Traveling accommodations for our second Amtrak road Trip to St. Louis included spacious seats on the upper level of the Texas Eagle, which left Chicago at 3:20 p.m. on Friday, January 27. The annual party actually starts prior to boarding, at the pub in Union Station, which is where we met Diana and Oscar Gonzales, Deb and Bill Mennell, and Jim Renkar for lunch. But this is always just the first course. Once en route, we delve into the rations like shrimp cocktail, pate, tuna with jalapenos, cheese and crackers, desserts, wine and spirits, etc. that make up our potluck on rails. Our very comfortable hotel was just across the street from the riverfront area known as Laclede’s Landing, now a restored area with more than 30 restaurants, according to the helpful hotel clerk. The restaurant that we chose for our Friday evening refreshments turned out to be the one in which we had lunch on our previous Amtrak trip to this city. The fact that it was a microbrewery may have contributed to the chances of this coincidence occurring.

We started Saturday’s schedule with an excellent complimentary breakfast buffet at the hotel and then traveled by the light rail system to the Missouri History Museum.