Senior Adventures, Plus

At David's (3rd son) invitation, Ruth and I decided to make a trip to Florida and view the planetary launch to Jupiter of the Lucy Spacecraft at 5:34 AM on Saturday October 16th. In addition, we planned to visit Tommy (2nd son) and Laurel, his wife. Also, as long as we were down there, we scheduled to drive to Orlando and spend a few days at Disney World, since Ruth had never been to the Magic Kingdom in Florida. All the preparations were made well in advance. I booked a round trip ticket on the AMTRAK auto train to leave the Lorton, VA station at 4:00 PM on Thursday October 14th and return one week later. I had a confirmed reservation. The train was scheduled to arrive at Sanford, FL by 8:00 AM, the next day. While waiting for the launch, I had made a two-night reservation at the Patrick Air (now called Space) Force Base Visitor Officers Quarters (VOQ). We planned on staying four nights with Charlie (4th son) in the Disney World area at his "time-share" located a few miles away from the entertainment center. These were the plans. They were not to be accomplished exactly due to many challenges and frustrations.

After a leisurely lunch at one of Ashby Ponds restaurants, we went back to our apartment, finished packing, and sat around until three hours prior to the train's departure. On the way down to Lorton at about 3 o'clock, I received a cell phone call from the train dispatcher inquiring about our location. I thought that odd. But I told him we should be there in plenty of time. The next thing I heard was that we should have been at the station no later than 2:30 PM. I looked at my ticket and discovered mixed in with ten other footnotes that were each one millimeter high, the notation that all passengers and vehicles must be checked in by 2:30 PM. When we got to the station at 3:30 PM we were refused boarding even though we had a confirmed reservation made many weeks previously (Strike 1). An offer was made to book us on the next day's trip, but that would mean we would miss the launch.