The pictures above were taken on Sunset Limited Trip I in May 2005 aboard the Sunset Limited from Los Angeles to Orlando.

It’s been nearly eight months, but now is as good a time as any to officially wrap-up my Sunset Limited trip from last May.

Looking back over my schedule, which was kept via an Excel spreadsheet, we arrived in Orlando at 12:27 a.m., which put us 3:42 behind schedule.

Instead of taking the Silver Star from Orlando to Washington, D.C. the next day as originally planned, I elected to stay in Orlando for a couple of days and fly back.

Meanwhile, Mike, the rider who e-mailed me from Houston while I was on the Sunset Limited last May, has a blog of his own and he has posted commentary and pictures from his trip, which started in Kansas City. Amtrak Journeys can be found at http://anothertraveler.blogspot.com

And finally, since this trip took place in May of 2005, the damage from Hurricane Katrina has forced the shutdown of Amtrak service from New Orleans to Orlando. (Click here for pictures of the trip, including those of areas hit by Katrina less than three months later. To continue, click on the links at the top right of each post.)

As we approach Orlando, it’s time to wrap up some loose ends from the trip. First of all, in case you are wondering, the streak continues for my second cross country trip – I had a hot dog and beer for lunch.

And now a couple of taboo and/or controversial subjects:

1). Bathrooms. The bathrooms on Amtrak are similar to the bathrooms on an RV – after a long trip, you can only do one thing: Deal with it. As for a sleeper car bathroom tip, here’s one from Jason, a Canadian on a North American rail pass who was in the sleeper across from me. Always use the downstairs bathroom next to the shower. Most people use the one upstairs first. As for the downstairs bathrooms, people seem to use the ones across from the shower not knowing that there is also one between the shower and the handicap room. Here’s one thing I’ll add to Jason’s tip: the toilets in the bathrooms across from the shower (and upstairs) are perpendicular to (and facing) the door. In the bathroom next to the shower, the toilet faces a wall 90 degrees from the door. Granted, I didn’t use a tape measure, but I believe there is slightly more leg room in this bathroom configuration.

2). Smoking. During this trip, several announcements were made about the fact that smoking on Amtrak will result in banishment from the train. Despite this warning, several individuals chose to light up in obvious and not so obvious places. Being in a sleeper car, I never smelled any smoke, but a couple of passengers said that they had. I never saw anyone light up, but on a couple of occasions, I saw lighters change hands in the lounge car during long stretches without a smoke break. What’s the solution? Good question. Amtrak can’t afford cameras or undercover employees posing as passengers. I guess all they can really do is to continue to banish those who are actually caught smoking.

(On a side note, to my knowledge, only one person was removed from the train. On Friday night, a passenger was forced to leave the train in Palm Springs, California. Earlier that night, I saw the passenger making a scene in the dinning car; the next day, a couple of passengers said they heard he had used a bad credit card, in addition to being a problem in the dining car.)

We just left the station in Sanford – where we discharged the dining car crew, for some reason – and we are now 3:38 behind schedule. With Orlando – and midnight – approaching, that’s all for tonight. I’ll update things tomorrow.

Note to self: The next time you are on a train and you don’t understand what the engineer is doing, keep it to yourself. While backing out of the Jacksonville station, we make a stop and from my GPS, it appears we start going northwest. In my sleeper car with the door and curtain open, I say to nobody in particular: “What the f— are we doing?” At that exact moment, the conductor walks by and shoots me a glance over his shoulder. Whoops. Naturally, after going west for a matter of seconds, we hit a switch and start going south – making a classic U-turn. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth.