QUESTION: Got railroad fever?
WHAT I LEARNED: Kids make life more fun.
I just got back from Chicago. So far, this summer has been crazy busy but that’s okay. There’s been a lot of travel for work but I’ve been able to make the best of it by finding a way to build some kid-time into these trips. I took my daughter along with me to Canada and my son along with me on my most recent trip to Chicago. It’s a great way for the kids to get a bird’s eye view of what work entails for me and also see some of the world at large.
I was very excited about the trip to Chicago but my son and I kicked up the whole travel thing a notch by taking the train. The train was an amazing experience. I think it was because it was a nice long train trip – about 18 hours – and because I sprung for a sleeper compartment for us. There is something about trains – a perception of gracious times past, of history, and of ease – that captures the imagination or at least captured our imagination.
This was the first time my son has come along with me on a business trip and I wanted it to be extra special. He is going to be 16 years old in July so the trip was a bit of an early birthday present - and the train trip was a big part of it. We were not disappointed.
Riding the train reminds us to slow down and enjoy the landscape of life. When you fly you are above everything but on the train you are in the heart of everything. When you fly you are constrained to your seat but on the train you have the freedom to move about as you wish. When you fly you wait and wait to get there but when you ride the train you just enjoy the trip – eat a meal, read a book, talk to other people, take a nap, or watch the world go by. You have to stop for awhile and let the world roll along and slow yourself down. I believe that all of this is good medicine for body and soul in this harried modern age.
The private sleeper compartment was pretty darn cool. Our compartment was on the second level of the sleeper coach – something we had been hoping we’d be assigned. Springing for the sleeper was more expensive than a coach seat but definitely a lot more fun. When the steward came in at night and turned down the beds we discovered that sleeping on a train does not equate to a particularly restful sleep but had a unique quality all that same. It was reminiscent of that scene in the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie where Harry takes a ride on the Midnight Bus - lots of swaying to and fro and stopping and starting. It's bedtime with a restless attitude.
We also got our meals as part of the deal – for our trip that meant dinner and a big hearty breakfast. I always wanted to eat in a dining car on a long train ride somewhere interesting. I may have eaten a club sandwich once on a dining car with one of my grandmothers on a long ago train ride home from Connecticut or other exotic local when I was a kid but this was my first adult experience with dining on the train versus eating a hot dog from the café car. The dining car experience was leisurely, semi-elegant, and provided an opportunity to meet other passengers. We ate dinner with two delightful older gentlemen and through them we were able to learn a lot about the route we were traveling. Education comes in many forms and some of them are decidedly more pleasant than others. This was one of those occasions. The dining care service was surly in a way that somehow wasn’t offensive. The meal was better than I expected and the apple pie afterwards tasted homemade.
All day and night, the train rolled through mountains, past streams, across bridges, through corn fields, into cities and suburbs, and past industries of all sorts. We were two hours late getting into Chicago and I was happy to have the extra time on board. Finally though, we found ourselves dragging our baggage off the train, down onto the platform, and out into the streets of Chicago.
Chicago is a beautiful city. Its architecture is impressive and I love the waterways. Three blocks away was the trendy W Chicago City Center Hotel, which was to be our home for a few days. We dragged our suitcases down the streets of the city until we got there – the doors opened by guys who looked more like the bouncers in those fancy nightclubs that the rich and famous frequent than doormen. I felt almost famous, pretty darn cool, and frankly fabulous walking in and out of that place. Oh, the utter chic-ness of the ultra-hip W.
And oh, to be almost 16 and staying at the W. That’s the life - no conference to work, a bed as fluffy as a cloud, cable and a DVD player, room service, and nothing to do but sleep, hang out in the hotel, point the remote control at the TV, and occasionally head out and see the city or eat a meal as mom could do so in-between her work duties.
But that’s another story…
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