The train is plain and mainly a pain

Instead of driving to Raleigh this weekend to see my parents, we decided to have an adventure: we'd ride the train to Raleigh. I imagined three carefree hours of us interacting with the girl, she frolicking in the aisle and staring out the window, and Lisa and I free of stress from not having to negotiate traffic.

Well, we got our adventure alright, only slightly different from what I imagined. The train ride there was notable mainly because Sophie was both wired and exhausted. It took all of our energy to distract/calm/quiet her. She tried to nap a few times, but couldn't quite do it.

On the return trip, things were a little better but not much. This time adding clingy to her repertoire of restless and energetic, Sophie again demanded all of our attention lest she keep all the other passengers awake and/or annoyed. The one bright idea we had was to take her car seat out of luggage and actually put it on one of the train seats so we could strap her in. The restraints must have been comforting because she managed to nap for about 45 minutes before returning to crazed adventurism.

In the end, we probably used the same amount of personal energy riding as we would have driving, and it cost us about 3 times more.