Just discovered how easy it is to get to Boston!  Amtrak, directly from Albany, in 5 hours, for less than $200 round trip for ALL of us!

Going to start saving for this, and creating a list of places to see in Boston!

As an aside, Jason is getting cold feet about our month long venture out to the west coast.  I have been grudgingly pricing out getting us to Florida - it would cost about $1400 for all of us to get to Anna Maria Island on the Gulf.  (To Tampa, and then public transportation to Anna Maria.)

Another option is 

More tripping...

Been loving this research.  (And been neglecting lots of other store-related things I really should be doing!)  I think rail passes are a great idea.  If we can manage to go this Oct-Nov for a month, it will cost us $2345.  That 30 day pass will allow us to travel over 12 segments.  Once we figure out exactly where we'd like to go, it's also possible that we could use the shorter rail passes, since we can use the 1 days spread out across 6 months of travel.

Tentatively, I think we'd like to get to New York first, and spend a few days experiencing the city.  Then head to Chicago, and spend at least a day there.  The leg from Chicago to West Glacier is 31 hours, which means we would have to sleep on the train for at least one night.  Another option is spending the night at a hostel in St. Paul - I have been emailing hostels in Chicago and San Fransisco, and spending nights in a bed versus a train seat seems like a better idea.  Plus, the hostels look great.  (The kids inquired about whether it was like the Ronald McDonald house, which seemed like a great comparison to me!)  The trip from Chicago to St. Paul on the Empire Builder is just over 8 hours.

Also - it seems important to expand their knowledge of our country in every way possible - and we'll be following an approximation of the Lewis and Clark journey.

I think we'd like to get to Portland/Salem and visit Katherine.  She might be able to put us up for a night or two...

From there, it would be great to travel down the coast.  Perhaps spend a week or so at a warm beach location in southern California.  San Fransisco seems like a good place to stop, with lots to visit, including a rail trip to Yosemite.  I am also looking into San Diego for a week, on the beach.

New York City trip

Zaria's been preparing for our New York City trip, despite Jason wanting little to do with the planning.  No matter how we shape it, it's going to be costly, so I've been trying to figure out a way of estimating exactly how much, and figruing out a way of minimizing the costs as much as possible.

Found this today - http://albanykid.com/2013/05/15/hilton-garden-inn-staten-island-budget-nyc-hotel/ - the Statan Island Hilton Garden Inn.  It has an indoor pool, plus shuttle service to the free Staten Island ferry.  We've been constructing a running list of the sites we'd like to visit, and I've been checking out train costs.

It's looking like we might be able to score round trip business class tickets for all of us, for about $450.  And there's also CityPASS, for about $100 per adult, and less for each kid over 6, gets you into some of the top museums and attractions.

In other travels, I am considering getting us rail passes - it seems like a fantastic way to get us across the country, for far less than traveling by car or plane, with a lot more flexibility.  It's also cimpler - if we go before next April, Keena and Rowan are still free.  So we would have to figure out how to feed aourselves and where to sleep, knowing that the cost of transportation would range from $669 per adult and $334 per kid - a total of $2340 for up to 12 segments. 

Hudson River ClearWater Festival

Next year, not to be missed!

http://www.clearwaterfestival.org/