Flying Through The Heartland

Recently I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Amtrak has a station in Oklahoma City.  It's a major stop on the Texas Eagle route.  There is also a regional route called the Heartland Flyer that runs daily from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth in the mornings and back again late in the afternoon.  So of course I had to take a ride.  Since taking the train from its origin meant getting out of bed about 4am to drive 3 hours to take a train ride for 4 hours I decided to split the difference and drove to the halfway point in Paul's Valley to ride for 2 hours.  Hey, it was my day off and I needed to sleep in a little bit!

It was a pleasant ride and my Verizon MiFi worked great all the way.  The seats on the train are spacious and since I was only going for an overnight I only had my backpack and a briefcase to keep up with.  I posted to Facebook and worked on my blog as I rode along.  Soon the conductor was anouncing that we were crossing the Red River and entering Texas. 

At the Amtrak station in Ft. Worth I found Molly The Trolley, a free trolley ride around the downtown area.  It really wasn't going where I was going but it was a free ride around town and let me get a look at downtown.  Also grabbed a few virtual munzees!  I did get off at the Water Park and strolled around enjoying the cool fountains and a good use of downtown space. 

The next day I picked up a rental car and drove out to Arlington to find the oldest geocache in Texas and then drove a few extra miles toward Shreveport to get the oldest geocache in LA too!  And I would not have gotten there if I hadn't had a PAF (phone a friend) to assist me.  The next morning I slept in a bit then returned the rental car and headed back to the Amtrak station for the ride home.  It was a long day since I had to drive back to Seeker after I got off the train.  But it was a fun and unusual way to spend my days off (and I got 2 more classic geocaches!).  Plus I got to add one more route to my list of Amtrak routes I have enjoyed.