After a long a good night sleep I got up and took first a
nice warm shower. After that I went to the hostel main building in order to
have breakfast. Then I got my camera from the room and went down to the lake in
order to take some pictures and to spend some time by the lake. Before checking
out I still quickly checked my e-mails and wrote some reviews about the hostels
and Air B’n’Bs I had been staying in lately. By 11 am I had to vacate the room
and hand in the keys. I went down to the highway 192 in order to catch the Lynx
bus 55 towards downtown Kissimmee. The ride took about half an hour. I went
right to the ticket office in order to rebook my train. I tried to leave
Kissimmee on an earlier train because there was just nothing to do there and I
wanted rather spend some more time in Washington D.C. instead. I was lucky, the
very friendly ticket agent was able to rebook me to the earlier train, so I could
get to Washington D.C. about 7 hours earlier. I also checked my bag so that I
could still freely move around Kissimmee for the remaining two hours. I took a
little walk around downtown Kissimmee which looked nice. I got fancy about a
sandwich and as it was almost midday it was a good idea to get some lunch
before boarding the train. I googled the closest location of a restaurant chain
where I frequently eat sandwiches and had soon hunted down the closest outlet.
After a short walk I arrived at the address where the restaurant supposed to be
but all I found there was a large hospital. I checked the address again and
realized that the chain restaurant was located inside the building. Indeed when
entering the hospital I found signs of the chain but I could not just go there
and eat, a security guy advised me that I had first to register at the front
desk. My ID was scanned and a picture of me was taken and I was even issued a
visitor ID with my picture on it. All I wanted was a sandwich but obviously
that wasn’t possible without registration. I got my sandwich and was done with
eating after 10 minutes as I had to keep going in order to be back at the
station in time. On my way back to the station it started to rain and I got
quite wet. I had however no other choice than keep going until I reached the
station. There I learned that the train was about 1 hour delayed which didn’t
surprise me anymore. While waiting for the train I went to discover a little
bit more of Kissimmee and got even wetter as it started to rain again. In the
end the northbound “Silver Meteor” arrived about an hour and a half late from
Miami. Boarding took quite long, unfortunately I only got an aisle seat but I
was glad that I was on the train and on my way to Washington D.C. leaving the
Sun State behind in which I had gotten soaking wet four times within three
days. The next stop Orlando came up quite soon after. After the stop in Winter
Park, FL I left my coach seat and went to the launch car. I had a little snack
while doing some work and at the same time tried also to admire a bit the
beautiful landscape of central and northern Florida. The lakes and forests reminded
me a bit about the southern part of Finland. The train did further stops in
DeLand, FL, Palatka, FL, Jacksonville, FL and crossed then the boarder to
Georgia with the first stop in Jesup, GA. Due to traffic the train picked up
further delay which ranged in the end at about 2 hours. I returned to my seat
before the train arrived in Savannah, GA and started to prepare for the night.
During the night the train went through South Carolina and North Carolina as
well as Virginia. Further station stops where in Yemassee, SC, Charleston, SC,
Kingstree, SC, Florence, SC, Fayetteville, NC and Rocky Mount, NC.
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| Silver Meteor arriving in Kissimmee |
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