Day 12 Lions International Convention Chicago 2007

Day 12 (Saturday, 7 July 2007):

We slept in till about 8:20 or so, dressed and went to the restraint er restaurant for breakfast. (The frigging automatic replace with correct spelling feature has a "habit" of changing my spelling of "restaurant" to "restraint". I find this annoying.

I took me a while to get there as I was thumping along on my "sticks" (crutches). Before that, I was on the scooter and could outpace Kathie. She got used to walking behind me and had a bit of trouble realizing that I was behind her getting my aerobics for the moment!

Then, we went back to the room and verified that we had gotten together everything and Kathie checked beneath the beds. We then called the bell hop, who came up with a carrying rack and transported our worldly goods out front to where a cab was called. We then loaded into the cab and off we went to the Amtrak station. We had to tell the driver twice that we wanted "Amtrak" and not the general train station…

Inside, we got a Red Hat to haul our stuff to the Amtrak sales lobby (and that was a US$5 tip) and I stood by the entrance guarding our six bags.

Kathie brought over a ten dollar bill, which I put in my pant's pocket next to my wallet. I was feeling lazy as I was standing against a wall and resting on my right leg. My leg was getting very sore and my mind wasn't on the security of that "10 spot" (to use an Ausie term).

Kathie then got in line and after a while, came back to get my driver's license and returned to her place in line (the folks on either side of her saved her spot for her). After a while, she called me over so the clerk could see my face. I didn't want to walk through the line (well, thump along on my crutches actually) so I went through the "secured" area. It turned out the clerk merely needed me to be close enough to be able to verify my appearance with those on my driver's license…

After a while, a family walked past where I was standing. When they got maybe forty feet away, a small boy yelled "Mom! Look what I found!"

I thought this boy had found something Lions that I had dropped. It was much later that I realized I'd dropped my ten dollar bill and the little fart had it. Oh, well…

We then went to a lounge where we sat and waited for a while. We had several (3) little glasses of "Diet Pepsi" and I ate a small Pizza Hut cheese pizza and part of Kathie's. A Red Hat then hauled our stuff out to the train where we met the Conductor (Anna Maria) and she arranged for our stuff to be stored on the train.

The sleeping compartment was maybe seven feet long and had two nice seats inside. Just under the window was a table which could be put up against the wall. There was a recess on one side and I put the laptop computer and my crutches in it. On the other side was two steps intended for those ascending to the "upper berth". The "upper berth" was a rack that was closed up against the overhead.

We sat and talked, played cards and talked and eventually had dinner.