train ride

For our first day of Spring Break, we took the train to Chicago with some of our best friends. The girls went to the American Girl store and then went shopping down Michigan Ave. The boys headed to Navy Pier followed by a trip to the Lego store and then meet us at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.

Katy getting ready for a cold, but fun day!

The girls on the train

 The daddies on the train...

 The boys...Ben's first train ride!  Hanging out by the emergency exit...hmmm!

American Girl store

 We got to meet Hello Kitty!

 Katy being silly at the Cheesecake Factory

 A kid's pizza ???

 It was a good day despite the rain that turned to snow, the hair in Abby's cheesecake and....

then there was the ride home!!!! Everyone was tired and ready to get home.  Our train had to keep stopping to wait for other trains to pass us and so we were already running late.  Every time we stopped the conductor would get on the speaker and tell us what we were waiting for.  So when the train stopped the last time, I assumed we were stopped to wait for yet another train, but this time the lights went out and the conductor said something about the engine...all I could do was laugh!  Really... our train broke down!  We then sat for a couple hours listening to intermittent messages about trying to fix it and being unsure how long it would take.  The lights keep going off and on, the train began to smell of cigarette smoke, and the crazies were roaming!  We then heard them say they were sending a mechanic from St. Louis to come fix it.  I think we were all ready to get out and walk at that point! One man actually tried, but they wouldn't let anyone off the train (hence the cigarette smoke.)  A half an hour later, they told us that if we could we should try to find someone to come pick us up, otherwise they were trying to get some buses to come get us.  Either way, we would all have to exit the train and walk through a big ditch and down through the tall, wet weeds to get to Route 66. 

We called and woke up our friend's brother to come get the 9 of us!  However, before he could get to the train station and pick up our friend's van, two buses arrived.  We were told that only people going to Bloomington were to get on the buses.  They would drop us off and then come back to get everyone else and continue to drive them where they needed to go!  We were of course some of the last people off because we had bags to get and children to carry.  There was no consideration for those of us with little one or the elderly...it was an unorganized free for all.  We all made it down through the gravel ditch and up through the tall weeds.  I almost fell when I got my foot stuck on some trampled down branches, but saved myself despite being blinded by the cop with the spotlight thinking that a bright light to the face would help me see where I was going.  Anyway, we made it down the hill to the buses where we were standing in the rain-soaked grass waiting to see if we could get on the bus. 

The Amtrak people and the train people evidently didn't communicate because only one bus was going to Bloomington and the other was going to Springfield.  As we were almost to the door of the bus, I hear Chris ask the bus driver, "how many people can fit on the bus?"  The bus driver answered and Chris asked, "OK, so how many people are on the bus?"  to which the bus driver said, "I don't know!"  I think this was Chris's breaking point!  I am not sure of what happened next because as I looked the other way, a lady carrying a baby and several bags fell in the wet mess of grass.  There were several Amtrak people and several cops there standing talking to each other, but no one went to help her.  I gave Abby my bags and went to help her myself.  Luckily they were just wet and not hurt, but the poor lady was definitely at the end of her rope.  When I turned back around I couldn't find any of our group except Abby who was yelling at me to take my bags.  I assumed everyone else was on the bus without us, and I was pretty sure no one was going to let me budge in line to find them! 

A few seconds later, I heard our friends calling my name.  They were headed back to the train to get the kids out of the cold.  Chris was over "talking" to the conductor and cops about the lack of leadership on any of their parts.  The bus was full and many of us were out of luck!  We were told that one of the buses would come back and get the 100 people that were still stranded.  Of course each bus only carries around 60 people and we were about 15 miles away from Bloomington.  We communicated with Michelle's brother again and he was coming to get us regardless of what Amtrak figured out.  

Then just as we see our ride pull up and started to get off the train...it starts moving!!!!  They fixed the train!!! We told them we were not staying, and they agreed that was probably a good idea!  We then once again tracked all 5 kids out of the train, through the ditch and wet sloppy mess to the minivan that was parked behind the police car (not sure if you've followed the math here, but our solution wasn't the most ideal/safest choice, but options were not abundant!)  Fortunately, the police didn't notice or maybe just didn't care what we were doing and we set off for Bloomington!  On our way, the train passed us and actually beat us to the train station, but oh well! 

The buses that filled up before we got on! 

So close.....

back to the train we went!!!

Of course, once we made it to the train station, our trip was not over!  We still had another 40 minutes to drive before we got home!  We should have been home around 10:00, but we walked in the door at

1:20 a.m.! 

While this was certainly an unplanned adventure!  We were all thankful, as it certainly could have been worse!

We were thankful we were on a train, not a plane when the engine decided to quit.  We were thankful that we were close to a road making a bus/friend evacuation possible.  We were thankful that all five kids were patient and well behaved while being stranded for a few extra hours.  And, we were thankful to be with good friends that we could laugh with about our misfortune!

Here are some train  highlights:

When we got on, the kids wanted to know if the train had WIFI!!!

Then as we were sitting on the train joking about the conductor/engineer googling "how to fix a train,"  Abby chimes in and says "isn't there an app for that?" 

We also laughed pretty hard when we thought Ben was sound asleep in the seat in front of us and I asked Chris to go to the snack car to get some water and munchies and Ben jumped out of his seat wanting to go too!

We will all probably remember the crazy lady that sat behind us on the way to Chicago.  She kept talking to our friend, Dan and to the kids.  It was the kind of person that you wanted to make sure we kept the kids close to us when she got off the train.  Just a little bit out there!  She got off at Joliet, but we couldn't help tease Dan about his new friend that we thought we'd never see again.   I about wet my pants when after at least an hour of sitting on the stranded train she came into our car and bent over to talk to Dan!  She very gleefully shared with all of us that she was in a K-mart commercial, shopped a Nordstroms for jewelry and bought a house in Chicago.

This morning as Katy came in and cuddled in my bed, I asked her what she thought about our train adventure.  She replied, "Not cool, mom!"