Having been invited to the BMW Riders of Central California rally to speak in September, we decided, on the spot, to make a month of it. This time no bike. Train and auto experience.If we drive out we'd be three or four days on the road each way. That takes more than a week out of our vacation, along with being behind the wheel for about 30 hours both ways. Donna had a great trip to Chicago this summer in Business Class on Amtrak. Our spring train to New Orleans went well, given the sleeper for overnight. This trip will be 48 hours on the train, each way, with meals included. Then we pick up a rental car from Enterprise in LA and spend 4 weeks exploring as much of the Left Coast as we can manage.
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| Westbound Schedule |
I'll add info along the way. Will be just shy of 6,000 miles total from Sept 11 thru Oct 15th. We are meeting up with friends all along the way, including great college friend Tony B between here and and Chicago on our way to Amtrak Launch.
The pre-launch evenings in the Chicago suburbs will give us a chance to see my sisters, Donna's niece, and make my 50th St Viator H.S. Reunion in Arlington Heights. Great first few days!
Side note on technology: My Google Maps is a complete map builder for creating turn-by-turn routes in multiple layers. Both of the above maps were created on Google maps. All you need is a FREE google acount. You can have up to 10 layers. The basic layers are typical driving segments with up to ten destinatons on each layer. The time labels you see on the above map were added using a separate program called Snagit. The RED pins you see on the top map, above, mark specfic points of interest that may or may not be in the driving directions. Once you create a map you can open it from your cell phone and it will show your position on the live map. Pretty slick! At any time you can zoom into a specific area and do a live search for anything, ie: National Pars, Citgo, motel...
More to follow as events unroll.
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