Organized the house, organized the house-sitter, and organized the cats.  Phoebe made me feel guilty when I picked her up to put her out when we left, because she was hanging onto my shoulder and purring, and I was playing a dirty trick on her, leaving her out most of the day until the house-sitter arrives. She does like to be outside (and she's had the leukemia vaccination and the deworming that she now needs), but she generally doesn't like to be outside all day long.  She likes to go in and out at will!

We headed to Staples Mill Amtrak station where we had to wait an extra half-hour because the train was delayed.  I don't have any idea what was going wrong, but the departure time kept increasing four or five minutes at a time every 10 minutes or so.  They must have run into delays at every station.  In fact, every train coming through Staples Mill for the next several hours was delayed (until this afternoon, and those trains weren't listed yet, so who knows.)  We in the United States do not have a grip on how to run trains.  You'd think we could just take a lesson from England or Europe where trains run to the minute day in and day out.

First stop will be Washington, DC, where we will transfer to a sleeper to Chicago. I had a whole BUNCH of rewards points, so we were able to get some legs for free and the rest at half-price (companion upgrade), so we saved a LOT of money on this trip.  Thus we get to travel in rather more luxury than we otherwise would do.