Post 1 Round 2: The Trip

I don't know why I like train travel so much but I do.  It doesn't matter if it's uncomfortable, I still enjoy it.  We once travelled from Adana in Turkey to Istanbul by train.  It took 23 hours and the conditions were somewhat primitive.  I think I've described somewhere on this blog, the trials of using a squat toilet on a moving train.  You can only imagine.  The countryside was wonderful, the people on the train friendly.  I'm sure we were the first non-Turks they had encountered on the milk run to Istanbul!

This is all the lead in to my declaration that I am planning on flying to Canada this summer and then traveling by train to various points in the United States.  I haven't quite come up with the itinerary yet. The Canadian side of this trip is proving a problem since VIA Rail has cancelled the train which used to go across the border at Detroit and travel on to Chicago.  I am reluctant to go by bus from Windsor to Detroit but perhaps that is just my prejudice.

I have friends in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Kansas City and Reno and so I am trying to plan a trip which will include all of them.  I also want to visit friends on Manitoulin Island in Canada.  That part of the trip is almost impossible to do by train.  I had thought of trying to take a train to a city near to Manitoulin but the closest seems to be Sudbury.  Ah well, I'm sure it will all work out some how, in the end!

I do need to make up my mind fairly soon.  I do have dates, well, almost.  Around June 25th till August 8th.  The return journey date is at least decided.  I need to set a date to be in Chicago and I would like to be in the US on July 4th.  Probably in Ann Arbor.  Well, slowly it comes together.

I decided to do this trip the day after my husband died.  I made a number of decisions that day.  They do say that you shouldn't make any big decisions for the first 6 months after a loved one's death.  I don't think this is a big decision so perhaps it doesn't count.