Amtrak Train

Well, our much anticipated train trip finally arrived! Mike and I along with both of the kids rode on the Amtrak train from OKC to Gainesville, Texas this past Saturday. We pulled out of the OKC depot at 8:30am and the fun began!!! The ride down was so nice and relaxing. They had a dining cart on board, so we ate some breakfast and enjoyed the ride. About five minutes before we were scheduled to arrive at the Gainesville depot, I heard the conductor (the train version of a flight attendant?) giving the lady behind us a phone number to call for transportation. According to the Heartland Flyer (Amtrak) website, there was supposed to be a shuttle taking people from the depot to the Outlet Mall. Due to all the flooding, they were only operating this during the weekday, so we were to call a taxi. Well, the one and only taxi driver in Gainesville was not answering her cell phone. So with nothing else to do, we take off walking toward downtown. We stop by the local optometrist office (block and a half from the depot) looking for a phone book so that we can find transportation to the mall. The receptionist at the doctors office warned us that the taxi driver was probably not the way we wanted to get to the mall. Apparently she is the "Otis of Mayberry"! By this time Mike is irritated (that's putting it mildly too) we've attempted renting a car, the area bus service is not working, the taxi driver is still hungover; so Mike walked a few doors down. He met this really nice shop owner who volunteered to drive six of us to the mall. This nice man even came back to the mall to pick us up so that we had a ride back to the depot!!! He saved the day for us. So we get to the outlet mall only to find out that the majority of the shops are gone, but not according to their website!!! I really am going to have to stop believing everything I read on the Internet!!!! We ate lunch, did the kids school clothes shopping, thanks goodness for GAP and Rue 21, then we had hours to kill until our transportation was to come back for us. Once we arrived back at the train depot, we had over two hours to kill until the train arrived. Kyler and his new friend Katie kept us well entertained! They've decided they are going to get married and have sixteen kids!! They were so cute together. They played hide n seek in the train depot (lets hope they don't have hidden cameras) they played weather station, watched for trains, had their penny's flattened by freight trains. They did very well considering the amount of time they had to kill! Finally, although about thirty minutes late, our train arrived. We loaded the train, settled in with dinner (hamburger from the dining cart) and watched the kids enjoy themselves some more. Ashlyn played Tetris (thanks to Katie's mom, Loret) Katie and Kyler created their sixteen kids (thanks to the Dixie cups provided by Amtrak) and Mike and I did NOTHING!!! It was great to be on our way back home!!! We arrived back in OKC at 10:30pm. Very long day, but new friends and memories were created!!! I'm going to post a few of our pictures. One is of the local man who gave us transportation...