Originally written 2/23/07

Well, my February trip didn’t turn out like I had hoped it would. I knew that, with my weekends and many evenings dedicated to my show, I would not be able to take any sort of extensive trip. I had decided to spend a night and day in Rockford working on one project or another at mom’s house. As it turned out, I was only able to spend a few hours at the house following a cut and color at the salon. I drove in to town yesterday after work, spent 2 hours getting my hair done, and then I headed to the house for some Beef-a-Roo, internet searching and Grey’s Anatomy with mom. I was up and out of the house before 6:00am this morning to get to work. While I didn’t have a lot of time there, it was still nice to have an evening with my mom. We always have a great time catching up and discussing how bad the television shows are these days. We long for Northern Exposure and The Golden Girls. Sigh….

I was contemplating my March trip this morning. I have a night planned in Macomb with Julie, Angie and Lisa. They went to college in Macomb and want to spend a night strolling down memory lane. I spent a day on the campus once, but I’m looking forward to seeing where they spent their evenings. I’m not sure I’m okay with considering that my New Year’s resolution trip for the month, though. Two months in a row taking Illinois trips doesn’t seem fair. I had hoped to make it to Orlando, but March in a Spring Break hot zone is probably out of the question.

Then it hit me that St. Patrick’s Day is in March, and I have heard that Savannah, GA has a great St. Pat’s parade and celebration, apparently it has the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the U.S. I have been to Atlanta 3 times now, but have never made it over to Savannah. So it would be a new place for me. I then inevitably began singing “Midnight Train to Georgia” and getting all misty-eyed like I tend to do when I think of places I love (and I love ol’ Atlanta), and thought to myself, “what about taking the Amtrak there!?” This would vary my mode of transportation. So far it has been plane and automobile. I began investigating Amtrak schedules and routes. I realize that it takes forever to get anywhere on a train. Mandy and I took a train to New York City a few years back, and it took a very long time. But it was great fun and it was something different. A few years before that, mom, Andy and I took the train to D.C. and had loads of fun.

I see now, though, that it will take two trains and two overnight stays on these trains to make it to Savannah. If I (we?) left on the night of March 14 at 7:00ish, we would arrive in D.C. on the 15th early afternoon. There would be about a 6 hour break before the next train. The great thing about train stations is that they tend to be more in the heart of things than airports, so this 6 hours could probably be spent roaming around D.C. Maybe there would be a good protest or march to join in on! Then the next train would leave sometime in the evening from D.C. and arrive in Savannah a bit before 7:00am on the 16th. Perfect to get a jump on sight seeing! Two nights would be spent taking in Savannah and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day before leaving on the train late in to the night on March 18th and finally arriving back in Chicago the morning of the 20th. All in all requiring 4 days off of work.

It would be a long trip, and unless I wanted to spend the extra $200 to get a 2-person roomette with beds (which does include meals, so not a bad deal, really), it would get uncomfortable. It also wouldn’t end up being all that much cheaper than splurging for some fun in the sun with the college beach nudies in Florida. BUT, it would all be different and new and interesting and I’m really starting to love this idea. The topper would be if Gary and Tamara could make the drive from Atlanta to join us. I should say, “join me” as I’m not sure I’ll be able to interest an “us” in this plan.

I’m off to run it by a few people….