Vocal Voices

Telling Jo about that restaurant in LA had me thinking back on that whole holiday - a train tour across the US and our first trip to the Grand Canyon, all to celebrate our 25th anniversary in May 1997.

It all started around C-word time 1995, he was out playing golf, and I saw a programme about going down the GC on mules and I seemed to remember him saying sometime that he would love to do it, so I recorded it. While watching it, I said that I always wanted to sleep overnight on a train and so the seeds were sown. We started to investigate, using the library, the Rough Guide became our bible, and we sent off for information, train timetables and brochures. There was one travel agency in Dublin which was an agent for Amtrak, the American train company, and he got to know us well! In the end I think Edward knew the train timetables better than he did! We had to plan our route, factor in going to the GC and then work our way back to spend our last few days with our friend in Boston.

We chose hotels from guide books then would go to a bookshop and cross reference them through the rating systems of other guide books. Then of course we had to phone up to make a reservation, which was exciting in itself - waiting until after 10pm when the phone rates went down for US calls and not being able to sleep because my brain would be buzzing. The mule ride and hotel at the GC were done by post. About three weeks before we were due to go, Amtrak took off one of the routes which caused a little consternation, but actually got sorted. We had this thick book of train tickets

But do you know what, it all worked out, no major glitches at all, and we had a wonderful time. Spent the actual anniversary in San Francisco having a great meal in Chinatown. We certainly had no idea how we would book holidays almost 20 years later

That all sounds amazing Osc, we've often talked about doing a huge tour of the US and by train looks like a really good way to do it.

It's all so easy now to book anything though isn't it.

The first time we went to New York I remember sitting in the travel agents for an hour while the holiday was booked, I was getting so antsy because Tom was only a baby and was due to wake up at any time. We got it booked though and then a few weeks before we flew out I had a phone call to say that the hotel we'd booked was no longer available and would this different one be okay. Of course, we had no internet then to Google the name and I couldn't say yes or no until I'd had a look at the hotel which we were being offered so the next morning off to the travel agents I went and looked through brochures until I found this alternative hotel. We'd been very nicely upgraded from a small hotel on something like 59th St to a fancy place on 32nd and Broadway.
Then we decided we'd get married while we were there and again it couldn't be Googled so I had to make a number of transatlantic calls to find out if it was possible and what the procedure was.
It's so funny, knowing the world as we know it now, that there was a time when booking holidays wasn't just a matter of clicking on a few options.

I blame everything on the computer
It's my life saver at times