The last few weeks we’ve used the fast-forward method of travel, hopping on the Amtrak to escape the freezing rain and snow of the Northeast and to put us closer to where we would have been if we had left in April instead of October.   With plenty of friends and family to visit in the midwest, we took the 13 hour Lake Shore Limited overnight train ride from Syracuse to Chicago, sleeping most of the way.

Traveling on Amtrak with Bicycles

We got to the Syracuse station early, as we had not traveled on the train with bicycles before, and it was a good thing we did – it took us a bit of time packing and repacking our gear to accommodate Amtrak’s policies.  We loved the huge bicycle boxes Amtrak offered, as they allowed easy packing of our bikes.  We simply had to loosen the headset and turn the handlebars, take off the pedals, remove a couple of water bottle cages, then simply roll them into the box and tape it up.  The time consuming part came when they weighed our boxes and they were over the 50 pound limit.  We had to rip open the boxes and remove all of our empty water and fuel bottles, our helmets, air pumps, our locks & all the “light” stuff we had loaded on to our bike racks (to ease our own carry-on weight).

Once we got the bicycle boxes checked, we had to find a place for the “extra” gear that had always lived on the frames of our bicycles while also adhering to the checked baggage policy of no liquids or electronics.  In the end, we tossed each of our two packer plus panniers into one PacSafe and the station attendant considered it as one checked bag.  Our rack packs were considered our third allowable checked bag, and we carried our front panniers and handlebar bags with us onto the train.

Chicago!

At Chicago’s beautiful Union Station, we put our bicycles together, repacked our panniers, hopped on our steads, and rode to Jerry’s Sandwich shop, off of West Division, to grab a couple of vegan sandwiches before meeting Sheila’s long-time friends, Charlie and Margaret, and their son, Sam.

Jerry’s Sandwich Shop

Charlie’s reaction to the amount of gear we were carrying!

Laughter, love and goofiness is bountiful when spending time with my Margaret!

Missouri!

After spending a few rainy days in Chicago we hopped back on the Amtrak to make our way toward Kansas City, Missouri, to spend some time with Sheila’s family.

On the Southwest Chief route.

Riding into KC at midnight, to Sheila’s brother’s apartment.

Morning view from Andy’s apartment.

A Hop, Skip & a Jump North

After a brief night’s sleep at my brother’s apartment, we headed out to explore the city and to make our way toward Smithville, Missouri, to visit one of my sister’s and her family.  What a difference going a bit southwest made – ah, there is the sunshine again!

One of our priorities is to seek out good bakeries as we travel and Kai, a previous baker himself, is always on the look out for what he calls “real” bread.  With a quick google search, he discovered a spectacular gem of a bakery was only a couple of miles away and on our way north.  Fervere has got to be one of the cutest, quaintest bakeries we’ve visited thus far.

Doug coming out to say hello and welcome us into the bakery.

Kai & Doug discussing all things “bread”.

Thanks to Doug and staff of Fervere for spending so much time talking with us and for loading us up with so much excellent bread!!

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Next Stop:  Smithville, MO with Family