Lucky Stop

It's been quite a challenge taking photos from a moving train, and I haven't had very many good ones to choose from at the end of each day! I had high hopes for some I took at 6:30 a.m. today of a rural Pennsylvania river shrouded in mist as the sun came up, but the light wasn't adequate for good focus.

Thank goodness for a stop of five minutes at the Martinsburg, West Virginia train station in late morning! The light was beautiful, the old brick buildings charming, and the travelers walking toward the train had arranged themselves nicely.

I was quite taken with what I saw of Martinsburg from the train, and wished we could have "detrained," as the conductors say, and had a few hours there. Martinsburg was once part of Virginia, and was a prize sought by both the Union (North) and Confederate (South) armies during the Civil War, changing hands more than 50 times as the North strove to take control of the railroads there and the South tried to destroy them.

Now the city of about 17,000 people is growing rapidly, and many of the new residents commute by train or commuter rail service from Martinsburg to Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

I was thrilled to arrive at Union Station, the huge train station in Washington, D.C., this afternoon, where I finally had wifi (wi-fi?) again! I'm writing this on the train (coach seats, no sleeper needed) as we travel south to Lynchburg, Virginia, and our B&B, where I'm sure we'll experience some of that famed Southern hospitality.

(Added September 21: Phil did a lovely blip of Union Station for September 20 -- quite a contrast to Martinburg's!)