On the Train

So, a couple of days later, we load our stuff and ourselves back into our rental van. This time, our destination in Kansas City, MO. We are on a mission to meet up with the Southwest Chief, an Amtrak train with service from Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA. We'll meet up with the train in Kansas City, and ride all the way to the end in L.A. The car trip is five hours of long and boring for the kids. When we finally arrive in Kansas City, we are THREE HOURS EARLY for the train. We decide to see if there is any possible way that we can go ahead and check our bags. All 13 of them. So, we haul the kids and some of the bags inside Union Station. If you've never been to Union Station in Kansas City, it's something you should check out. In addition to the Amtrak station, there is a museum, shops, and some fairly interesting looking restaurants. Anyway, the Amtrak station is located on the BACK side of the station. Yay. We haul all four kids and their overweight backpack to the ticket counter. Fortunately, the extremely nice lady who was working the counter said that yes, indeed, we could check all of our bags three hours in advance. She even gave us a free luggage cart to use to get all the bags in from the car. We formulate a game plan: I will stay inside the station with the kids, and the hubby will make the trips out to the van to get all the bags. Three (yes, three) trips out to the car later, we got all of our luggage inside. Now, what Amtrak neglects to tell you is that they too have a fifty pound weight limit on their bags. That's right. We did the overweight suitcase repack shuffle right there at the ticket counter. After everything is repacked, we check everything but our backpacks and the diaper bag. By the time that we are done, an hour has gone by. I've also had to take two of the girls to the bathroom during this time. The bathroom, by the way, is downstairs in the basement down some godforsaken hallway. Yep. Made that trip. Twice. Now that the baggage is checked and everyone has gone to the bathroom, I take off in our rental van to return it. Closest return station - - Kansas City airport. Groovy. Drove like a crazy woman to get there, then had to call a cab to take me back to the train station. Cabby takes 30 minutes to get there. Yep. My train is leaving in 30 minutes! Ack!
So while I'm waiting for the cab, my husband texts me that No. 2 has, well, done No. 2 in her pants at the train station. Fortunately, she has a change of clothes, but he can't haul all four kids and the carry on luggage downstairs to the bathroom. He'll have to wait until I get there to change her. Fabulous.
The cabby finally arrives. I notice two things right off the bat: he's Russian, and he's chatty. Fortunately for me, he drives as fast as he talks and I'm back at the train station 20 minutes later. I run like a mad woman inside (I'm sure someone probably thought I was nuts as I went tearing across the station lobby), grab No 2 and her change of clothes, and run with her downstairs to change the pants. Got the pants changed, all the while lecturing No 2 on the evils of pooping our pants in public, and run back upstairs just in time for the train boarding call. By this time, it's 9:30 p.m. CST. We've been on the road all day, had a small clothing crisis, and the train platform is dark. Nothing is labeled, and we don't know which door of the train to board. Fortunately, the hubby excells at night time land nav, and he snags an unsuspecting conductor who points us in the right direction.