We lugged our luggage over to an out-of-the-way place to sit and get down to business- of eating lunch, of course! We lunched on homemade sub sandwiches, Sun Chips, cookies, and slightly warm Coke. Harrison ate each part of his sandwich separately sans any lettuce and onion. Mike joked that it was amazing he never got around to sending Harrison's first babysitter hate mail. Harrison had a babysitter when I was still teaching. This babysitter has a weird palette. One of her eating rules is to never eat bread with meat. She hates sandwiches. Harrison was much too young to realistically pick up on her habits; however, we like to joke about it because it is so strange that both she and Harrison would hate sandwiches!
Mike got onto stowing our luggage in a locker. Then we set off out of the train station a bit like the 4 Stooges, gawking and bumping into one another. As we made our way outside the building, we gawked at the sheer magnitude of such a huge skyscraper. There stood the former Sears Tower, now the Willis Tower. Is there nothing sacred anymore? Sears is an American icon. I think it should still be called the Sears Tower even if Sears can't afford to fund it anymore! We got a glimpse of the viewing rooms that are glass set out from the building overlooking the city. Now the time had come to hail a cab. This is something that I had a lot of trepidation about. Natalie longed to go to the American Girl Doll Store. She is American Girl Doll crazy right now. Mike and I had visited when we were in Chicago last May. In fact, everyone we know has been there to visit, except the one person who really, really wants to go there, Natalie. We had plenty of time between the trains to visit the store, but there was one thing holding me back.....the taxi ride. O.K. I have to admit that I spent the night before the train ride worrying about this taxi ride. Grahm has suggested many times that we take the train to Chicago then a taxi to a specific place. I really don't want to do the the taxi thing. Ever since Mike and I watched Bone Collector several years ago, I have been freaked out about riding in a taxi. So much so, I thought about just sitting at Union Station for 5 hours twiddling our thumbs, waiting on the train. In the movie, the taxi driver locks the back door and the little boy and dad are trapped in the backseat to be the driver's victims. I was willing to walk to American Girl, but everyone we talked to said we would need a taxi to get all the way to the store. Since we were on a tight schedule, I took a deep breath and squeezed into the back seat of the taxi that Mike hailed. I kept my eye on the lock to make sure it didn't go down. Oh, the things I do because I love my family! Even though it was freezing outside, it was hot in the taxi. It was stuffy, humid, and claustrophobic with the plexi-glass divider between the front seat and the back. I rolled my window down and reached my arm around to the front seat window. Mike put his window down too so I could touch his arm in the front seat. It felt very safe with Mike in the front. The driver was about 2/10 of Mike's size, and if he pulled any funny business Mike could just squash him. The driver drove about like Grandpa did this morning, weaving in and out of traffic, cutting people off, I had to close my eyes and concentrate on breathing.
Natalie and I closely perused each display and carefully looked at each item for sale. We rode the escalator up and checked out the AG "town". By this time, Harrison and Mike ditched us to hit the Lego Store across the way.
First we went to the RR. Now remember I already was of a mind to avoid the the train RR, and use it as little as possible. This restroom was quite a haven! It was decorated with white furniture sinks, purple striped wall paper, flowers, and of course, doll holders in each stall! I used the facilities 2x's while we were there! I just couldn't resist!
Then Natalie watched the hair dressers at the doll hair dresser salon. For $20 you could have your doll hair put into a "do." Natalie felt sorry for the doll who was having her hair brushed out. Nightmare visions of Bibbity Bobbity Boutique? We'll have to mention to Miss Stephanie that her rates aren't in keeping with doll rates as we usually pay about $14 for our own hair!
Next there was a little bakery with all kinds of colorful treats that would appeal to little girls. There was a t-shirt making station, an expensive restaurant with doll chairs for your doll to jon your dinner, and a pet shop.
The pet shop was what Natalie had her eye upon. The last I knew she only had $8 to her wallet, but evidently when there were whispers and rumors about an AG visit, she robbed the bank to get enough money to buy "Pepper" a must have stuffed dog. This little tiny, hard, stuffed dog was a whopping $20. She had it marked in the catalog for a while. Normally, I would frown upon such a purchase, but it was the cheapest thing there, and she was buying the experience. We got into queue to pay, and Natalie began tryng to figure out the tax. In our household, you don't get to buy anything unless you have figured the tax and know exactly what the total will be. This discourages random buying and sharpens math skills.
We joined up with the boys at Lego. We were charmed by the Toy Story Woody made from Legos in front of the store and the supersize Chicago skyline icons. We studied the Sears Tower, the Hancock Building, and the Chicago Tribune. Of course, we saw all of those things for real on our way back to Union Station. Harrison smartly skipped buying Legos because the sales tax made them more expensive than purchasing them online or in Indianapolis. 
We got back to a very crowded Union Station in time to use the RR in shifts, get our luggage removed from the locker, and eat a cookie. Meanwhile a man about as old as Grandpa was trying to figure out how to make the fingerprint/lockers work. You have to use a credit card and a fingerprint etc. Upon my encouragement, Michael went over to help him. We all helped him get his luggage stowed into a locker. He was so grateful and wished us a happy new year. I hope he was able to retrieve it later.
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Soon the loudspeaker was calling for the Southwest Chief. Thankfully, Mike had figured out where our train gate would be before we left in a taxi. Now the station was so crowded that it was hard to maneuver luggage through the wall of people. We stood in the throng of people and gradually made our way to the ticket counter, where they punched and ripped our tickets. We entered the concourse and headed forward to find our coach car on the SW Chief. As we walked down the platform, the light was dim and the big diesel engines roared so loud we could only nod to each other with no hope of being heard. As I walked down the platform, I felt like the big silver train was a bigger presence than the Hoosier State train we had ridden earlier. 
It was no wonder I felt like the cars were bigger and looming over us! They were double decker trains! Amtrak personnel were stationed by the doors and were welcoming us aboard. Samantha was our train attendant, who greeted us and sent us upstairs with our luggage. Maneuvering the stairs was tricky. There were tight twists and turns. It was hard not to bump the luggage as we ascended. Mike was hauling the most, but seemed to do it the easiest of the four of us. Samantha gave us 4 seats all together. These 4 seats would be our nest for the next 42 hours! We stowed our baggage overhead on the counters and slipped into our seats to check out the features. The seats reclined back, the foot rests raised, the foot bar on the seat ahead of the seat adjusted, a pull down tray could be positioned over the lap, the lights could be turned on and swiveled, and the call buttons pushed to summon the train attendant....oops!
The train lights were dim and low. I was thinking it was nighttime now as we hadn't been out in the light of the street since the middle of the afternoon. I thought we might go to sleep. Silly me! As the train pulled out of the station's concourse, the lights came back on as the sunlight streamed through the windows! As we slowly left the Chicago shipping yards, our train attendant went to each seat and put a tag over each seat with abbreviations for that passenger's destination. We were marked Williams Junction, AZ-4. Samantha stopped to chat with us and asked if we were going home to Williams or visiting the Grand Canyon. She said that is the only two things you do in Williams, AZ! She told us that tomorrow when we reached Albuquerque, NM she would give us a pizza place number to call. They would deliver a pizza to our family at the train station so we wouldn't have to buy dinner in the diner. She said that would save us a lot of money. Thanks Samantha! Very thoughtful! She must have known that Mike was lugging a bag filled with water and snacks!
Continue on the journey.....
http://janelleyelton.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-day-of-trip-part-three-on-train.html
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