Kelly’s whirlwind visit ended yesterday afternoon when Lorena took her up to Vancouver to catch the train back to Seattle. This week has turned into a big week for both Kelly and Christian. I already spoke about Christian’s trip back east to present his research results for the year. Kelly is in the middle of a smaller, but still big chunk of research she needs to show to her boss when he arrives back to Seattle from a month or so away in Europe of some such thing. The upshot is there has been a lot of pressure and angst that should see some relief this week.
What better way to relieve angst and get some office work done than go on a train ride with great Wifi and coffee products. Kelly has now taken the round trip train ride between Seattle and Vancouver, Washington (the Vancouver around these parts). Christian has taken it once. Both of them love it. Last night, the train took an extra couple of hours for some reason. My understanding was that had something to do with the heat, but that does not make sense to me. The good part was that it gave Kelly an extra couple of hours of quality time with her research so she was able to get it mostly ready to show to her boss tomorrow morning.
I love train travel. Part of it is the feeling of travel without care of time restrictions. I have only taken a train ride one time to a business meeting. That was between Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina and I enjoyed it a lot, but it arrived a couple of hours late. On the few other times I have taken a train it was for vacation and I was able to plan for the possibility of lateness which happened all too frequently. I know some train systems are punctual, but I have not often been fortunate in that regard.
It all kind of fits into the Environmentalist Wacko theme that has crept into this blog, too. It feels like I am saving the planet when I ride the train. Don’t tell any Democrats, but I kind of like that.
Betty Blonde #375 – 12/23/2009
Click here or on the image to see full size strip.
Twice now, we have had five people around our table for dinner in our tiny studio apartment. Kelly and Christian have both stayed with us over the weekend a couple of times. All of that worked out really well. This weekend, our apartment manager came around to ask us if we wanted to extend our stay so we signed up for another six months. We do not really know where we will land next. We do not even know when we will be able to make the next changes. Alzheimer’s is like that.