Today we are in Austin, Texas, tomorrow we get on Amtrak, the Texas Eagle, and head for Springfield Illinois. We will be leaving Arcturus in the Elks parking lot here in Austin and we will be gone for a week visiting Neil’s family in Petersburg Illinois for the holiday season.

Tonight we headed out on foot to find a nice restaurant for Christmas eve dinner. Our first two choices were closed, but we stilled scored a winner at Romeo’s Italian Restaurant after about three miles of walking. I guess you could say it is a little presumptuous to go out to dinner without reservations in a strange town, but it keeps perfectly within our philosophy of “Life is a Journey.” Our journey is full of new adventures.

After supper the evenings excitement was making some Christmas ornaments for some lucky family members. This consisted of painting Georgia’s hand with paint and making a hand-print on the ornament. This was great fun, but I think there are hand prints in some other less desirable places also.

We will be sending this blog off from the Texas Eagle once we get settled in, so I will be able to add some anecdotes from our train trip.

Christmas Morning:

Everyone up at 06:30: Drill master Gary was pushing to get ready for the taxis at 08:30: Neil cooked up all the left-overs for breakfast and we had ten minutes to contemplate our navels before the departure time.

We ordered two taxis and nearly filled both of them. Between us we had 17 pieces of luggage. I think the adults had two each and Georgia had the rest. As we stepped out of our two taxis a fellow passenger lady reminisced out loud about babies taking lots of luggage.

We are now holed up in Neil and Renee’s bedroom suite. Our roomette is pretty small. There certainly is no room to change your mind at least. Georgia is having second breakfast, Neil and I are working on our computers and Nana is waiting to do the burping.

We will sign off for now and wish everyone a Merry Christmas from Gary, Judy, Neil, Renee and Georgia somewhere in Texas.