More Trip: Fortythree rolls into the station and grinds to a halt, I grab carry on and trundle out to the waiting area. Once inside I take on my usual confused state but I am quickly snapped out of it by Cleveland Uber blogger Jocko. It was great to finally meet Jim in the real world, he was immediately super friendly and all smiles from the get go, a very nice greeting after the trip. Jim was good enough to leave work early to pick me up and get me to my hotel. We start talking about stuff as Jim points out city sculptures of interest while weaving through downtown. We pass an immense Civil War style memorial that looks unbelieveable. After a little confusion on directions but good talk along the way, we get to my hotel. Once settled in Jim recommends eats at an asian place and we pick up his friend Dave to join us. Switching to Dave's silver vw bug we arrive at the Minh Anh restaurant. Good food, very nice conversation, my grilled chicken was delicious, tried some tasty beef cinnamon soup, this was a great place to eat. Jim gets me back to my hotel through near blinding lake effect snow storm. Very nice of Jim to get me orientated in Cleveland, truly a top-notch guy, it was great yaking about stuff and having good asian eats. A little tired, I call it an early evening.

The trip: Amtrak station waiting for #43 to show up. Watch large woman carefully open about four different small snack chips/curls/pretzel bags one at a time into larger plain potato chip bag. After depositing the contents of each one into the larger bag she shakes it up. She is obviously a high priestess of snacking, who am I to judge? Two well dressed goon types show up lookin around for something or someone, after awhile one plays a coin operated pistol shooting game, I'm thinking how perfect. Call for #43 puts me into action, leaving my priestess and pluggers. Passing the Amtrak engines never ceases to impress me, nearly unstoppable mechanical power forgotten in the 21st century. Finally onboard I'm offered a very small and very soft pillow to assist my dozing. The trip starts and the little pillow I secretly scoffed at works quite well as I get back some of the sleep I missed last night. The quickly passing outside is snowy and grey with sunbeams occasionally cracking through. Cafe car two cars behind opens up, excuse for me to try Amtrak coffee along with premade ham/turkey half sandwich with Pepperidge Farm oatmeal cookies. I curl up with a complimentary USA Today, read about the world falling apart..good coffee..I get another in the nice Amtrak paper cup. Back to roomy seat, hardly anyone onboard, agreeable warm temperature, pull out trip book, knock off a few chapters...soon see the cityscape of Cleveland on the horizon....