out the winder

Last weekend, Danny and I took the train to St. Louis to visit my aunt and uncle and my two cousins. I've only been on the train at Worlds of Fun, so this was a new experience for me. We left from Union Station in Kansas City....who knew that you could actually catch a train at Union Station? Anyway - there were old pictures hanging everywhere from the days when Union Station was primarily a train station and not just a fun place for wedding receptions. I think my favorite part of the station experience was when the conductor yelled "all aboard!"

Here's a crazy thing about trains - they don't even check your ticket until you've already pulled out of the station. We were half way to Lee's Summit before anyone came by to make sure we were legitimate train riders. I'm not quite sure what they do with the people who sneak on without tickets, but I have a feeling that it's not pretty. Anyhow, the train itself was a rather pleasant way to travel. You can sit wherever you want (I think Southwest took the idea from Amtrak), you can walk around, you can get a snack from the snack car, and there was plenty of leg room. As a side note, there were several obese passengers on the train who kept walking back and forth from the snack car carrying arm loads of chips, candy and other fat-filled edibles. Have you ever wanted to yell, "don't eat that!"? I have.

St. Louis was fantastic. It's a little misleading when I say that we visited my "aunt and uncle" because my uncle Kurt is 39 and my aunt Angela is only 6 years older than me (I'll post pictures later). Angela should be an event planner or a travel agent, because I think we saw just about everything there is to see in St. Louis in 3 days. They accomplished their goal of sending us home tired. Danny even got a new nickname: Danny-o's Pantyhose - given to him by my cousins Adison and Lillian. I have a feeling that this nickname is going to be around for a while!

The ride home would have been great except that the most annoying pre-teen girl alive was sitting right behind us. Lordy! I've never wanted to strangle someone so badly. I'm pretty sure she had a severe form of A.D.D. She wandered through the train several times, back and forth, back and forth - running at times. We were hoping that the train would hit a bump and she would be thrown out a window.... no such luck. Eventually she sat down next to her grandma and she talked and talked and talked. Poor grandma! Poor me! At one point she performed her rendition of The Itsy Bitsy Spider in her very best Christina Aguliera voice, followed by Take Me Out To The Ball Game where she substituted, "buy me some peanuts and apple jacks" for "cracker jacks." This really seemed to bother grandma....understandably! Anyhow, we finally rolled back into Union Station at about 10:30 pm. We had a fantastic trip, but it's good to be home. I missed my girl!