When people ask how your vacation went, don't you always want to say "swell!" Even thought the reality is that it was more challenging than relaxing.

The Karppis of East Norwich recently experienced the thrill of travel and what we want to say most is that as long as you consider life at its best a challenge - travel is great.

We started our trip by train. Everyone asked how come we opted for a 28-hour train ride rather than a 2 1/2 hour flight, we said it would be more relaxing. Well, when you put two large Finns in a small compartment you are immediately grateful that they were brought up to be very polite. The question of where to put whose legs was never brought up. We each preferred to make the other comfortable.

Sleeping was another challenge. While the experience could be described as being "rocked to sleep," it would be more realistic to say "shaken, rocked and rolled." Both of us, in our berths, ended up sleeping in the fetal position, balanced on one hip, braced against a wall. There was no way you could call it rest.

Nevertheless: the best part of the trip was singing Chattanooga Choo Choo together; somehow we remembered all the words. The next best thing was meeting people in the dining car. Eating with other train buffs was great. No one warned us about the hazards of sleeping. Obviously not everyone experiences the swaying as we did.

Would we do it again? Next time we plan to get a full compartment. Those berths run the width of the train and not the length. We are hoping that will make all the difference. If you know otherwise, don't tell us. We are going to go on our assumption that challenges hurdled make for a great vacation.

There is more to tell you: missing our flight from Palm Beach because they changed the time; getting profiled twice; running through the airport in Palm Beach to get a voucher they decided we weren't entitled to get for a shuttle bus to Fort Lauderdale for a flight. It's all over and we have the photographs and the colds to prove we were there. A few weeks rest and we should be fine.

The thing to remember is we wanted change and challenge and that's what we got! Actually, we both confessed that we would have loved a week here in Oyster Bay, enjoying the harbor. We've always said living here is living in a vacation-land!