Well the big day is less than 24 hours away - I am all packed and ready to go - Jim will take me to the train station on his way to work tomorrow - then it's 4.5 hours on the bus to King St Station in Seattle and then directly onto the Empire builder for the trip across the northern states to Chicago - dinner will be served just after we get underway - the train must wait for the bus if it is a little late - if the bus gets stuck in real heavy traffic and isn't going to make Seattle on time then the bus will stop at Everett and we will board the train there - it heads north out of Seattle to Everett and then turns east and climbs up and over Stevens pass

The stress level is actually quite good - usually by now I would be more nervous than I am - another thing that I am happy with is the weather forecast for Chicago, NYC and Boston - all look very good with temps into the 70's and little or no rain in the forecast. I have stuffed an umbrella in the day pack but I think it will come out tonight when I rearranged a few items.

Looking forward to meeting up with the folks on the roll call for this cruise on www.cruisecritic.com - there are some 115 of us who have been posting on that site over the past year - we will have a meet and greet on the ship and about 60 of us are also going to have a dinner together in the Italian restaurant on the Norwegian Dawn.

The first chance I will have of posting will be from Union Station in Chicago - there is a first class lounge available - I can store my luggage there - it's scheduled to be a six hour stop over but will probably be more like four as Amtrak is usually late into most cities - in the lounge there is free internet service available or I will likely use my wi-fi - pop, coffee and donuts as well - Amtrak is trying to attract customers so they are starting to offer some amenities to there business class customers.

More later

Dennis