Turn the train 'round flip it and reverse it

Since my last post, the world of current events has made a serious intrusion into my summer schedule. My plan after visiting the Twin Cities was to head West to Seattle on Amtrak's scenic Empire Builder. However, due to bad flooding in North Dakota, all trains between St. Paul, MN and Spokane, WA were canceled until further notice. For this reason, I have rerouted my trip through Albuquerque, and I will be approaching Seattle from the south, via San Jose. From there, it will proceed more or less as planned, but the dates will be different. I made an updated version of the map from my earlier post. The trips according to my original plan are in red, and the new ones are in blue.

This has reinforced to me the importance of remaining flexible while traveling, because there are some things we can't control completely, like floods, or in the case of European travel, volcanoes. A flood's not particularly complicated. But it's big enough and the trains are finicky enough about railroad conditions that it doesn't matter.

So when life gives you floods, head somewhere dry, like Albuquerque. Apparently, there are only 8" of rain a year here. At least that's what a tour guide told me. I'll have a post and some pictures from here up soon.