Yes, That's My Husband ~ Heading West

After Buzz and I got married in June, we headed to San Diego at the end of October. I had the romantic notion that it would be wonderful to go across country on a train, rather than fly. The Navy made the travel arrangements, for us to leave from Boston. We would be traveling by train day and night, so we would be sleeping in a sleeping car and everything.

It started out as a nice ride. We sat in wide seats which had huge windows and we were told that our train would connect up to sleeper cars later on. It was late when we connected with the sleeper cars, and we had been up early that day. I was getting motion sickness and I hoped that if I could only lie down on a bed, the train's motion would lull me to sleep.

We went to the right car and found the right berth, except there was a man there, who said that we were mistaken. Buzz hunted down a conductor, who made the man move out of our space. It was tiny! I had visions of a comfortable sleeping car with relatively roomy spaces like in the movie Silver Streak. Our room was nothing like that. I had to get changed and washed up in the teeny sink in the room while Buzz waited out in the hall. (The bathrooms were at the end of the hall, shared by everyone on that sleeping car.) After I was done, I put on my bathrobe and we switched places. When Buzz was done, he pulled down his top bunk and climbed in. I scooted in the berth and pulled down the lower bunk. The compartment was so small that we only had a small place to stand when the beds were pulled down.

The windows did not open. Somehow, I thought that I would feel better if I could have some air blowing on my face. It was not until we had a layover in Chicago and got off the train to walk around that I finally was able to stop feeling horribly nauseous. Buzz stopped and bought a hamburger, but I still felt queasy enough that I did not eat. The food I was eating at the start of our journey was white chocolate covered pretzels, but soon stopped when motion sickness kicked in. You could not pay me to ever eat another white chocolate covered pretzel again! If you have a food that you are trying to give up, I suggest this method - you would never be tempted to eat it anymore!

We finally arrived in San Diego and figured that the trip was a good test for newly married people, or to test how patient a husband could be with a nauseous wife. After we arrived in California, we rented a car. At the time, my New York City Native husband did not drive, so I got to experience the thrill of the superhighways of California. But I will save that story for next time.

I must add that since then, I have ridden Amtrak's DownEaster train to Boston from Portland, Maine. It is a wonderful, stress free way to travel if we want to travel to Beantown and I have never had motion sickness again while riding on it. Of course, I did not eat any white chocolate covered pretzels.