Woodstock for Christmas:
So the plan for the holidays is to swing through Woodstock for Christmas and afterward fly down to FL to visit Jill, her family and the rest of mine.
For travel this time I decided to keep away from the normal Greyhound run from Boston to Albany and take Amtrak through NYC and back up along the Hudson River to the Kingston/Rineclife station just over the river from Woodstock. I had dual motives for this 300 mile detour. First was to keep from giving any money to Greyhound. I have come to despise this company after numerous problems with drivers, shitty service, and just getting lost. The last straw came a year ago when the driver headed from Albany to Boston got lost multiple times. After his 5 pass where he completely missed South Station people had wised up to the fact that he didn’t know where he was. When passengers started telling him that he kept missing it he started to curse back at them and even threaten to “pull the bus over and fight” one passenger. This was the last straw. After filling complaints with Greyhound I was told that I would be credited for a free trip. This never has materialized even after numerous complaints back to their main offices in Texas.
The other alternative is train travel and it is far superior for a few reasons. First up you have leg room this is key. Anyone who has taken a bus will know what I mean. It is never any fun to have your knees dug into your chest while the drunk guy next to you (it tends to be students and these types who take busses) resting his head on your shoulder. The next plus is electric outlets in your seat. This way you can plug a laptop in and watch a movie for example. And the other final plus is a dinning car that serves food and alcohol. The one draw back is that in the US I have never taken a train that is on time. Unlike Europe where you can set your watch to the trains here you best not be in a hurry. This was no exception either. The train was 30 minuets late leaving and someone pulled the air break causing another 20 min delay. This caused me to miss my connecting train and waylaid me in the city for a bit.
This gave me just enough time to poke my head out of Penn Station and get a peak at that miracle on 34th street, Macy’s. As usual they have a spectacular Christmas display in every window. A quick walk up to times gave me just enough Christmas spirit in the city before my train left.
The train ride up wasn’t too spectacular because it was dark out. Since the train runs the Hudson River it offers spectacular scenery the whole way up. Aside from the bridges over the river about the only visible landmark was West Point Military Academy.
