Amtrak Adventure

Phase two of operation family vacation started today. We packed up early and headed to Union Station for our Amtrak portion of our journey to Williamsburg. I have ridden on a train once before (also from the D.C. area to the Williamsburg area). It has been so long, I couldn't remember anything other than thinking it took FOREVER, stopping at every tiny town to let people off and let others on. I was a bit nervous that today would be a little miserable. It was not. It was entirely pleasant. No traffic stress and an express shot all the way to Richmond in 2 hours made this leg of our journey fantastic. The boys had been super excited to ride the train for two reasons: First, they had never done it before and it looked cool. Second, two hours of uninterrupted video game time is like heaven for my two boys. We put the kids on one side of the aisle and Bill and I had the other and had 2 hours of uninterrupted conversation time, which is like heaven to these two adults.

We arrived, picked up our luggage, rental car and lunch and took off toward Williamsburg. Our hotel is located in one of the two neighborhoods I lived in here. It is actually part of a Marriott time share resort villa thing and they have great free activities for the kids and family as well as amazing on site amenities and we were thrilled when we got here and discovered all we could do. The boys in Washington D.C. seemed to always want to "just head back to the hotel and play", but with no pool, no grounds, and nothing but a charming neighborhood surrounding it, it seemed silly to just hang out in a tiny room for part of the day. Here we will be able to "just stay and play" for part of the day without feeling like we are wasting valuable vacationing time.

We talked our way into getting a day pass to go see my old houses in the gated community (the gate guards have become extremely anal and wouldn't let us in, so we talked to the sales office who called over and made an exception for us. It was amazing that I could remember both addresses, seeing as I can't remember what I had for dinner last night. We also found our way to the Ward house where I spent what felt like an amazing amount of hours as a teenager for youth activities. What we also found is that this sleepy little historic/college town has grown immensely in the 18 years I've been gone. I thought time stood still when I leave places and was shocked to discover it had not (wink, wink).