Son has an internship in the National Capital Region, so he needed to go from Orlando with his car. However, having recently done the drive, he was not too enthusiastic of doing it once more for now. So, he decided to take the Auto Train which would save him a lot of driving time, though it would be a bit more expensive.

As I had never before taken the Auto Train - the facts that I love driving and that the auto train is not inexpensive combined together outweighed by love for travelling by train - I decided to take the plunge because now my only incremental costs would be for the train and flight tickets, as the car cost was already a sunk cost.

Since returning, I have learned that tickets can apparently be had for as low as $29 if the stars align together for you lol. But we had a specific date in mind so he got there in time and I didn't have to waste a precious work day. So, we purchased tickets for the car and for both us for under $600. That was for the coach (sitting) car seats - I would assume that the sleeping cars would be priced exorbitantly for our budget). I also used some miles to purchase my flight back on Southwest airlines.

D-day was a Saturday - the train was to depart at 5 pm for Lorton (from Sanford); the earliest we could show up and drop off our car for loading was noon and the latest was 3pm;. We decided to split the difference and planned to get there before 2 pm so we had some time to relax and check out the train. It took us about an hour to get to the station and we were there comfortably on schedule by 1:30 pm, even after a stop to pack something for me to eat at dinner (we didn't plan to eat at the diner).