Parts one and two should be read first.

Mode Of Transportation

We hopped a shuttle to billeting to find a room for the night since it was quite late. Because the theme of our trip is doing things the hard way, billeting was booked solid, which meant we needed to find a place to stay off base. Luckily, the guy who drove us to billeting was nice enough to pack us into his little car and drive us to the Comfort Inn, where we were quite comfortable. There were no flights to where we were trying go out of Scott AFB.

At this point in the trip, my optimism and endurance began to fade a bit. The reason people put themselves through Space A travel is because they have no money. But eating out and paying for random hotel rooms instead of cheap billeting adds up in an awful hurry. So, at this point we realized that not only were we broke, but we were still 4 states away from North Dakota, and this misery was going to actually force us to incur more debt, instead of save us money like we had hoped. We needed a plan, preferably a cheap one.

It was the middle of the night and there was no one open to call about alternative means of travel, so we went to bed. In the morning we called several car rental people to find out if we could rent a car and drive there ourselves, which would be a quick and relatively inexpensive. From this we learned that Fargo, although wonderful and homey, is actually a huge abyss into which no rental car goeth, save cars that are already there. The closest place we could drive to would be Minneapolis, and that was still four hours from our destination. A bus ride would take an insane amount of time, and we would be cramped into the bus with the world’s unwashed miscreants and a few nice people. With kids, it didn’t sound so good.

In Which I Finally Lose It

Chris called Amtrak where he purchased three tickets from St. Louis Missouri (Scott AFB is twenty minutes away from there) to Fargo, ND. The train was departing at three am the following morning so we would have to find lodging for yet another night because the train station would be closed. At this point, I lost it. You see, I grew up in a relatively safe place. I have since lived in relatively safe locations. Even in San Francisco I feel quite safe as long as I keep my keister out of the bad neighborhoods, which I know and have no reason to enter. St. Louis, however, isn’t the safest city on earth. Oh, it has its nice parts, but it has some pretty seedy places too, and train and bus stations don’t have a reputation for being located in the best neighborhoods. And here I was going to be dropped off by public transportation with two little kids, a massive amount of luggage, and no idea where I was going or where I was going to spend the night. I had also had very little sleep for about five days. I lost it. I cried, I swore, I kicked the wall. This was just too freaking much. It’s one thing to be tired and dirty and stranded; it’s a different story when you feel like you are taking your babies into an unsafe situation in which you are powerless. Can you blame me for losing control?

Running Like Illegal Immigrants

Chris mopped me up, and then we had to figure out how to get to St Louis. Cab fare was a standard sixty dollars. There was, however, a bus that could take us to the metro rail, and then the metro rail would drop us off right near the Amtrak station. The trouble with catching the bus was that the bus stop was on the other side of the freeway.

Now, normal people would just cross the road. People with two small children would just carry them across. People with four duffle bags, two bulky car seats and a few plastic bags with snacks and books we had picked up along the way do not just cross the road. This is why illegal aliens don’t tend to cross our borders carrying everything they own. That’s how you get yourself smooshed under a semi.

Angel In A Green Hoodie And Some Perspective

He kids and I sat in the hotel lobby while Chris explored our options with the desk clerk. While we were traveling down this path of hopelessness, a couple entered the hotel with their college-aged son. This young man took pity on us, loaded us into his car and drove us to the metro-rail, helped us cart our stuff onto the next train, warned us not to get off in the bad neighborhoods and told us to stay at the Drury Inn, where he just picked his parents up from, and which was located very close to the Amtrak station. We thanked him about fifty times. Until now, I had no idea that angels wore green hooded sweatshirts, but, trust me, sometimes they do.

Jonas thought the metro rail was wonderful. As far as he was concerned we were on the Hogwarts express. On the ride we saw beautiful fall foliage, the St. Louis Arch, and my emotional distress was tempered.

Upon arriving two blocks from the station we piled Chris with the majority of the luggage and I led the children to the station. Upon arriving I saw a woman with a wheel chair and three very small children, 3, 2, and 1. She told me she was moving away to live with her parents in California. She had been carjacked a few months ago, dragged two hundred feet by her vehicle, and lost her leg. Her husband then left her with three babies to take care of. California was hopefully going to be better. There is nothing like seeing a family in that kind of situation to give you a bit of perspective and make you feel like a real heel for taking a tantrum about being stranded somewhere nice and safe with a loving husband.

We grabbed a cab to the hotel. Order a pizza and watched hours of mindless television, which convinced both Chris and I that we had most definitely made the right decision when we chose to buy DVDs and skip having channels. I can’t understand how people watch the garbage that’s on TV! It’s so boring and stupid. And the commercials are ridiculous! The news played stories over and over about missing and beaten children in the area, along with depressing Iraq war updates. No, I don’t miss the television.

Train Travellers

At three am we hopped on our train and rode to Chicago where we had a seven hour layover. We rented a luggage cart, chilled in the kid’s play place, bought more reading material and some snacks, snagged some McDonald’s, then got onto a much nicer two level train. During these train rides I dwelled a bit on the photos of recent train derailments and bombings, then forced my neurotic little self to read a book and get off the subject of death by mode of transportation.

The ride was long, but relatively uneventful. Most of the people on the train were quite nice, especially to Jonas and Maggie. And they reciprocated the niceness by sleeping almost all day long. At three am, about an hour away from Fargo, Jonas reached his limit and started wailing, crying for Gramma Sue. I felt badly for him, but there was really nothing I could do. Finally, we reached the Fargo station where my family was waiting in the cold. We had hugs and loaded up the car and went home, where I collapsed and didn’t wake up for quite some time.

So we are here. And it’s good. Now, we just hope and pray for a less stressful trip home.