My trip to an oil boom town in North Dakota started off on a pretty nerve-wrecking note.

I feel like, at this point, “in spite of my best efforts, I managed to make my Amtrak train” has become a running joke. For every time I made it onto the station with plenty of time to spare, there are two times when I caught it pretty close, either because I didn’t leave as early as I could, or there were transit issues, or some combinations of both. But even compared to all that, catching the Empire Builder today felt like miracle.

My plan was to do what I usually do when taking the Hiawatha train to visit my sister. Since I usually head down to Milwaukee on Friday, I take Red Line/Yellow Line/Pace Route 210 combination to the Glenview Amtrak station. It just feels silly to go down to Chicago Union Station only to go back up again on Amtrak when you live in Rogers Park. That’s not an option on the weekend, since none of the Pace bus routes serving Glenview run on weekends, so I just take the train down to Union Station and take Brown/Red line train combination up to Rogers Park.

Continue reading “In spite of my best efforts, I didn’t miss my train” →