Thanks, HaRRy for the Kudos.
We are all grateful too for your presence, since you did come the furthest and endured the metal bird just to be with us.
Perhaps when we have a Fest closer to your neck of the woods, those of us going out there will do the same thing (although I am itching for a transcontinental train trip!).
And no, you did not slow us down, since we didn't miss a beat with the itinerary during the three primary days of the Fest, on which you partook of most of the train trips.
We were lucky to have no last-minute hitches and everything was relatively on time, except for the UP-West on Saturday.
I wish we could do this more often, but the planning process, as you can imagine, was quite long. Almost as soon as everything had been cleared up (website updated, report written) following last summer's "T" Party in Boston, I was already fiddling around with the Chicago timetables. You should know that during my son's school holiday concert last December (the parts he wasn't in) I was sitting in the back of the room with my colorful stack of METRA timetables trying to work out the best gameplan.
At any rate, we'll try to have these things at least every six months, and they have been working out well the third week of January and the third week of July. That does not mean we can't have more, such as the one we did here in New Jersey last October, the Cleveland Fest in August 2001, or the second impromptu trip we took to Port Jervis in mid-March (2 months after the AppleFest 2003-related trip). Those extra ones might be minor events and do not necessarily have to be full-blown "Fests", although they sometimes end up attracting just as many people!
![:)](http://www.on-track-on-line.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png)
Finally, although it was wonderful meeting everyone and logging so many miles on the rails together, it is in fact good to be home, back to reality of reading e-mails and catching up on what I missed.