usa rail pass. second segment: colorado to chicago.

eventually we all got on the train just past 2am on wednesday morning. boy was that a long wait in the train station. i kept myself entertained by rotating my activities: knitting a scarf, reading a few chapters of a book, playing a few rounds of free cell or pinball on my laptop, and checking to see if anything more enticing magically appeared in the vending machines. lather, rinse, repeat.

trash heap in nebraska.

i fell asleep pretty soon after i got onto the train. i stirred a bit at sunrise but realized that it was too much effort to try to get some pictures on an overcast day in nebraska. also, my head felt like it was in a fishbowl since my ears didn't want to pop from all of my congestion.

i spent the majority of the day in the lounge car, knitting most of the time. sometime in the afternoon, i struck up a delighful conversation with my new friend rob from utah. it was fun to talk with someone my age and definitely helped the afternoon fly by at a quicker pace. rob had a book of sudokus, and surprisingly, i got through a few of them.

my pack on the metra.

olivia playing around with tigger.

i ended up getting into union station just past 11:30pm...a mere 8 and a half hours past my scheduled arrival at 3pm. i rushed over to the oglivie transportation center and hopped onto the last metra out to the suburbs. my brother picked me up at 1:30am, and i slept a few hours on the couch before being woken up by my adorable niece, olivia. we spent the morning playing around until i decided to go to the walk-in clinic to get my sickness checked out.

i walked away with two types of ear drops and a sinus rinse. goody! the rest of the day was spent playing with olivia, eating some pizza and hanging out with some of kyle and ivonne's friends.

i spent the rest of my time in chicago hanging out in my pjs playing with my niece. i did manage to play some rock band (keyboard, yea!) with my bro and his family which was fun. here are some photos of olivia:

olivia and kyle on skype with my family in colorado.

olivia was fascinated by candies from my aunt brenda.

yea! playing with yarn at an early age.

using daddy as a chair. haha.