I woke up in Kansas. The irony is just as funny to me then as it is now.
As much as I tried to enjoy the scenery, it was made all the more difficult with the train stopping randomly for delays in order to give other trains the right of way. At one point, the train sat still for 45 minutes and the thought was that another engine had gone. When it was actually that the train was stopping in order for another train from the opposite direction to pass by.
I was in a state of panic for most of the day. I already had a late check-in for my hotel because the Chicago to NYC wasn't going to arrive at Penn Station til 6:30ish. Now that it was obvious that I wasn't going to make the connection, I was getting more worried that I would lose the room.
If you're an ambulatory person, you can easily take a lesser room or go to another hotel. Finding a wheelchair accessible room that is truly wheelchair accessible is difficult to find. I contacted the hotel about the situation I was in and I probably wouldn't arrive before Tuesday morning. I explained to the representative that I would pay for Monday but to please not release the room. The representative was very accommodating over the phone and gave me the impression that I was set. All I could do was trust that. Now I could turn my concerns to how the hell was I going to get from Chicago to NYC.
Amtrak was giving missed connection passengers assurances that we would be put up somewhere and given a seat on the next connection to NYC. I had no reason not to believe them.
The train reached the Kansas City, KS/Kansas City, MO border in the late evening. Three hours past the time when we were supposed to have arrived in Chicago.
Would be in Chicago in 12 hrs...
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