Saturday, August 02, 2008

Afrogeeks on the Road

Greetings from sunny (and humid!) Louisiana. The family and I have made our way from Charleston to Louisiana by train (a trip that started at 5am and eneded at 8:30pm). Here are some highlights from that trip:

--The train is surprisingly cold. We didn't have blankets (apparently everyone got that memo but us) and the people on the train didn't turn up the temptarure until about 6pm. It was fairly miserable for a time.

--Brian, unsurprisingly, made several pals on the train, including a lady who was tres impressed that Brian was actually doing hands-on parenting with the girls, and a guy with whom Brian traded, off-color, wholly inappropriate jokes.

--Advertisers haven't discovered trains and train routes. There was a surprising lack of ads during this trip.

--We discovered this about our children: Frances is an excellent traveler. She asked questions of the conductor, wrote in her journal, watched some movies, took a nap, played 20 questions, and held up remarkably well.

Cate, on the other hand, is every nightmare toddler scenario rolled into one kid. She yelled "What the fuck!" at the top of her lungs because she was tired of us telling her she couldn't go racing down the aisle. She spent the last 4 or so hours of the trip in nothing but a diaper. She eventually took a really long nap and we discovered finally that she would sit still if she was allowed to listen to music on Frances's cd player by herself. Here's a picture of her curled up and sleeping.

3 comments:

Alison Piepmeier said...

So sorry the train was cold! It must differ from train to train--the one I took today wasn't cold at all--it even verged on warm at some points. I wondered how Cate would do--sounds like a real adventure! I love the thought of her screaming "what the fuck!"

Catherine Bush said...

Your train entry was really entertaining and informative. I was amused that Cate used WTF so appropriately :)! Sorry it was a long ride; I'm assuming that you're taking it back too. Glad you found out that Cate likes music!

Carleen Brice said...

Too funny!