The last Amtrak Regional for the evening passed through New Jersey ten minutes late, but was not too heavily packed, as the bulk of the Thanksgiving holiday crowd had already milled through the corridors of transit several hours earlier. Amy and I found a couple of seats together in an Amfleet 1 coach — those older ones with brown and tan interiors, dimly lit with bright red seats and only a few AC outlets in certain rows. It was a noisy, slightly cramped train, with the heat turned up way too high, so that the air had that musty “burnt radiator” smell, and we took off our hats and jackets and sweaters and still felt too warm. But we managed to sleep most of the way, listening to Grieg’s Peer Gynt on Amy’s iPod, with an earphone splitter to share the audio between two sets of earphones.

I came home at about 3am, to a cat who, though happy to see me, had also thrown up a hairball on the sheets and peed on the bathroom rug.

The feeling of dread at a difficult pre-Thanksgiving trip today grew stronger as the precipitation percentages in the forecast rose ever higher. As the storm swept up the East Coast, I trudged home through the rain, wondering just how delayed and crowded the 8:30 train to NJ would be.

The line to the train at Union Station stretched from Gates B and C, down the concourse, past Sbarro’s and the liquor/lotto store, around the corner, and past the front of the bookstore. The train was sold out, yet somehow, Amy and I managed to score the very rearmost seats in the rearmost car of the train. The seats were together for a couple, at the far end of the car from the restrooms, and right beside the exit, and had extra legroom and two A/C outlets. It was a quintafecta of Amtrak coach-class awesome. The train was somehow not too crowded, the trip went quickly, and there were no delays.

All in all, a much easier trip than I expected, completely banishing all sense of dread I had earlier had, despite the rain and line and threat of complications from the Thanksgiving rush.

I’m over at Amy’s folks’ place now. Tomorrow (today, technically), Thanksgiving service at church, and then dinner at her grandma’s. Enjoy the turkey or tofurkey, those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving.

(Just two site notes: Weblog comments and trackbacks are off for now, due to heavily increased spambot activity — probably bottom feeders trying to take advantage of sysadmins being away for the holiday season. Also, the webcam is keeping an eye on Pandora for me, in the still image section. You may also occasionally see my neighbor pop in to feed her.)