Our Mid-West Trip {thus far}

We started off our trip by going to my parents house on Wednesday evening, the third and sleeping over.  We woke up early on Thursday, got Brooklynne dressed and drove over to the Martinez train station. 

My parents had booked 2 roomettes, so we could sleep on a bed instead of a chair.  We got everything situated and walked up to the observation car, which is where we spent a good majority of our time.  It had windows on both sides and sky lights above, to make sure you could really take in the scenery.  

The train was so great, we were in the very last car, and there were two more sleeping cars in front of us, with the dining car in front of that and then the observation car, and then two coach cars.  With the sleeping car tickets, it included all our meals, so we got to eat 7 meals in the dining car, ordering whatever we wanted (oops, no weight watchers on this train).

We rode through California, into Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and our last stop was Illinois.  We rode through the Sierra Nevadas and saw Donner lake in California.  In Nevada was the Trukee River, and a lot of flat land, which is where it got dark the first night, so we didn't miss much.  In Colorado we saw the Rocky Mountain range (breath-taking), and 3 different canyons, and stopped for a few minutes in Winter Park.  We rode through the Moffat tunnel, which is 6.5 miles long, but saves over 150 miles if going around the mountain.  We fell asleep in Colorado and woke up in Nebraska to fog.  Although once the fog lifted, it was beautiful, there wasn't very many exciting things about it.  The Missouri river was extremely flooded, and we saw many houses where the water was 1/3 of the way up the sides, but luckily it wasn't on the track.    From Nebraska we got into Iowa, which was mostly farm land, and from Iowa we rode to Illinois which was also a lot of farm land, but some gorgeous towns with old churches and brick buildings.

We got to Illinois on Saturday night and drove up to Wisconsin (where my mom's from).  We went to church with my aunt and uncle on Sunday morning, and a lot of the family came to the farm for lunch after church.  It was such a delight to see all of my aunts and uncles on my moms side, and a few of my cousins. 

  

from left to right: Uncle Andy, Uncle Dan, my mom's cousin, Aunt Laura, my mom's cousin's husband, Aunt Mary, mom

Two of my uncles serenaded us with some beautiful music while we took in the beautiful evening.

Brooklynne got to meet some of her second cousins, this is Brook, and she's the closest cousin in age to Brooklynne.

Brooklynne loved playing with Uncle John!

We only got to see four of our cousins, but we had such a wonderful time while in Wisconsin. 

Uncle John and Aunt Juli fed Brooklynne her dinner, and she loved it, but she kept looking over at Matt. It was almost like she was making sure it was okay.

oh hi, my sweet pumpkin pie!