The Midwest is a hub for trains. We all just love getting stopped by one. My boys used to think every train was Thomas. Both Hannibal and St. Louis are big train towns. During my explorations of downtown St. Louis last month, I came across some abandoned rail yards. The trains were clearly not in use, so my boys climbed all over them. It's all fun and games until one of your kids zip ties the other one's hands behind his back. And, of course, it happened to be an industrial-strength zip tie he found lying around and, of course, no one had a pocket knife. He enjoyed making a scene, pretending he was being kidnapped. Now, you feel my pain as I try to raise two teenage boys.
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| Abandoned trains at Union Station |
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Two separate sets of train tracks run in
Hannibal near the Big River |
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| More abandoned trains in St. Louis |
What are your hobbies besides writing? Whether it's a small town or the big city, I love urban exploring. Do your children ever drive you crazy? Do they ever do crazy things?
Your kids sound spirited. My boys drive me crazy all the time, especially because they've inherited my sarcasm!
ReplyDeleteAnnalisa, writing A-Z vignettes, at Wake Up, Eat, Write, Sleep
Haha! Spirited. Crazy. Reckless. Risky. Did I mention wild?
DeleteI don't have time for hobbies, my kids drive me crazy. But I have a 3-year old and a 1-month old, so it's pretty minor crazy.
ReplyDeleteExcept when the three year old came at me with a pair of fingernail clippers last week and said "I'm gonna cut you!" I don't know where the hell he got that from. :-/
My boys are two years apart. I remember those younger years and thought I was going crazy. They were partners in crime. The 3yo is a boy, right? Makes sense.
DeleteI love baking, singing and making art - I wish I could do lots of outdoor things like urban exploring, but my feet tend to give out ten minutes in and then it's more a hunt for somewhere to sit down than anything else :). A zip tie - I imagine that was fun to remove without a knife! Mostly I just curse at trains at they hold us up at crossings :)
ReplyDeleteTasha
Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)
It took two people ten minutes using a pen!
DeleteHysterical story about the boys. Boys! I'm from NYC, so I have a love/hate relationship with trains. Subways are gross and smell like a public toilet and you can get germs by just looking at them. But other trains are nice. The Staten Island train was a nice, relaxing ride. Two years ago we took the auto train from Virginia to Orlando. That was pretty cool. After being on the train for that long though, even after you get off, you still feel yourself swaying...kinda like after you get off a boat :)
ReplyDeleteKatie @TheCyborgMom
I've never traveled a long distance on a train. Probably b/c of my boys. The L in Chicago wasn't too bad. And the Metro in St. Louis didn't smell either. What's up, NYC?? :)
DeleteThat's a funny story about the ziptie!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, we were dragging him in to the car, hoping to avoid security cams.
DeleteI love the look of trains, but I've never been on one. I wouldn't want to go on one with kids, especially not my rowdy nephews. lol
ReplyDeleteOther than reading and writing, I enjoy baking, drawing fashion designs, and listening to music. :)
Sometimes other people's kids can be worse than your own;-)
DeleteI love train travel. I still have the Orient Express on my list of trips to make. As to those boys...I can see that scene very clearly, having had two boys myself.
ReplyDeleteI always say you haven't lived until you've had at least two boys:)
DeleteI still wish the trains in this country ran in a fashion that made it viable to use them when you don't have weeks to go somewhere! I LOVE train travel and do it a lot when in Europe. I would love, like C. Lee, to "do" the Orient Express someday... Yes, kids can be crazy, but that very same craziness seems to keep us feeling young! Lisa, co-host AtoZ 2015, @ http://www.lisabuiecollard.com
ReplyDeleteI should be feeling very young:) The Orient Express, now we're talking!
DeleteThere's not enough time to write about all the crazy that goes on with my two. I will say that one has decided the other is an untouchable and will howl like mad if their sibling touches anything that belongs to them and then douses the object with sanitizer. I can't wait until this phase passes. Until I find out what the next phase entails!
ReplyDeleteThat's great! I just write it all down. Some goes in to my novels, the other stuff I save to tell their kids.
DeleteThere's not enough time to write about all the crazy that goes on with my two. I will say that one has decided the other is an untouchable and will howl like mad if their sibling touches anything that belongs to them and then douses the object with sanitizer. I can't wait until this phase passes. Until I find out what the next phase entails!
ReplyDeleteThose abandoned trains don't even look very old, I was expecting to see rusting hulks. I guess the companies must have lost money. Gotta love what kids get up to, eh?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that too. Maybe they were in between stations or in need of repairs?
DeleteAt least you can look back on the story and laugh.
ReplyDeleteI try to laugh. If I didn't, I go insane.
DeleteMy whole life is a hobby, lol. My freelance journalism job pays so little that I try to enjoy it by thinking of it as a hobby (with a small stipend). I also crochet and draw and paint and bake and cook and take long walks. I think of everything as a hobby, even oral hygiene. And what makes a hobby more fun? New toys! I got a water pick for my birthday, and now I can treat taking care of my teeth as a hobby!!!
ReplyDeleteWandering through abandoned trains sounds both awesome and creepy. We did all sorts of urban exploring as kids. Good times :)
ReplyDeleteOnly six more letters to go!
~AJ Lauer
an A-Z Cohost
@ayjaylauer on Twitter
They've been taking out train tracks around here. And putting up interestingly shaped parks. Although, one day we heard a train whistle in class. We were perplexed, so I looked it up on Google to figure out where some train tracks could be. Turned out they weren't that far (a couple miles away). Must have been a clear day.
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing at the zip tie. I've got more hobbies than I have time for. Top of the list though is running, gaming, and, recently, playing the cello.
ReplyDeleteThat's so funny!
ReplyDeleteI have one 9 year old but his imagination is big!
Heather
I do rather love trains, though getting stuck while one crosses the road is not fun. (Much better to have the train cross over or under the road.) I've ridden quite a few trains to interesting places, including the GO trains around the Toronto area, most often into the heart of the city at Union Station and back. \
ReplyDeleteI also took the Northlander train on vacation, which went from Toronto up to around Timmins-area. Unfortunately, that stopped running in 2012. And I took the VIA rail trains to New Brunswick for a holiday weekend once, but that's rather a sad memory for me because it was while I was there I got the news that my Dad was doing worse, and he died in hospital just a few days after I got home.
I also remember riding some train up about as far as Sault St Marie when I was young, and of course riding the British Rail trains in England. Oh, and I guess subways count as trains too! I love the London Underground and the Toronto subway.
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