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Through the eyes of a child

As the family's train trip came to a merciful end, mom and dad breathed a sigh of relief. The idea had been to give her boys something to remember. Hmmm.

TAMPA - "It'll be at least two hours," the man at the ticket counter told us. Something south of Tampa - he didn't know what - was delaying our train.

"Two hours?" asked my husband, Dan, dropping our suitcases on the floor of the ancient Amtrak station.

"Probably more," the ticket man said. "Yesterday, it was five hours late."

Dan scowled at me. This was my idea, after all. He had wanted to fly to Washington, D.C., for our one-week vacation. But I had convinced him it would be fun to take the train. "The boys will love it!" I'd told him, again and again.

As a kid, growing up outside D.C., my family rode the train every winter to visit my grandparents in Miami. I remember running through the rumbling cars with my sister, my dad teaching me backgammon as we clacked through the Carolinas, watching towns roll by, sleeping sitting up, playing bingo with my mom in the club car - I once won an Amtrak towel.

"It'll be an adventure," I kept telling Dan.

Our young sons were excited. They had never been on a train. We'd taken a taxi to the station, and they'd never been in one of those, either.

But now we were stranded, for two hours at least. It was pouring rain, we didn't have a car, and everyone was hungry. We had planned to eat dinner on the train. It was already past 6 p.m.

"Is there a restaurant here?" I asked the ticket man.

"Vending machines are over there," he said, pointing through the domed lobby.

"That's it?" asked Dan, incredulous.

"Nothing else close," the ticket man said.

The station was packed with waiting passengers. We couldn't find four of the plastic seats together. And except for Bar-B-Que Fritos and a six-pack of Oreos, the vending machines were empty.

Tucker, who is 7, and Ryland, 8, found a display case and checked out the model trains. Dan sat on a duffel bag. I parked myself cross-legged on the cold tile floor.

After a few minutes, the boys had examined everything in the station, including the bathroom and Busch Gardens pamphlets. Tucker unzipped his blue backpack and pulled out some markers. "Want to play?" he asked.

Tic-tac-toe and hangman, three games of each. Then we bumped fists for 20 rounds of rock-paper-scissors.

Finally, around 9 p.m., "All aboard!" sounded through the station speakers. We ambled onto the platform beside the rusty tracks and watched the train's yellow eyes glowing closer.

"Wow!" Ry said, smiling his toothless grin. "Just like in the movies."

We climbed the drop-down steps and threaded through the dim aisles. A sleeper car would have cost us more than four plane tickets, so we had opted to travel coach. Dan reclined his dingy seat to sleep. But both boys were wide awake.

"What's on?" Ry asked, looking at the TVs mounted above each row. "Think they have movies? Or at least Nickelodeon?"

I tried every button on the armrest, but the screens stayed black.

"They don't work," the woman taking tickets told me. "Haven't in years."

The boys looked at me in horror. No TV? For a whole 24-hour trip?

"When's bingo?" I asked the woman. I had told my kids about my prized towel.

"We don't do that anymore," she answered.

"Then how 'bout some food?" I asked my kids, trying to resurrect their smiles. "Let's go find that dining car."

"It's closed," the woman said. "Won't be open 'til breakfast."

Ry looked like he was going to cry. Tuck scowled at me. Some vacation.

"Where's the club car?" I asked the ticket-taker.

"Next one up," she said. "But it's only got candy. And the drinks aren't cold. We ran out of hot dogs and ice."

Careful not to wake Dan, who was starting to snore, I rifled through Ry's bag and found his deck of Uno cards. I led the guys down the dark aisle, then pressed open the door leading to the next car. Ry stumbled between the shifting cars, arms out for balance. "It's like we're surfing!" he squealed, forgetting about TV.

"Only louder!" Tuck giggled above the din.

We bought M&M's and warm root beer, then found a table between two bench seats. While I dealt three hands, a man in his 20s watched. "Mind if I join you?" he asked, sliding onto the seat beside Ry. He was on his way to Orlando, to meet his brother. The man said he loved Uno. Hated driving Interstate 4.

A half-dozen games later, we arrived at his stop. "When you guys grow up, you'll realize how much you miss each other," he told my boys. "I take this trip to see my brother at least once a month."

The train trundled on, towns flickering through the darkness. Winter Park and Sanford; DeLand, Daytona, Palatka.

"Uno!" Tuck shouted just after Jacksonville. Finally, we were out of Florida. "This is so fun!" he squeaked. "Can we stay up all night?"

Around Savannah, his sugar buzz wore off. It was almost 3 a.m. I shepherded my sons back to our seats. Ry laid on Dan's lap. Tuck slept on my shoulder.

I tried to shut out the boom box the boy in front of us was playing. Behind me, an infant was wailing. I watched out the window, each station a dot in the dark.

The sun crept into our car just north of Dillon, S.C., home of the legendary South of the Border motel, where the Carolinas meet.

Dan wanted coffee. I wanted to brush my teeth. "Want to play chess?" Ry asked. It was 6:45 a.m.

After three games, he handed the travel board to Tuck. Tuck captured my pawns while Ry taught his dad to play golf on the GameBoy. We colored sea animals, played magnetic Memory, took turns reading chapters in our new Harry Potter book.

Outside Fayetteville, N.C., the train ran out of water. The toilets could not be flushed. The stench wafted through the coach, mingling with the smell of sour milk, sweat and unwashed bodies.

We went to the dining car, where the air at least smelled like hot dogs. We ordered lunch: cold sandwiches or - you guessed it. The food cost almost as much as at Walt Disney World!

While we ate, I spread a map across our table. Only nine stops - scheduled to take about 10 hours - to go, I told the boys.

"We could have slept and showered in our hotel room by now," Dan said softly.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "We can fly home."

Back in our seats, my boys watched out the window. Southern Pines and Wilson whipped by. But there was nothing scenic to see. Just the backsides of broken-down towns.

"Once, this was the pretty part. Downtowns built up along the train tracks," I told the kids. "But after the interstates, these areas got abandoned."

My kids nodded, their eyes glued to the glass. They'd never seen junkyards or lumberyards or crumbling storefronts up close. They marveled over the mounds of rusting cars, the mountains of split pines, the blank-faced buildings.

"Are these ghost towns?" Tuck asked hopefully. "They look just like the ones on Scooby-Doo."

Outside Petersburg, Va., the train stopped suddenly.

"A freight train up ahead has broken down," the conductor announced through the crackling speakers. "We have to wait until it's towed off the tracks. Could be a while."

More hangman. More chess. More rock-paper-scissors. Two more chapters of Harry Potter. Five more games of Uno.

Another hour, waiting on the tracks.

"Think that guy's having fun with his brother?" Ry asked.

"Think the dining car has ice cream?" Tuck wanted to know.

Think that boy will ever shut off his boom box? Or that baby will stop screaming? Or the club car will get cold drinks? Or the toilets will get unclogged? Or this train ever will start moving again?

Dan and I kept whispering our complaints to each other. We'd already wasted a day of our lives. No wonder Amtrak was having financial difficulties, we decided.

Who would want to travel like this?

Ninety minutes later, the engine coughed on again: Richmond, Fredericksburg, Quantico passed by.

We told the boys about Civil War battles, about the Marines and Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument. They told us about their friends Zack and Ben, who were getting a new house; about the dinosaur bones they wanted to see in the museum; about the teachers they hoped for when they got back to school.

More tic-tac-toe, more Uno, four more chapters of Harry Potter. Finally, just before midnight, the conductor called, "Next stop, Union Station!"

We'd been on board for almost 27 hours.

Dan scrambled to gather our bags while I collected markers and games and our dog-earred book.

"Almost there, thank God!" I told my sons. I couldn't wait to take a shower, be horizontal in a bed, get off Amtrak.

"And don't worry. We won't ever have to do this again," I said, smiling. "We're flying home."

The boys exchanged glances, then stared up at me. Ry looked like he was going to cry. Tuck scowled.

"What's wrong?" I asked, amazed. "Aren't you all ready to get off this train?"

They shook their heads, crossed their little arms. They stared straight ahead, refusing to budge. "I wish we could ride forever," Ry finally said, smearing his fist across his eyes.

"Me, too," Tuck echoed. "I love the train!"

It took a while - all the way to the hotel - but I finally pried it out of them: What was so great about riding the rails?

Dan and I had been all about getting there, being comfortable, eating real food, sleeping in a bed and getting on with our fun. But for our boys, the journey was the real vacation.

"At home, you never play Uno all night, or read four chapters to us at once. Dad's never played GameBoy golf with me before," Ry said sadly.

"Yeah, even when you do play with us at home, you're always getting up to do laundry or make dinner or answer the phone," Tuck complained.

My boys may not remember the warm root beer or that blasted boom box or the stomach-churning stench of the backed-up bathrooms.

But they'll remember their first train trip: M&M's for dinner, chess before breakfast, having us captive, all to themselves.

A whole day and night - and then some - to clack up the East Coast, just being together.