Westward Dreams

Brian and I have been thinking for a while now that we want to travel the US by train. I'm excited, the last time I was on a train was like.... never. Or maybe once? I can't seem to remember. I don't know if I went to Chicago by train or Charter bus in elementary school. Mom, do you remember? I'm pretty sure it was bus. (All I remember was this super annoying girl in my class was sitting in front of us with her super annoying dad and I couldn't wait for them to shut up.)

There's a connection from Waterloo, In (about 40 minutes outside of Fort Wayne) that takes us to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Seattle, Washington. It would be a 4 day trip, with most of a whole day in Chicago, and then almost a whole day in Seattle, and a lot of time sitting in a train staring out a window. It will be awesome!! The tickets alone are $500 but honestly, that isn't too expensive. Certainly cheaper than our honeymoon suite at Cedar Point for 2 nights ;) Of course, that is not counting the spending money we would need for Chicago and Seattle.

Right now this is all a pipe dream. We are working so hard to get back on track financially that dreaming is all I can do at the moment. I think it would be really awesome to be able to do that this year, but then again, it completely depends on how much we can manage to buckle down.

In other, completely unrelated news- I made enchiladas last night! I thought they were delicious and Brian thought they were okay. I browned up some ground turkey with onion and green peppers, then I added a can of rinsed black beans to the mix. I had bought a kit, which included 6 super tiny soft-taco size shells. They were so tiny, they were very difficult to roll and had almost no filling. Sad. I also had 4 burrito size shells left in the fridge, so I made up those as enchiladas. I am still left with a ton of filling mixture, so I saved it. I am going to make some rice and mix in some salsa with that and have it today as lunch.

Brian said he prefers my chicken enchiladas. Of course he prefers them. They take about 6 times longer to make.

I also bought some stuff for lasagna! I got little foil loaf pans too, so I am going to make 3 small lasagnas and freeze 2 of them. Then we will have lasagna all ready made, and just need to bake! I am so clever.

Tomorrow we are headed up to Valparaiso! Brian's friend Josh is leaving for basic training this week, so we are going up to say good bye and good luck. And also get up to some shenanigans. What kind? I have no idea!

It's been a blast having Brian home this week. So much stuff got done. Did you know my house is actually almost clean? I know, I'm surprised too.

Welp, I got to get to preparing things for the trip tomorrow. I really need to charge my camera. I should probably do that .... now.

See you all later! :D

Have any of you gone cross country on a train before? Advice? Thoughts? Monkeys?!