The Grand Canyon!

Evelyn and I (John) enjoyed a wonderful Amtrak® Vacations trip to the Grand Canyon from June 1-6, 2019! We booked the travel, lodging, and tours package through AAA Ohio Auto Club.

Friday, May 31, 2019 – We drove from home on Friday afternoon to Toledo, Ohio, and stayed overnight in a Hampton Inn.

Saturday, June 1, 2019 – The Hampton Inn gave us breakfast bags to go since the breakfast buffet was not yet open when we left at 5:00am EDT. The breakfast bags included a delicious doughnut, a breakfast bar, an apple, and a bottle of water. We drove to the Amtrak station, parked our car in the long term parking lot, and boarded the Lake Shore Limited train. We departed on time at 6:15am EDT for Chicago, Illinois.

We arrived in Chicago on time at 9:50am CDT and waited in the Metropolitan Lounge of Union Station for our next train. We were able to use this lounge because we booked a bedroom in a Superliner Sleeping Car for our long-distance trip. The lounge offered free storage for our luggage, they had complimentary snacks and beverages, free Wi-Fi, and they provided abundant battery charging stations for our electronic devices.

After we stored our luggage, we took a walk of about 16 city blocks round trip in downtown Chicago, and stopped at a Starbucks for some lunch. After we returned we enjoyed a free wine and cheese tasting event during the lunch hour! Then we boarded the Southwest Chief train and departed on time at 2:50pm CDT.

Our sleeper room had a bathroom and two beds (bunk style). It had bench seating on the bed wall, a small, pull-out table on the window wall, and a chair on the wall opposite the bench seat. The pull-out table was great for propping up our Kindles to read while we traveled.

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As we traveled through the Midwest from Chicago to Flagstaff, we witnessed extraordinary flooding of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The flooding caused many freight trains to be rerouted onto our track. In fact, our train was the first passenger train in a couple of weeks to be allowed through the area from St. Louis, Missouri, to Kansas City, Missouri. Amtrak had been bussing their train passengers through this area during the previous two weeks.

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The seating for meals in the dining car is called “community seating.” The dining room hostess seats you when you come in at a table where there is space. For supper, we had a 5:30pm CDT reservation. We were joined by a wonderful couple named Steve and Sharon from Crystal Lake, IL. They were both retired ministers. Evelyn ordered the surf and turf meal which consisted of a crab cake and a flat iron steak, bun, and green beans. I ordered salmon with rice pilaf, green beans, and a roll. We both ordered a chocolate carmel lava cake for dessert. Oh, so good!

Sunday, June 2, 2019 – We woke up Sunday morning having traveled through Missouri and parts of Kansas while we slept. We ate breakfast in the dining car (no reservations needed for breakfast or lunch). Our breakfast companion was a woman named Melissa from Kansas, who was a teacher who trained other teachers about technology in the classroom. Evelyn ordered the 3 egg omelet with bacon and a croissant. I ordered the 3 egg omelet with sausage and a croissant. The dining car served good coffee too!

We went back to our sleeper room and watched the scenery. There is so much variety in the geography is this great country!

For lunch, we were joined by Jerry and Cindy, from Mansfield, OH. Both Evelyn and I ordered the Angus burger with chips. Everything was delicious!

We went to the observation car in the afternoon and met a couple from New Holland (PA) who were Weaver Mennonites. We also met a young man who was moving from the East to Arizona. He was an American literature professor moving to teach at a community college. From the observation car we could see lots of wildflowers and animals. We saw several beaver dams. One was huge! We also saw prong horned antelope, prairie dogs, white tailed deer, and Rocky Mountain Elk.

Supper was with two ladies, Kathy, from Palm Springs, CA, and Yvonne, from Lafayette, IN. Kathy’s bucket list included visiting all the State Capitol buildings by train. So far, she had visited 43 of them! Evelyn and I both ordered the Thyme roasted chicken with green beans and a roll. I also had rice pilaf. Again, delicious!

Monday, June 3, 2019 – Our scheduled arrival time in Flagstaff was Sunday, June 2, 2019, at 8:32pm MST, but we arrived about seven (7) hours late on Monday, June 3, 2019, at 3:20am MST due to massive flooding of the Mississippi River in the Midwest.

We took a taxi from the Flagstaff Amtrak station to the Little America Hotel. What a nice hotel! We had slept a good 4-6 hours on the train, so we slept a couple more hours in the hotel room. We ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I ordered a Southwest omelet with avocado, peppers, and salsa. Evelyn ordered Eggs Benedict and bacon. We then got ready to join our tour guide at 8:15am MST. He picked up six (6) more passengers in his 15-passenger van and then took Evelyn and me to the Grand Canyon Railway station. The other passengers stayed on the van with the tour guide and drove to the Grand Canyon. Evelyn and I enjoyed a 2.5 hour scenic train ride to the Grand Canyon and arrived at 11:45am MST. We had a guide on the train named Amber who described the history and geography of the area as we traveled. She was quite chatty! We were also visited by an Old West Sheriff, and a cowboy musician.

At the Grand Canyon, we enjoyed breathtaking views from the South Rim. We ate our lunch there (provided by the tour guide), and visited the gift shop to pick up a refrigerator magnet for our collection. I (John) noticed a German family taking pictures near where we ate lunch, and offered (in German) to take their family picture with the Grand Canyon as the backdrop. They happily accepted!

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We rejoined our tour guide at 1:00pm MST and he took us to several amazing viewpoints around from the South Rim to the East Rim. Wow! We took a lot of great pictures of some fantastic scenery.

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Our tour guide worked for Great Ventures and was very knowledgeable of the area and was also quite entertaining. He introduced us to a local celebrity raven named Ricky. Ricky had a mate named Lucy, but we didn’t get to see her. (She was probably nesting.)

Around supper time our tour guide drove us back to Flagstaff, stopping at a Navajo trading post on the way. At his suggestion we tried some Navajo Fry Bread. It was delicious! We arrived back at our hotel around 6:30pm MST and decided to stay in our room and go to bed early.

Tuesday, June 4, 2019 – Early the next morning we took a taxi back to the Amtrak station in Flagstaff. Our train was supposed to depart at 4:15am MST, but was already delayed two (2) hours on their departure from Los Angeles, California. So, we sat on hard, wooden benches in Flagstaff until we departed on the Southwest Chief train for Chicago at 6:15am MST.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019 – We arrived two (2) hours later than our scheduled time in Chicago, at 4:50pm CDT. We waited in the Metropolitan Lounge again until our train to Toledo, Ohio, arrived. We boarded and departed on time at 9:30pm CDT, and arrived on time in Toledo at 2:55am EDT the next morning (Thursday, June 6, 2019). We picked up our car from long term parking and drove back home, and went right to bed. No unpacking at that point!

The food on the Southwest Chief was great! And an unexpected surprise was meeting many new people. We met singles and couples from across the United States, as well as Australia. Everyone had a different story for why they were riding the train.

Kudos to AAA Ohio for booking such a marvelous vacation trip! Amtrak took very good care of us, in spite of the delays due to flooding in the Midwest. It was a wonderful vacation!