Just got back home and it’s the time I’d be starting my first period class. However, I’ve taken a personal day today to pick up mom & dad from the train station in Cincinnati. The train ended up being 2 hours late – it was supposed to arrive at 3:17am, but wound up arriving after 5:20am.
I had hoped to sleep a bit before going off to pick them up, but I couldn’t fall asleep. So I got up at 1:30am, headed to Meijer for some Pepsi (caffeine) and Munchies (to kill the burn of the Pepsi), then turned on my Tilt to direct me to the Amtrak Station. It did a very nice job until the very end when it overshot the station. (The station is now also a museum and stuff, which really threw me off at first.) A short trip around the block thanks to the GPS and I got there just as dad called to say they were 45 minutes away. The 45 minutes got more time tacked on while I sat in the station playing Bejeweled 2 and other games.
When the train was finally set to arrive, they let us all go down to the platform to wait. Then those of us meeting people got to do so. The folks were surprised to see me there on the platform (we’re so used to airport security). Time for hugs and then out to the car. The GPS got us safely north, though it was nearing 6am by this point so the traffic had picked up considerably. The caffeine did its job, as well as the excitement of seeing the parental units again, so I was wide awake for the drive back. We stopped at Waffle House in Troy for breakfast and then I took them home.
Now I think I’ll try to sleep some. I’m very tired, but still wired from the caffeine.
When my brothers were in college in Kalamazoo and Albion, MI, respectively, they used to take Amtrak home for holidays and the occasional weekend. I used to go to the Detroit Amtrak station to pick them up. (It used to be near Tiger Stadium, though it’s not any more and neither is the baseball park.) Anyway, what I learned was that 2 hours late was the earliest they were going to arrive. Considering how much farther your parents were coming from, 2 hours late is a really great on-time arrival. 😉
Heh heh. They almost missed their connecting train in Chicago, but there were enough people going from the Cali train to the Cincy train that they held it up 15 minutes. I guess they originally had something of a layover planned in Chicago. They wound up racing to the other train in reality. (So they didn’t get to meet up with judiang who offered to meet ’em for dinner if possible.)