A surprise day…

 I guess you could call it that.

I was supposed to go back tonight. Got all packed, hung around the afternoon (working on a sock, and I did get to see all of “Spencer’s Mountain” on TCM, which I had never seen before)

Got down to the station, had hugged my mom goodbye as the train started to pull in. The station person told me I’d get on when it stopped first (sleeping car) and then everyone else would get on. But. It pulled in, past me. I started to hustle towards the front of the train (where the sleeping cars are) and an employee stopped me: “ there’s a mechanical problem, they’re not letting anyone on”

So we waited.

It’s been unusually hot for late May here and I was fatigued, my mom was fatigued (she had taken, and passed, her “over 85 annual driving road test” early that morning.

No one was telling us ANYTHING. We waited a half hour, the rumor come down something was wrong with the engine power and they might have to get another one in.

So I asked her: “okay for me to be here a couple more days if I can change my ticket?”

Yes

I have flexibility; there’s nowhere I need to be in the next week, so.

So frantically, through the phone app, I ordered a one way ticket for Sunday. They still had a roomette and I remembered I had a LOT of loyalty points, so I paid for it with those, and then cancelled the ticket for tonight and got a refund.

As much as I complain sometimes about being (as a t shirt I once saw said) a “self-rescuing princess,” I AM pretty good at getting myself out of messes on my own.

And last I checked, the train hadn’t moved, and apparently an engine is having to be brought from Chicago, so I expect it’s going to be hours and hours late and I have no idea if the AC would be working if the engine is out. So in addition to the misery of “when will we get moving?” there would be the misery of discomfort