Day V: The Train to Omaha

Our first experience on the California Zephyr Train! We were pretty excited... and hungover. Both of those things made us almost miss the train, which would have been really stupid. But! We made it! We got an Uber down to Union Station in Chicago, which was pretty beautiful, but we didn't have too much time to actually take it in.

Bye Chicago! Hello Amtrak!

The train was cool. The seating is super large, the viewing cart is massive with huge windows and outward looking seating that actually promotes social interaction between customers. It connects to the dining carts - the fancy one with white tablecloths and the other one with microwave pizza's and beers.

As we left Chicago, we started leaving the urban area, through the suburbs and finally into the country as we reflected on our amazing time in Chicago.  After a bit of time we decided that we should probably head out to the Amtrak Scenic Viewing Car to take a better look of countryside Illinois.

We hung out there for a bit, and decided we should check out what they had for sale in the cafe car.  We decided to get a little microwaveable pizza and two glasses of wine to enjoy in the viewing car.  As we looked on over scenic Illinois and enjoyed our pizza we talked about how we were liking our Amtrak experience so far.  The seats were all terrifically comfortable (sort of like a first class flight) and the windows were great!  It was definitely a great way to see the country and we were very excited!

After a while, the big event for the day, the Mississippi River, came up!  It was magnificent!  Huge!  Outrageous!  We cannot really convey how large the river really is, it is just gigantic!

Soon our dinner reservation for the Dining Car came up, and we went over to see how it was all going to play out.  We had a nice Tortellini dinner with some Stone IPA's (Seriously?!  They have Stone IPA on this train?!  That is awesome!).  We sat next to a nice lady from Des Moines and talked to her about how this was our first real Amtrak ride and we were excited for the rest of our honeymoon-train!

As night began to fell, we went back to our seat and watched the Missouri River go by, another amazingly large river.  It wasn't long after this that we arrived in Omaha!

We got into Omaha late at 11PM and got an Uber  (A nice guy originally from Ghana was our driver and her was VERY excited that we were on our honeymoon!), to our Hotel, the Element Omaha which was rad. 

Neither of us have stayed in an Element before and it's like a fully contained apartment and the best use of space I think either of us had seen. We went to do a little exploring, except, it was like midnight on a Wednesday and I guess you have to know where you're going at that time to see things that might be open in Omaha. It was very quiet...

So we got a sandwich (actually close to one of the best of the trip? Maybe because Conor never eats sandwiches?) from the hotel's mini supermarket and enjoyed the complimentary bottle of wine the most relaxed and chill receptionist ever had given us in our room ("Would you like a complimentary bottle of wine for free?"  "Uhmmm, yes!") and read about Omaha.

See you tomorrow Omaha!