Amtrak, My Birthday Adventure
by Esther Goldsmith

You must ride the Amtrak train. Their 1-800 people told me that I could not take my bike but Jim Foreman said I could. Jim Foreman was right!!! Turns out their personnel were very accommodating in securing my bicycle safely. There was plenty of stretching out room which I made full use of after I ate breakfast. With one big yarn I fell asleep for a couple of hours and when I woke up I had drooled on my shirt like a big baby. Yuk!!! It made up for the sleep I lost the night before because I was so excited about the trip.

We left [Oklahoma City] at 8:25am and arrived at 1:00pm in Ft. Worth, TX. I am so directionally challenged that I should never be allowed to go anywhere alone. There I stood on the corner with a map while my insides screamed I'M LOST & I'M HUNGRY, PLEASE HELP ME!!! Many did help with directions and pointed me to the best lunch spot.

I biked about 5 miles through busy traffic to arrive at Kimbell Art Museum. They allowed me to park my bike in one of their offices while I toured the museum. Thanks David Hunt for the suggestion. It was definitely worth the trip and they had very nice people working there. I bought their collectors' edition art book.

From there I biked to a deli and had a delicious corn beef sandwich which I love, visited a couple of stores then realized that time really does fly when you're having fun because mine was gone. At that point I was biking in 5:00 traffic and just pretended I was a local and knew exactly where I was going. My posture was of a lean mean biking machine. Okay, how about just lean :-)

Back on the train I went down the steps to the deli again and lost my way while trying to return to my seat on the second floor. About fifty Golden-Agers got their claws in me and asked question upon question about my biking excursion. One lady got her hands on my legs and felt me up pretty good. Finally I jokingly said "I hope that did it for you!" To that they really laughed. Then they all sang Happy Birthday to me, gave me some candy and steered me in the direction of my seat.

We arrived in OKCity at 10:30pm. Thanks to all of you who supplied me with more ideas than I had time to accomplish.

That special day, just one day in a life very much like yours, gave me fond memories that I will always treasure. I still can't read a map and I still occasionally get lost, but I have a glorious time in the process. It was a very Happy Birthday!