Day 3 Evening

We're still moving, thankfully. Passed through Fargo, ND
approximately 16.5 hours behind. On the bright side, we'll get a full
night to sleep in for arrival into Chicago...

We had lunch in the diner with a couple who boarded in Portland,
headed for Columbus, Wisconsin. They're in coach and one of them
isn't taking the night in coach very well... We had the Angus
Burgers, served with Chips. Now, bear in mind, these aren't the
"English" chips, as it's pretty dangerous to have a deep fryer aboard
a train. (A good bump happens pretty often, and I can only imagine
the horror of scalding oil on a cook's hands!) Of course, good news
with the bad. We were parked at Minot, ND getting various things with
the train corrected, one of which was a frozen shower drain on our
sleeper, which was fixed just as we were called for lunch. The car
attendant said that due to the major cold, the drain was freezing
solid and requiring a blow torch to unblock. He said that if we
wanted to use the shower to do it quickly after it was unblocked. The
shower's been well used afterwards, thankfully hasn't been blocked up
again, but the water heater is barely functional. Takes the water
from 4 degrees celcius to maybe 15 degrees. Needless to say, it's
still this ->||<- cold!

Weather is warming up a little bit as we approach Chicago. Defect
detectors have been reading not much better than -9F for temperatures,
and is now fully dark. Not terribly surprising on the shortest day of
the year.

Off to dinner now...just got the call for our dinner reservation.

Dinner was good we both had the Flat Iron Steak dinner which included
a baked potato, mixed vegetables, and a starter salad. Dinner was
really good and filling. For dessert Michaelea had chocolate icecream
and I had vanilla.
After dinner the showers were unblocked, but there wasn't much in the
way of hot water. Jon tried having a shower and it was a quick on. I
didn't even try. Charles our attendant stopped in to make sure Jon got
his shower and to see if we wanted our beds made up. We decided we
would get the beds done now so that he can get some rest before
Minneapolis/St. Paul. We will try again to get an internet connection
there.

Breakfast if we want it is going to be served between 5:30am and 7am
tomorrow morning to allow all of us getting off a chance for something
to eat, since we are going to be into Chicago at 8am. We were supposed
to be there at 3:45pm this afternoon.