FRIDAY 9TH MAY 2025
I’m publishing this post a year after it was actually written, as we were preparing to leave San Antonio for New Orleans, our next stop on our USA adventure.
As is the way of early departures, we both had a restless night, waiting for that 4.30am alarm.
We’d book a Lyft driver. He rang to advise he’d arrived a bit early but for us to take our time. We’re new to ride sharing but our two experiences have worked fine, and our driver was helpful and chatty during our short ride.
I don’t think I’m entirely awake for this selfie.
Unlike on our arrival the San Antonio railway station waiting room was well lit, and two attendants were manning the ticket windows. We arrived in plenty of time to check our suitcases, and after a short wait were boarded around 6am.
For this leg, something like 15-16 hours across Texas and into Louisiana, we have taken a roomette. Smaller than a bedroom, this private compartment has two single seats opposite each other which become a bed when needed. Another bed pulls down from overhead. Toilet and shower are at the end of the carriage.
We are not anticipating needing a bed sleep on this leg, but it was very shortly after a 6.30am breakfast in the dining car that we both nodded off. Our engine driver loves to blow his horn. Somehow that is a comforting sound to doze off to.
I’m writing this in real time as we pass through mostly green countryside and some swampy land. Not long ago we crossed Lake Houston, a man-made reservoir and source of water for Houston.
So, we are definitely still in Texas, even though it is now 2pm and we’ve had lunch – chicken caesar salad for the record. We’re running about a half hour behind schedule, possibly due to a computer malfunction at an earlier stop.
We tried to have an after-lunch nap. Wouldn’t you know it … a couple of guys with crowbar and hammer arrived to fix the door on the roomette opposite us.
‘Don’t try this at home, folks,’ the mechanic said to us after he successfully banged it back onto its track. The only thing I wanted to try at that point was reading the back of my eyelids, even if he did seem a jolly soul. He didn’t stick around though. Probably went off to hit the computer with his hammer…
Maybe if I apply myself, I can catch up with missed days of blogging. There are plenty of those…
Just as I typed that we passed a rail line of some hundred or more army tanks, and next thing a stop at Beaumont Texas was announced. We can get off for a leg stretch here. Or a cigarette if that is your thing.
…
It’s 6pm now, twelve hours since boarding, and we are definitely in Louisiana, having stopped at Lafayette a while back. Now we have stopped at New Iberia as we head south-east towards the Gulf of Mexico. It’s low-lying land with lots of pools of water, maybe on account of earlier rain, more probably swamp and bayou.
We’ll go to dinner shortly, and arrive in New Orleans around 10pm.
That seems to be as far as I got with the story on that day. It was getting on for midnight by the time we arrived at our New Orleans hotel. We had left all accommodation arrangements to Amtrak Vacations, and sometimes we found their selections to be way too central for our liking. This one was on the corner of Canal Street and Bourbon Street in the French Corner. Our Lyft driver crawled through traffic and went around the block several times for reasons we didn’t understand, before finally double-parking. She had not been friendly or communicative on the drive from the railway station, but I wouldn’t have liked being a woman solo on that job, at that time of night, so perhaps that explained her demeanor.
The hotel entrance was secured, and we could well understand why from what was happening in the street. So, it was a short delay to gain access. The foyer was superb, but it went downhill from there. We ended up changing rooms twice over our four-night stay. But! Least said, soonest mended.
As I said to the manager who eventually got us sorted: You can’t always prevent something from going wrong, but you can take responsibility for what you do about it. To her credit, she did — and our accommodation for the last two nights was very comfortable.
GWEN WILSON, Author, aka The Reluctant Retiree 