courtesy photo
Jerry Klotz works on a crossword puzzle in the train to New York City.
by Karen Klotz
HARDWICK – Our weekend was carefully planned. Friday we would take the Vermonter to New York City where we would disembark downtown at Penn Station. We would then take a subway to the hotel where we would meet our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter for a weekend of babysitting while they attended a child-free wedding.
My husband, Jerry, and I would then stay an extra day in order to celebrate his birthday with a Broadway show (“Hades Town”) and visit an art museum.
Knowing that I needed to get back to Colorado to check on my elderly parents I thought that I would fly out of La Guardia rather than making the return train trip back to Vermont. That way I could take advantage of the carbon savings by taking a direct flight to Denver (a carbon savings of up to 50% compared with a one-stop flight, as much of the carbon emissions take place during takeoff and landing). All the tickets were bought, the hotel reservations were made and we were ready to go.
Tuesday night before our big weekend the phone rang with bad news. Our granddaughter had an ear infection and the pediatrician was recommending no flying for a while. They were canceling out. What to do? Since we didn’t really need to spend three nights in New York City now that we were out of our babysitting gig, we decided to go a day later so that we could still celebrate Jerry’s birthday with the Broadway show (my first) and I could still catch the direct flight to Denver.
A big advantage of taking the train was that changing the train tickets was easy-just a matter of calling Amtrak and changing the days with no extra charge for Jerry with his senior discount and only $12 more for me at the adult rate.
The trip took about eight hours, which we were able to spend doing crosswords, reading and relaxing. When we arrived in New York City we were right downtown at Penn Station. We were able to walk the half mile to our hotel which was in the theater district, just two blocks from Times Square. It was an easy way to travel into the heart of the city without having to deal with all the traffic. Now that we know how conducive taking the Vermonter is to accessing the Big Apple, we’ll be jumping on the Vermonter more often. Broadway, here we come!
