Well, the day did not turn out as the schedule called for. More on that later.

We flew into Albany, NY last night on our United flights through Chicago. The weather cooperated but some tarmac traffic at O’Hare resulted in a 30 minute delay arriving in Albany. By that time (10 PM) the airport was virtually empty. Luckily the hotel had a shuttle.

This morning we had a nice off-the-menu breakfast before meeting the rest of our 16 fellow travelers for our 9AM departure. We also met for the first time, our tour leader, Brian Alvarez, who we learned was from Las Vegas and had never been to this area which was a bit surprising to us. The game plan was to have our luggage shipped directly to our hotel while we rode the Maple Leaf Amtrak train to eastern New York. Surprise #1: we all thought we were going to Geneva, NY, our supposed stay for the next 3 nights. We learned that we will be going to Rochester, NY which is considerably west of Geneva. Moreover, we would be spending the night in Rochester as there was a problem with the hotel reservations, which, even our tour director was unaware of. Oh, well, everyone was an experienced traveler and we were ready to “go with the flow”.

Compared to European rail travel, Amtrak remains an embarrassment to rail transportation in the US. Surprisingly we only left 10 minutes late, and the coach seats were fairly comfortable, but the exterior of the cars and windows were dirty! Brian knew people were unhappy with the change in plans and graciously offered to buy us lunch on the four hour train ride to Rochester. Food service on Amtrak trains is not much to look forward to. Luckily because of our hearty breakfast we settled for some snacks as our lunch choice.

Surprise #2 was when we exited the train in Rochester. Our bus that would be used for touring the area was coming from Buffalo and had gotten stuck in traffic because of a football game. It would be at least 90 minutes late! Brian, to his credit, suggested we all grab Uber vehicles and make our way to our hotel for the night; he would reimburse us for our expense. With a couple of hiccups I did finally get an Uber to take us and another couple to our local hotel.

Surprise #3: Although the Country Inn & Suites was only 6 miles away it was located in an area with very limited local eating opportunities and no cocktail lounges which was desired by most of the travelers after today’s travel issues and change in the itinerary. At least our luggage (traveling by truck) had arrived safely at the hotel.

Hopefully tomorrow will find us united with our travel bus and back on schedule with no further travel issues!