This past weekend I took my talents to St. Louis for some Mardi Gras celebration. I have been going for the past couple years and always have a great time. This year I decided to take a different way of transportation because of living far from St. Louis and it was a nightmare.

The first year I attended Mardi Gras I lived in Jacksonville, so the drive was a couple of hours away. The second year I was living in Gurnee and decided to drive all the way to St. Louis. This year I decided to take the Metra into Chicago and take the Amtrak to St. Louis. Well I got on the Metra at 7:00 am and found out there is such a thing as “Quiet Car”. I was sitting there talking to Lisa because I enjoy hearing myself speak and was approached by an older lady shushing me in my ear. I looked back at this lady like why the hell is she shushing me like a 5 year and she was pointing at the sign that said “Quiet Car during Rush hour”. If you know who I am, it was miserable having to be quiet for an hour.

We finally get off the Metra and have to get on the Amtrak for a 5 and half hour train ride to St. Louis. The train was absolutely packed and around Springfield my headphones decided to die without a charger. One of my friends was kind enough to pick us up in St. Louis and he got to the train station around the time it was expected to arrive. Well unfortunately we were 35 mins late to arrival and only got to say hi and bye. The Amtrak is responsible for me not getting to spend more time with my friend so that’s messed up.

We had a great time at Mardi Gras and needed to get on the Amtrak to head back to Chicago. The train ride was going great until we got around Chicago. Lisa and I had a 35 min period in between the Amtrak arriving and us getting on the Metra. The Amtrak decided that wasn’t going to be possible because we got stopped on the track for 30 mins waiting for a freight train to get off our tracks. We arrived into the station at the exact time the Metra we were suppose to take was leaving, so we definitely missed that. We had to sit around Union Station for 2 hours to get on the next Metra heading north. Finally we got on the Metra and was able to get home.

Overall, getting to see my friends triumphs this disaster of the train rides but next time I am planning this differently.