It all started when I saw the Amtrak advertisement about kids riding for $5 this summer in NC. I debated the practicality of doing a trip, either for a day or couple days, to somewhere in the state, and then decided not to do it because the overall cost of a trip wasn't part of our budget this summer. But then, Bug started whining about not wanting to go to the week of camp I was going to sign them up for, and they have been begging for a couple years to go back to the children's museum in Greensboro. It didn't take long to convince Bean to skip out on camp this year in exchange for a train ride and trip to the museum.
And that is how we ended up in Kannapolis at the train station at 7 a.m. ednesday morning. I figured this week was the perfect time for something like this since it is our
week of fun and irresponsibility, and Daddy-o is out of town for a couple days, so distractions to keep certain boys from realizing how much they miss him are always good. Waking up so early wasn't really good, but luckily the excitement of the train ride was enough to keep everyone happy.
Until they announced, exactly 2 min. after we'd checked in at the station, that the train was going to be 2 hours late. Nevermind that I'd signed up for the text alerts so I'd be notified of any delays in time to NOT wake up the kids hours before they normally wake up. Sigh. So, we found a McDonald's for some hash browns to go with the breakfast snacks I'd packed for the train, ran a couple errands, including some back to school shopping, and then headed back to the station, where we still had to wait for another hour because they kept delaying the arrival time. Apparently, our
plane travel luck carries over to trains.
A little after 10:30, we were finally on our way. By now, the kids were eating the lunch I'd packed. I'd brought along a ton of food because I didn't know what the offerings on the train would be like, and the museum only has vending machines, but they were inhaling the food pretty fast. Luckily, as I expected, once we got into the museum, they had no interest in stopping to eat.
Other highlights of the ride up there--walking between the cars while the train was going, opening the doors between the cars over and over, getting to check out the café car, and climbing back and forth between the different seats. Way more fun than an airplane. Luckily, the train wasn't too full, so I don't think they annoyed anyone too much. The couple people near us could have moved if they really wanted to.
Now, I'll get to the museum part of the day in a minute, but just to finish off the train story, when it came to our return trip, I got smart and didn't wait for a text (although one did end up coming later), and checked for updates and found that our train was once again going to be late (originally by 1 hour which eventually turned into over 2). So we headed to the library for a little while, tried to find some fast food in the business district that was still open at 6:30 a night (without much luck), and then sat in a park watching some sort of outdoor fitness class that probably had over 100 people dancing to Vanilla Ice.
When we made it back to the train station, we discovered that we still had another hour to kill, and the snackbar was closed (seriously?!). We finished off the little bit of food I had left and then tried to find something to do, which led to Bug collecting a time table for every area in the country, as well as the books on Amtrak vacations and the entire 2014 Amtrak schedule. It actually made me smile because I remember being about his age and collecting the brochures for every Hilton hotel our lobby had while we were on a Disney vacation. (And when I told the kids that, they were both so sad that I'd gotten rid of those at some point, about 15 years later.)
14 hours into our day, with still 2.5 hours before they'd be in bed, they were getting kind of tired. And silly. When we were walking back to the station, I'd made the comment that if the train was delayed again, I was going to cry. So when the guy behind the counter told me that it was in fact coming even later than I'd thought, Bean asked me, sounding almost hopeful, "Are you really going to cry?" I didn't, but everyone alternated between near tears and hysterical laughter for the next hour. Bug and Peanut kept fighting for my lap, and Peanut pushed Bug off, claiming, "No! Only one person at a time!" I was kind of wishing for no people on my lap by then.
8:50 p.m., boarding the train for home! And so excited to find out that the café car was still open! Bean told me it was probably the strangest dinner we'd ever had between the location and the food (she was eating frozen pizza and a Danish), until I reminded her of the time we'd been stranded overnight in Memphis because of delayed planes, and ended up eating microwave popcorn in our hotel room at 10 p.m. because there was no better food available. We are not strangers to the odd meals while traveling.
But, we survived. Peanut fell asleep, sitting upright on my lap, about 5 minutes before we pulled into the station. All 3 kids were dozing on the way home, and went to bed within 5 minutes of me pulling into the garage.
And the museum was so fun. These kids LOVE this place. I think out of the few museums we've been to of this genre, this is the best one. It's just the right size, has a lot of big vehicles to play in, and a great garden and outside space. Here's just some of the fun they had in their 5 hours of frantic play:
