down to the conference centerfor the meet & greet reception. We talked with several other authors, andran into Joe Haldeman and his wife, Gay, which made hubby happy. But before toolong, hubby either got uncomfortable or tired, so we went back to our room,watched a little tv, and went to bed.

Check in for the festival started at 8 AM on Saturday. Ourtables were supposed to be set up and ready to go by 10 AM. I wasn’t worriedabout getting there right at 8, because I knew it wouldn’t take very long toset up our table. Hubby must have been tired, because he didn’t get up until 8,and he was worried about missing out on the breakfast that the festival wasproviding for the authors. So we went down and found our table, then I sent himoff to have breakfast while I unloaded the books from our car. I wasn’t worriedabout breakfast, because I’d had a couple pop tarts with my morning pills.

After I brought in our books, I unloaded the 3 boxes andbegan to set up the table. Hubby arrived in the middle of that, so we were alldone by 9:30, ready for the crowds of customers to come in.

At noon, I sent hubby to the buffet being supplied by thefestival. When he got back, he sat at the table and I went to get some lunch.Lunch consisted of build-your-own tacos, churros and key lime pie. When I gotback to the table, I could tell Hubby was tired, so I sent him to our room torest. He came back a couple hours later, feeling a little better.

Throughout the day, we talked to various people. Onechildren’s author told me where he got his books printed for a lot less thananyplace I had found. Of course, getting them printed is only half the battle;then you need a distributor to get them into the book stores. He wasnegotiating with a distributor.

Another author told me how to indicate the reader was goinginto a flashback. One of our books has multiple flashbacks, which at least onereader found confusing. Now I can fix that problem.

Another author gave me information on two cover artistshe’s worked with and recommended. He also gave me some information onpotentially getting our books in his wife’s bookstore.

And then a potential customer stopped by, and we startedtalking about book covers. I always thought the book cover should be anindication of what you would find inside the book, which should make it fairlyunique. She agreed but had gone to a publishing seminar a few months ago whereeverybody was saying, “No, you want the book cover to look like every otherbook in your genre.” In any case, she had nice things to say about our bookcovers.

And then, at the very end, the President of theorganization that hosted the festival came to us and said, “I sold 2 books, howdid you do?” We told her we hadn’t actually sold any books, but we did hand outlots of coupons to get our eBooks at a discount. At least one person came byand picked up one of each coupon, while her mother picked up one. We ran thegamut of coupon dispersal; some took several while others took only one.

In the days before the festival, I had repacked our books,trying to get it down from 5 boxes to 4. I actually got them down to 3. But,when it came time to pack them all up again, I didn’t have room for the twocoupon holders. I had to put them in with my laptop and hope they didn’t getsquashed and broken. (They didn’t.)

We took the books back to the car, had supper in the bar,and went back to our room for the night. Hubby doesn’t seem to think thatselling our books face to face is the way to sell our books, but he doesn’twant me to ‘waste’ my time studying marketing, either. But I’m not ready togive up.

Believe it or not, I had fun. I also had a disadvantage. Wewere located near one of the entrances, which was good. But sitting right nextto me, even closer to the entrance, was a very out-going author who greetedevery potential customer with, “What do you like to read?” Which is what Iusually say. And then, depending on what they said, he would regalethem with some variation of his elevator pitch for his series of 5 books. Ifelt a little silly asking the same question as him, and so I fumbled several times,looking for something to engage their interest. Also, he had dragon stickers hewas giving away, and I only had boring coupons.

I’m still processing what I can learn from this experience.I’ve often thought of having things to give away, but I’ve never gotten aroundto doing it. Maybe it’s time I do that. Among other things. Then if the personnext to me is asking, “What do you like to read?”, I can fall back to “Wouldyou like a free sticker/trading card/temporary tattoo?”

Personal Appearances

I am writing this aheadof time, because I am packing up and getting ready to go out of town on Jan 27,2024.

I will be attending theSunshine State Book Festival in Gainsville, FL. For 7 hours (10 am to 5 pm), Iand another of MoonPhazes’ authors, John Lars Shoberg, will be talking topotential customers, other authors, and other entrepreneurs about potentiallyworking together in some way. It is free to attend this event. This will be my2nd year at this festival, and I have big hopes for it. But it is alittle daunting to handle such an appearance on my own, that’s why this time,I’m taking John to help out. We will be at booths 163 and 164.

On February 17th,2024, we will have a booth at Syfy Bartow in downtown Bartow, FL. This free-to-attendstreet festival starts at 11 am and ends at 6 pm. I’m not sure where our boothwill be located, but if you go there, keep your eyes open for us. I will beselling books and possibly some cosplay prosthetics. John is planning to go,but he may spend the day with the Klingons. Or possibly he’ll split the timebetween them and my booth.

We are also planning tobe at Necronomicon in Tampa, FL, this fall. It was held in September in 2023,but I can’t find an updated website to get the dates for this’ year’s con. It’salso too early for me to start pestering them for an author’s table yet. I’lltry to keep you informed as the convention gets closer. John is thinking ofhaving some Klingon activities there, and he’s looking for other Klingons tohelp out.

Right now, that’s allwe’ve got scheduled for this year. We did hear that Bartow con was a hit lastfall and is planning to do it again in 2024. If they do, I hope I can get atable to sell stuff. They were pretty crowded last year!

We go to conventionsand book festivals to meet and talk to people who have read our books, andhopefully sell them more books. If you would like to check out our books, the (trade)paperbacks are available at MoonPhaze.com,and the ebooks are available at MoonPhazeBooks.com

Do You Hear it or Here it?

It’s surprising to mehow often I receive a letter or advertisement in the mail with grammar orpunctuation mistakes. I sometimes get a manuscript for editing with the samemistakes, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Not everybody who findsthemselves writing some sort of missive managed to test out of Freshman Englishin college.

Having already tackledthe subject of passive verbs, I decided to continue the trend by explaining apair of homonyms. Homonyms are words that sound the same but have differentmeanings.

The two words I’m goingto pick on today are here and hear. They sound the same, but theyaren’t spelled the same and they can’t be used interchangeably.

Here means ‘this spot whereI am,’ or ‘the area where I am’. It designates a location.

Hear is the act ofperceiving sound by way of the ear. Sometimes a bass instrument or a reallyloud sound can be felt vibrating through your body, but that’s not hearing. Ifyou truly can’t remember which is which, then notice and remember that the wordthat relies on ears has the word ‘ear’ in it.

I once received amanuscript that had the town crier shouting, “Here ye, here ye!” I tied mybrain in knots trying to figure out if he was really instructing thetownspeople to gather around him. It didn’t seem right to me, but maybe I waswrong. So I googled it, and found out that it was supposed to be “Hear ye, hearye!” Which translates from Medieval English to “Listen you, listen you.” And ofcourse, you can’t listen if you don’t have an ear, so the correct word to useis hear.

Memorize the meaningsof these two words, and then substitute that meaning when you use one of them,to see if you used the correct one.

I will build a househere. = I will build a house in this spot. That makes sense.

I will build a househear. = I will build a house by listening. That doesn’t make sense.

Did you here thedoorbell? = Did you in this location the doorbell? No, that doesn’t make sense.

Did you hear thedoorbell? = Did you perceive the doorbell? That does make sense.

I hope you enjoyed thismini-lesson. What was the worst use of either here or hear thatyou’ve noticed? 

Passive Verb? I Think Not

A while past, I asked afellow author to swap ads in our newsletters for one of each other’s books. Shesuggested we read each other’s books to see if we were ‘compatible’ with eachother’s audience.

So I read her book ofshort stories and although I didn’t find a lot of grammar or punctuationmistakes, I wasn’t impressed. Most of them seemed to be ‘slices of life’, notactual stories. She was writing a single scene that had no problem to solve,and therefore, had no resolution. I was carefully crafting a soft critique whenshe emailed me with the news that she didn’t feel my book was fitting for heraudience.

Her reason? It had toomany ‘passive verbs’ like ‘seemed’.

Years ago, I was toldto avoid ‘seemed’ in one of my short stories because it was a passive verb. Atthat time, I decided to research exactly what was a passive verb so that Icould avoid them. (Authors are always being told to ‘avoid passive verbs!’ withoutany explanation of what a passive verb is.)

A passive verb is whensomething is acted upon by someone or something.

Found artifacts arestudied by archeologists. – Passive

Archeologists studyartifacts that have been found. – Not Passive

 

Beach rocks are poundedinto sand by recurring waves. - Passive

Recurring waves poundbeach rocks into sand. – Not Passive

 

Those holsters werecrafted by a novice leathersmith. – Passive

A novice leathersmithcrafted those holsters. – Not Passive

 

Mary was kissed bySteve. – Passive

Steve kissed Mary. -Not Passive

 

Another way to think ofit is that with an active verb, the subject does something. With a passiveverb, the subject is acted upon. When searching for passive verbs, look for a‘be’ verb (be, am, are, is, been, being, was, were) as part of the verb. In theabove examples, we have are studied, are pounded, were crafted, and was kissed.A ‘be’ verb often (but not always) signals a passive verb. Does it have a ‘by’phrase behind the verb?

Some writers attempt to‘correct’ passive verbs by eliminating the ‘by’ phrase. It doesn’t work. “Marywas kissed.” is still a passive verb even if you don’t know who kissed her.

‘Seemed’ is not, by itself,a passive verb. “Everything seemed normal” is not a passive verb. How about“Mother seemed distraught by the news”? It’s got a ‘by’ phrase. But it doesn’thave a be verb, so frankly, I’m in a quandary, and would probably rewrite thesentence, possibly the entire scene.

Let’s take a closerlook. ‘Mother’ is the subject, ‘seemed’ is the verb, ‘distraught’ is anadjective describing the subject, and ‘by the news’ is a phrase answering thequestion of why. The news made mother distraught, so the subject has been actedupon, making this a passive verb. That’s how my thinking goes. Does yourthinking agree with mine?

I’d love to hear yourthoughts on this subject, as well as where you get your information on passiveverbs.

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 3

 

In and Out of Chicago –Tuesday, Nov 14

I don’t think I got anysleep sitting in that chair. It wasn’t comfortable; it didn’t recline orrotate. The arm of the chair was so far from the window and wall that if youtried to prop a pillow on the armrest, the pillow would slowly slide down inthe gap. Hubby didn’t have much better luck; he thought the rocking of thetrain was too unpredictable and jolting.

We got up about 5:40 AMand were soon off to the café car for breakfast. We were a little early and hadto wait for the server to get there. While we were eating, we were the onlyones there. Then Hubby remembered Chicago was in Central time zone, so he sethis watch back. Now it said we were eating at 5:20 and had plenty of timebefore we got to Chicago at 8:45.

Back in our room, wewatched daylight progress. I thought I saw frost on yards and cornfields butwasn’t sure. Mostly I saw naked trees, something you don’t see in Floridaunless the tree is dead.

Hubby wanted to layback down, but the bed had been put away. He stacked the boxes between the sofaand the sink, I moved back to the uncomfortable seat with the cpaps, and he laydown on the couch and dozed for another couple of hours. During that, theattendant took those stacked boxes downstairs and put them by the door so theywere ready to go.

We arrived at theChicago station on time. A Red Cap loaded our luggage in a cart and took us andanother lady to the lounge. The lounge people notified us what train we were onand what time 2 be ready to board (2:20). We put our luggage into temporary storageand looked to see what they had to eat. Again, it was snacks, and not a lot ofvariety.

Hubby settled in towork on his novel, and I worked with pen and notebook. About noon, he decidedhe was too tired to work anymore, so he wandered off. I jumped onto thatcomputer to work on the short I’d just started the day before we started thistrip. Finally got the word count over 1K! It’s been slow going, but until that, Ididn’t know where I was going with it. Should move much faster, now.

At 2, I startedshutting down and packing things up. Hubby and I went to the temporary luggagestorage and put away all the things we had gotten out, then started collectingour luggage just as they called over the PA for our group to go.

Another Red Cap took usto the train where our attendant greeted us. He had us leave our boxes onluggage storage shelves downstairs. When we got to our roomette, we found thisone was even smaller than our first one! At least we wouldn’t have to sleep init, because the train was due to arrive in KC at 10 PM.

Still, we hadn’t beensleeping well, and KC was still hours away. At first, Hub pulled out the laptopand tried to write, but the train was swaying and jolting so much it keptmessing up his file, so he gave up and put that away. Then he went walk about fora while, and I made our dinner reservation for 5 o’clock, because we’d neverreally gotten anything for lunch.

Eventually, it was timeto go for supper. We differed on what appetizers we got, but we both had steak(very good) and the cheesecake (also very good).

After dinner, Hubbytried to get some sleeping done. We had 3-4 hours before we had to get off. Weturned off all the lights in our roomette and closed the curtains to thehallway, to make it as dark as possible. Hubby took a pillow and leaned intothe corner of his seat, but he just could not doze off while sitting up.

The train was movingslowly. They announced we were behind a congestion of freight trains and couldonly move slowly until the tracks ahead cleared up. Sometime later, we began tomove faster and they announced that due to the delay, we would get to KC about10:42. About 9:45, we got too nervous for Hubby to try to sleep. This was not amajor stop where everybody would get off, like DC or Chicago. This was ascheduled 42-minute stop that they were trying to cut down to 10 minutes.Finally, we headed to the door on the lower level so we’d ready to get off.

The train stopped, theattendant help us off with our luggage and flagged down a red cap for us. Thered cap was picking up the checked luggage, too, and one of the suitcases hepicked up was Hubby’s carry-on. We couldn’t claim it yet, but as least we knewit was there. Then the Red Cap got stopped to help an older man who couldbarely walk. After several minutes of looking, the train attendant decided theolder man had lost his black piece of luggage, that it possibly got left inChicago. I don’t know how they decided to handle that.

Then we were off to theCentral Terminal. We helped the Red Caps unload their cart, claimed our pieceof checked luggage and asked questions like, “Do you have the number for a taxiservice?” and “Where should we wait for the taxi?”

Now having more luggagethan hands to carry it, we made our way through the lobby and out the frontdoor to a bench, where I tried to call Ztrip at 10:50. The line was no longerin service. I went back inside, asked the same guy, and he corrected the numberhe’d given me. Then he scrolled through his contacts and also gave me a numberYellow Cab.

I went outside and callZtrip again. I got through and made arrangements. They never showed. The nightwas chilly. I called Yellow Cab about 11:10. The night guard let us into thevestibule to wait because it was cold. Nobody showed up to get us!

About midnight, wetried to open a door to get out and couldn’t. Hubby went inside to try to findsomebody to let us out. What he found was a door that would let us out, so wecarried everything over there and went back outside. I called Yellow Cab again.A Ztrip van showed up about 12:30 and asked if we were headed for Independence.Yes, but where was Yellow Cab? We decided to take this guy. As he drove us toour hotel, he told us that Ztrip and Yellow Cab were the same company. Whoknew?

He drove us to ourhotel. I registered, we got everything up to our room, set up our cpaps andfell into bed somewhere around 2.

Thus our trip by train was a mixed bag of adventures, not all of them due to Amtrak. I probably should have looked up taxi services in KC before we left Florida, so that's something to keep in mind.

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

DC to Chicago – 2ndDay, Tuesday

At last it was lightout, and we got up and went for breakfast. We had just ordered our food whenthe attendant told us there was a problem with our train connection in NY, andwe needed to call Guest Services to see what changes were being made in ourplans, and it couldn’t wait, because we were only ½ hour away from DC, whichwas the possible place we could change trains. So I sat there, calling GuestServices. First the line was busy, then I was on hold. Time was ticking by. Theattendant came back and said the conductor had called for us, and we were toget off at DC, which was now 20 minutes away.

We forgot aboutbreakfast and hurried back to our room to gather our stuff. The attendant wasvery helpful in helping us get our stuff off the train and onto the platform.She even took our claim check to the baggage car and got our 1 piece of checkedluggage so it would travel to NY without us.

Not knowing what elseto do, I left Hubby on the platform with all our luggage while I went off tofind the ticket counter to ask for help. The ticket people gave me new ticketsfor the rest of our trip, and one took me to show me where the lounge was at.Apparently, since we had sleeper accommodations, we were entitled to use thelounge! Furthermore, we had gotten an upgrade for the next leg of our journeyand would have a bedroom rather than a roomette.

As he was about toleave me, I asked him for help in rescuing Hubby, who was still down on theplatform with too much luggage for both of us to carry, let alone him. He askedanother employee for help, and that employee, whose radio was chattering away athim, said yes, there was a Red Cap helping him get to the lounge. I thankedthem and wandered back toward the gate I had come from, expecting to see themsomewhere on the way. I didn’t find them, but my phone rang. Hubby waswondering where I was, he was at the lounge.

I went to the lounge.

I saw him as soon as Ientered, and all our luggage was in the temporary storage room. The loungeattendant could have printed our new tickets for us, but couldn’t checkluggage, so I took Hubby carryon and went back to the ticket counter to get itchecked in.

It was not quite 9. Ourtrain wouldn’t leave until 4.

The DC station washuge; multi-leveled, with lots of hallways, doorways to the outside, storesgalore and signs all over the place. I was glad to get back to the peacefuloasis of the lounge, where we could have our pick of coffee or soft drinks anda variety of snacks. It wasn’t breakfast, but it helped soothe our janglednerves. Hubby pulled out the laptop and worked on his WiP until about 2. Iworked in my notebook until he got done with the laptop, then I switched andstarted working on a short story I had barely begun.

We did leave the loungeonce, about lunchtime, to go to the food court in search of ‘real fool’. Allthat was available was fast food, so we each picked something and went back tothe lounge to eat.

We had been told to bein the lounge at 3:00 to be ready to catch our train. I packed up the laptopand put it back in our luggage about 2:45. At 3:00, they announced there was aproblem with the displays, they weren’t updating as needed, but the lounge employeesand the red caps could see the correct times, and they would get us to ourtrains on time.

About 3:30, a red capcame looking for my party of 2. He helped us get our luggage out to his golfcart and zipped us out to our train. We were in a 2-level car, so we had toclimb a tiny square staircase. The train’s attendant helped get our stuff upstairsand to our room. It was at least twice as big as our roomette had been, with acouch along one side, and a bathroom, sink and chair on the other. We put ourcarryon bag on a shelf above the single chair, piled the boxes and cpaps on thesofa, and we both got to sit near the window.

Soon the attendantarrived to take our orders for supper. There was no dining car, only a cafécar, so their choices of food were limited, and everything was microwaved.(Okay, I suppose the bread, salad and drinks were not.) What I had wasn’t greatfood, but it was edible. And it came with a complimentary alcoholic drink. (Trygetting complimentary drinks on an airline!)

We ate at 5:45, and itwas dark by the time we got done. Hubby had finished his word count for the dayand he hadn’t brought anything to read, so he decided it was time to turn in!After all, we had to get up by 6 to get breakfast before he hit Chicago. We hadthe attendant make up the bottom bed, which we’d been told could hold 2 people‘snugly’, and place all our boxes on the upper bunk.

Okay, we tried, butafter 40 years of sharing a CA King bed, we couldn’t make a not-quite-full bedwork for us. After a couple hours, I climbed out and told Hubby I would sleepin the chair. I’ve slept sitting up many times and didn’t think it would be aproblem. It was.

 

Our Train Trip to KC - Part 1

Day 1 – Orlando to NewYork

For a change of pace,we decided to take a train trip. Why? Well, a cruise ship would not get fromOrlando (inland) to KC (even further inland). The trip was to meet our latestgrandchild. We didn’t want to sit for hours in a brew of germ soup before wemet her, so we didn’t want to fly. Ditto for a bus. We thought about driving,but didn’t look forward to it, what with stopping every hour for a restroombreak, finding a motel every evening, and the big cities with their maniactraffic.

So I took a look atrailroads. I wanted some kind of room for us, so we could cut back on the # ofgerms we’d face and have a place to lay down and sleep. So I asked for a roomettefor the two of us. It seemed a little expensive, but maybe not, if youconsidered that not only were they transporting us and our luggage, but feedingus and providing lodging as well. We decided to do it, just so we could say,“Yes, we’ve ridden a train, and we remember doing it.”

The day came for us tostart our journey. The dishes were in the dishwasher, getting cleaned.Everything was packed. The taxi was on its way to get us. The Amtrak stationwas in a part of Orlando we didn’t know, and it didn’t have any long-termparking there, so I had hired a taxi to take us there.

The taxi driver wassurprised at the amount of luggage we had; 2 carryon suitcases, 2 mixer setsand a juicer still in their boxes (Christmas gifts), and 2 cpaps, but we got themall in his car, and got us to the station about ½ hour before I thought hewould.

It was a nicealmost-winter day in Orlando. The sky was deeply overcast, a soft breeze blew,and the temperature was in the low to middle 70s. We got Hubby settled on abench on the platform, the luggage piled around him, and I went inside to theticket window to ask questions.

That was when I got thenews; they could not accept the boxed kitchen equipment as checked luggage.Even though I had called and asked if I could substitute Christmas gifts forsome of my checked luggage, and was told yes, this guy said they did not acceptboxes as checked luggage. So we put our heads together to figure out how to geteverything to our destination with us. The solution was to pick one of thecarry-ons, take out our medications, and take the bag to be checked luggage.Everything else had to be carried onto the train by us and stored in ourroomette.

Our roomette wassmaller than we had imagined. If you see some youtuber on traveling on trainsand their ‘roomette’ has a tiny bathroom in it, that’s not what we got. Ourtrain had that type of room, but our room was even smaller: Two seats facingeach other, a small sink beside one seat and a trash can beside the other.There was a cubby hole way up at ceiling level that could be used to store someluggage. Hubby managed to shove the carry-on bag and 1 cpap in there, but itwas hard to reach, and none of the boxes would fit in it.

The train left thestation at 1:36 PM. We were informed we could go to the dining car at 2 andhave lunch. We had purchased a quick bite at the hot dog stand at the trainstation; we hadn’t thought we’d get any lunch otherwise. But lunch soundedgood, so at 2 pm, we lurched our way to the dining car. (Those movies that showpeople nonchalantly walking down train hallways and confidently stepping fromcar to car don’t take into account the swaying and jolting that an actual traindoes.) As we plopped down in a booth, I told Hubby I didn’t have my sea legs.He replied that the sea doesn’t usually toss you around this much.

Later, as we sat in ourroomette entertaining ourselves, we asked each other how we liked the trainride so far. Despite the snafu with the luggage, I thought that gettingourselves to the mode of transportation was far less intense than gettingthrough the airport. And despite having luggage piled up around us, the seatsare bigger and more comfortable on an airplane. It had gotten dark, and we werestill traveling (we would have stopped by then if we were driving). And it’snot as far a walk to the dining car as it was to the dining room on our lastcruise.

I think I like it.

 

After a supper thatHubby said was at least as good as, if not better than, cruise ship meals, wehad the attendant make our roomette into a pair of bunk beds. The steps to getonto the top bunk were at least 2 steps tall, maybe more, but I eventually gotup there.

 

It was, I think, thelongest night I’ve ever experienced. The train was rocking, which I thoughtwould help me fall asleep. Instead, it kept me awake as I feared rolling offthe bed, despite the safety harness intended to keep me in the bed. I clutchedthe safety harness for reassurance and finally fell asleep, but I woke up sooften, it must have been a light sleep.