- In which our heroes take a walking tour of Miami International Airport -
OK, so it's been a while, but it's not like I'm getting paid to write on deadline.
At the conclusion of our last episode, we were walking down the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables on a warm, sunny November afternoon. (Note that the terns "warm," and "November" don't compute that well to us who reside north of the Potomac.) After leaving the Barnes and Noble with at couple of books for the train, I looked at my watch and realize we had better leave now before our parking meter expired. With that we found our car, and through miscalculation ended up on SW 42nd Ave., also known as Le Jeaune Rd., during the initial phase of rush hour.
Because of the early morning departure of the Silver Snail, er, Meteor, we decided that rather than spending the night in Miami Beach, driving to the Miami Airport (MIA) rental car facility, returning our car, and then cabbing to Miami Amtrak all at one shot (probably requiring us to get up a 4 AM), we would stay near the airport, return our car the night before, and take a cab directly to the train station. This did work, more or less.
We had settled on the LaQuinta Inn - Airport East, which is a perfectly fine lodging and was priced under $100. By the way, this is an excellent choice if you're arriving on the train, connecting to a cruise, as they run a shuttle to the docks in the morning. They also have a shuttle to the airport. More on that later. It's only downside is that there is more or less no food within walking distance. Well, that's not entirely true. The next-door Embassy suites has a nice, if overpriced restaurant, but the pedestrian connection is not the most convenient, especially since it had started raining and we had to dodge puddles as well as traffic. Should have eaten before we gave up the car.
Returning the car involved going one way to find a gas station, and then turning around and finding the back entrance to the MIA rental car facility. We returned the car with no problem, and then got turned around in the rental car center (which is the size of some airports) looking for the people mover ("MIA Mover") to the terminal. This we found in due course, and finally boarded one of the cars for a ride through the dark to the other end. We were disgorged into a hub vaguely reminiscent of a space station, but with gravity. After figuring out which passage led to the end of the terminal where the traffic was leaving, we walked over the connecting ramp and after some puzzling around, we figured out the level with the shuttles. For some reason, MIA has three levels instead of the usual two. We called the hotel to let them know that they should be sending a shuttle to retrieve their guests.
After sitting for 30 minutes in the sultry subtropical evening breathing diesel exhaust, we finally called the hotel to see what happened to to the shuttle. They said it was on the way, and finally, it did show up. (We had to carefully scan the sea of shuttle buses, as there's a LaQuinta Inn Airport West, which, by the way, had a nicer shuttle bus, for what that's worth.) After being disoriented driving around in the dark, we finally arrived back at the hotel and that's when we found out that we should have gotten dinner before returning the car. (Actually, we had a good dinner at the Embassy suites, I had a nice flank steak with Chimichurri sauce, which I had missed on the Beach, even though where we were staying might as well have been a suburb of Buenos Aires.) After that, to bed and rising at 6 to make our train.
The next morning, we skipped the free breakfast, so I wasn't able to see whether LaQuinta Inns in Florida have waffle irons that make waffles in the shape of a map of Florida, as the LaQuinta Inns in Texas let you make waffles in the shape of a map of Texas. (I'd hate to think of a waffle in the shape of the map of Maryland, no, not practical.) LaQuinta free breakfasts are OK, but I think Amtrak dining cars still beat it, at least for now. We had the front desk call as a cab, and, would you believe it, another party grabbed our cab when it arrived! The nerve. So we had the desk call us another, and eventually it came, though by now we were, if not quite sweating bullets about missing the train, starting to get a bit concerned, given our experience of rush hour traffic in the vicinity the evening before. As it turned out, everything worked out, though we did make the baggage check deadline with minutes to spare. Sharon was not going to lug her bag and have to rely on an SCA to shove it up into the cubbyhole.
It should be noted here that the Miami Amtrak station will never make it into anyone's list of the landmark railway stations of world. Even the new station (which we passed while returning our rental car) won't, but at least it will be in a more convenient location.
At least the waiting room was clean. And they did take us to our sleeping car on little golf carts.
The train was long that day. We had 4 sleepers.
Here's our SCA, Leo, who was excellent and took care of us without being intrusive. The reports of Amtrak service being lousy are premature.
We got settled in, and found out that we wouldn't be served breakfast until after we left Ft. Lauderdale. That was only 40 minutes up the line, so no big deal.
We rolled out of the station on time at 0810 hours, and were on my way. I had the opportunity to view the yards, which had a nice variety of Amtrak rolling stock.
Here's our dining car
(just joking):
More eye candy for the train nerd:
After breakfast, back to the roomette, and to viewing the scenery, such as it was. One past Palm Beach, we left the coastal conurbation, and I dozed off, the breakneck pace of the trip finally catching up with me, until after we passed Okeechobie. This time when we stopped at Orlando, I was able to check out the station a little, and it has been fixed up some since I last went through in 2012.
We went to lunch soon after we left Orlando. I had the Amburger again. It was good, but they really need to do something to improve the selection in the dining car. Only 4 choices? (Hamburger, veggie burger, special, in this case, BBQ pork shanks, and entree salad.) The least they could do is make some stuff from the cafe car available (sandwiches, pizza, etc.)
We continued on through the Sunshine State (a violation of the Truth in Advertising laws), which was, though, actually sunny that day. Here we are crossing the St. John's River north of Sanford:
Finally, six minutes early into Jacksonville, where we get to stretch our legs while they gassed up the loco for the trip north.
After leaving JAX on time, it was off to dinner, where I finally got my steak and Sharon got the Pad Thai noodles (mainly because they were rice noodles.) My steak was great, but the noodles were not the best choice, first, real pad thai has at least a few veggies in with the noodles, not to mention bits of egg, and secondly, the little protein nuggets, probably contained soy something or other, which cause a mild case of the gastrointestinal blahs. A good menu idea, but vendor needs to work on it. Dining car service was OK, though. After that, reading for a while, then we had the beds turned down, and off to sleep.
Up to this point, we had been running very nicely on time. However somewhere in the middle of the night, between Florence and Fayetteville, we lost 21 minutes, and never made it back. Maybe the crew made a stop at South of the Border? When I woke up, between Richmond and Fredicksburg, Virginia the next morning, we were running an hour late. This did have an upside, as we then had time to shower and eat breakfast without having to gulp it down, considering our 0812 scheduled arrival into Baltimore and the fact that they don't hold early northbound Silver Service trains in Washington. Thus, on the northbound Meteor, you get 2 breakfasts, lunch and dinner, as opposed to dinner, breakfast and lunch on the southbound edition.
Finally, arrival in Washington, the last chance to stretch, and get some railgeek photos. Look at the AEM-7's soon to be fully retired. These were still in service on November 18, 2015.
Finally, the diesels swapped for electrics, we leave Washington and get to Baltimore 37 minutes later. My daily commute should be so fast. We're about a half hour late, but here we are. We gave Leo a nice tip, and then headed to the baggage desk. But the Silver Snail still had one last surprise for us. As we rode the escalator up, what do we hear, but the fire alarm going off! Just like in the annoying safety video they play over and over gain at the station. It actually happens. Not that we could see any flames or smell any smoke. After about 30 seconds of confusion on our part, the cops showed us the door, and there we were, out in the chill November air, so much unlike Miami.
The fire trucks (called "farnjins" by the locals, or at least some locals, I say "fire truck.") finally came, they checked things out, and we were all let back in. I think they held trains for people. Our checked bag was ready, we retrieved it, went back out, found a cab, and soon we were home.
Thus, our trek on the Silver Snail. Sharon was not keen on the long trip. She felt a little claustrophobic staying in the roomette, even though a Viewliner roomette, in my opinion has more room than one on a Superliner. Also, to be quite honest, the Amfleet lounge is just not as inviting a place to hang out as the Superliner sightseer lounge. The limited selection in the diner didn't help much either. Maybe if we go again, we'll take the Star and bring MRE packs. But it was a good trip, and we had a great time in Florida.
OK, so it's been a while, but it's not like I'm getting paid to write on deadline.
At the conclusion of our last episode, we were walking down the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables on a warm, sunny November afternoon. (Note that the terns "warm," and "November" don't compute that well to us who reside north of the Potomac.) After leaving the Barnes and Noble with at couple of books for the train, I looked at my watch and realize we had better leave now before our parking meter expired. With that we found our car, and through miscalculation ended up on SW 42nd Ave., also known as Le Jeaune Rd., during the initial phase of rush hour.
Because of the early morning departure of the Silver Snail, er, Meteor, we decided that rather than spending the night in Miami Beach, driving to the Miami Airport (MIA) rental car facility, returning our car, and then cabbing to Miami Amtrak all at one shot (probably requiring us to get up a 4 AM), we would stay near the airport, return our car the night before, and take a cab directly to the train station. This did work, more or less.
We had settled on the LaQuinta Inn - Airport East, which is a perfectly fine lodging and was priced under $100. By the way, this is an excellent choice if you're arriving on the train, connecting to a cruise, as they run a shuttle to the docks in the morning. They also have a shuttle to the airport. More on that later. It's only downside is that there is more or less no food within walking distance. Well, that's not entirely true. The next-door Embassy suites has a nice, if overpriced restaurant, but the pedestrian connection is not the most convenient, especially since it had started raining and we had to dodge puddles as well as traffic. Should have eaten before we gave up the car.
Returning the car involved going one way to find a gas station, and then turning around and finding the back entrance to the MIA rental car facility. We returned the car with no problem, and then got turned around in the rental car center (which is the size of some airports) looking for the people mover ("MIA Mover") to the terminal. This we found in due course, and finally boarded one of the cars for a ride through the dark to the other end. We were disgorged into a hub vaguely reminiscent of a space station, but with gravity. After figuring out which passage led to the end of the terminal where the traffic was leaving, we walked over the connecting ramp and after some puzzling around, we figured out the level with the shuttles. For some reason, MIA has three levels instead of the usual two. We called the hotel to let them know that they should be sending a shuttle to retrieve their guests.
After sitting for 30 minutes in the sultry subtropical evening breathing diesel exhaust, we finally called the hotel to see what happened to to the shuttle. They said it was on the way, and finally, it did show up. (We had to carefully scan the sea of shuttle buses, as there's a LaQuinta Inn Airport West, which, by the way, had a nicer shuttle bus, for what that's worth.) After being disoriented driving around in the dark, we finally arrived back at the hotel and that's when we found out that we should have gotten dinner before returning the car. (Actually, we had a good dinner at the Embassy suites, I had a nice flank steak with Chimichurri sauce, which I had missed on the Beach, even though where we were staying might as well have been a suburb of Buenos Aires.) After that, to bed and rising at 6 to make our train.
The next morning, we skipped the free breakfast, so I wasn't able to see whether LaQuinta Inns in Florida have waffle irons that make waffles in the shape of a map of Florida, as the LaQuinta Inns in Texas let you make waffles in the shape of a map of Texas. (I'd hate to think of a waffle in the shape of the map of Maryland, no, not practical.) LaQuinta free breakfasts are OK, but I think Amtrak dining cars still beat it, at least for now. We had the front desk call as a cab, and, would you believe it, another party grabbed our cab when it arrived! The nerve. So we had the desk call us another, and eventually it came, though by now we were, if not quite sweating bullets about missing the train, starting to get a bit concerned, given our experience of rush hour traffic in the vicinity the evening before. As it turned out, everything worked out, though we did make the baggage check deadline with minutes to spare. Sharon was not going to lug her bag and have to rely on an SCA to shove it up into the cubbyhole.
It should be noted here that the Miami Amtrak station will never make it into anyone's list of the landmark railway stations of world. Even the new station (which we passed while returning our rental car) won't, but at least it will be in a more convenient location.
At least the waiting room was clean. And they did take us to our sleeping car on little golf carts.
The train was long that day. We had 4 sleepers.
Here's our SCA, Leo, who was excellent and took care of us without being intrusive. The reports of Amtrak service being lousy are premature.
We got settled in, and found out that we wouldn't be served breakfast until after we left Ft. Lauderdale. That was only 40 minutes up the line, so no big deal.
We rolled out of the station on time at 0810 hours, and were on my way. I had the opportunity to view the yards, which had a nice variety of Amtrak rolling stock.
Here's our dining car
(just joking):More eye candy for the train nerd:
After breakfast, back to the roomette, and to viewing the scenery, such as it was. One past Palm Beach, we left the coastal conurbation, and I dozed off, the breakneck pace of the trip finally catching up with me, until after we passed Okeechobie. This time when we stopped at Orlando, I was able to check out the station a little, and it has been fixed up some since I last went through in 2012.
We went to lunch soon after we left Orlando. I had the Amburger again. It was good, but they really need to do something to improve the selection in the dining car. Only 4 choices? (Hamburger, veggie burger, special, in this case, BBQ pork shanks, and entree salad.) The least they could do is make some stuff from the cafe car available (sandwiches, pizza, etc.)
We continued on through the Sunshine State (a violation of the Truth in Advertising laws), which was, though, actually sunny that day. Here we are crossing the St. John's River north of Sanford:
Finally, six minutes early into Jacksonville, where we get to stretch our legs while they gassed up the loco for the trip north.
After leaving JAX on time, it was off to dinner, where I finally got my steak and Sharon got the Pad Thai noodles (mainly because they were rice noodles.) My steak was great, but the noodles were not the best choice, first, real pad thai has at least a few veggies in with the noodles, not to mention bits of egg, and secondly, the little protein nuggets, probably contained soy something or other, which cause a mild case of the gastrointestinal blahs. A good menu idea, but vendor needs to work on it. Dining car service was OK, though. After that, reading for a while, then we had the beds turned down, and off to sleep.
Up to this point, we had been running very nicely on time. However somewhere in the middle of the night, between Florence and Fayetteville, we lost 21 minutes, and never made it back. Maybe the crew made a stop at South of the Border?
When I woke up, between Richmond and Fredicksburg, Virginia the next morning, we were running an hour late. This did have an upside, as we then had time to shower and eat breakfast without having to gulp it down, considering our 0812 scheduled arrival into Baltimore and the fact that they don't hold early northbound Silver Service trains in Washington. Thus, on the northbound Meteor, you get 2 breakfasts, lunch and dinner, as opposed to dinner, breakfast and lunch on the southbound edition.Finally, arrival in Washington, the last chance to stretch, and get some railgeek photos. Look at the AEM-7's soon to be fully retired. These were still in service on November 18, 2015.
Finally, the diesels swapped for electrics, we leave Washington and get to Baltimore 37 minutes later. My daily commute should be so fast. We're about a half hour late, but here we are. We gave Leo a nice tip, and then headed to the baggage desk. But the Silver Snail still had one last surprise for us. As we rode the escalator up, what do we hear, but the fire alarm going off! Just like in the annoying safety video they play over and over gain at the station. It actually happens. Not that we could see any flames or smell any smoke. After about 30 seconds of confusion on our part, the cops showed us the door, and there we were, out in the chill November air, so much unlike Miami.
The fire trucks (called "farnjins" by the locals, or at least some locals, I say "fire truck.") finally came, they checked things out, and we were all let back in. I think they held trains for people. Our checked bag was ready, we retrieved it, went back out, found a cab, and soon we were home.
Thus, our trek on the Silver Snail. Sharon was not keen on the long trip. She felt a little claustrophobic staying in the roomette, even though a Viewliner roomette, in my opinion has more room than one on a Superliner. Also, to be quite honest, the Amfleet lounge is just not as inviting a place to hang out as the Superliner sightseer lounge. The limited selection in the diner didn't help much either. Maybe if we go again, we'll take the Star and bring MRE packs. But it was a good trip, and we had a great time in Florida.
