DC Work Trip - Day 1

Work trip to DC!  I was awake at 0600 and spent the morning teleworking and packing.  At 1045, I left home and drove to White River Junction so I could catch "The Vermonter" (scheduled for a 1135 departure).  The train was almost 30 minutes late but I found it to be almost empty initially.  I immediately set up to telework while I had the room and this proved to be a good thing after the seats got more full.  The train was driving very slow because of flooding damage in Vermont during the last few weeks.  We eventually made it into Massachusetts and the speed picked up a little bit.  I had a Zoom call for work between 1430 and 1545 and was able to work it just fine in "listen only mode".  After that, I ran out of room for using my computer mouse but tried to keep teleworking (mostly successful).  It started to rain a lot at around this time.  As a result, we got delayed again in Springfield (due to the normal track switch) and the delay grew as we continued south.  Just before we stopped in New Haven, I got some food (late lunch / early dinner) in the galley car (1605) so I wouldn't have to worry about losing my seat if I stood up later.  By then, it was getting quite crowded...  There was a crew swap and engine change in New Haven (which always has a delay) but I need to hand it to Amtrak that we actually made up almost an hour of the delay during this stop.  We headed south from there and, very quickly, continued to recover time.  During this phase, I finished my telework day and began to enjoy my audiobook while watching the interesting scenery along the tracks.  Actually, this is the best view I've ever had during one of my Amtrak trips to DC.  Once in NYC, we got hung up again (and the train got more crowded).  Eventually, we were on our way again but, no matter how fast we traveled, we couldn't catch up to the schedule.  It soon got dark and I couldn't really see anything outside the window.  To pass the time, I continued reading and then listened to music as we got closer to DC.  We encountered some rain west of Baltimore and finally arrived at Union Station in DC at around 1030.  At that point, I realized I'd forgotten my Metro card at home - as a result, I had to use Uber to reach my hotel.  After encountering a mad house in the taxi, kiss & ride lanes, I still managed to find my driver (2245) and he soon got me to the Holiday Inn that is located near my old work building (2300).  After that, I was able to check into my room very easily and then got situated (computer-wise) before beginning to relax.  I didn't actually go to bed until almost 0030 but was still glad that I'd managed to complete all my planned projects for the day.  In-person work meetings tomorrow!