Last Sunday I was reading the paper and came across "Free Train Rides through Idaho Falls!". Well gee who can pass up a free train ride? I certainly can't, I love trains, who doesn't!! Well I went down to the depot on Monday at 1pm, the time the paper said, just to find out that they had started giving tickets away at 10am. What???? The train rides were to be every hour from 3 to 6pm, and approximately 110 tickets per ride. Well by 10:30 they had already given out all the tickets up to 6pm!!! I don't know for sure how people knew to be there at 10 for tickets, but someone said the paper in Pocatello said 10? Well because of either mistake they gave away additional rides at 7 and 8pm. When I got my tickets (limit of 5/adult) there were 24 seats left on the 8pm train and probably 100+ people in line after me! So even after griping that they gave tickets away before anyone who read the Post Register would have gotten there, at least we did get tickets! 
The ride lasted about 40 minutes, we went through Idaho Falls out just past the Airport and then came back. The girls crashed about 30 minutes into it. Oh well it was still fun!!!
So last night we showed up for our Free Ride at a quarter past 7, only to discover they were running 90 minutes late. We watched the 5 and 6 o'clock ticket holders just pull away at 7:15! Yikes!!! Well suffice it to say we didn't end up boarding the train until 9:30. It was ok though there wasn't too many people left to put on the train and almost everybody was able to sit up in the top of the train to ride. The guide that was talking to us said twilight rates are always more so we should feel lucky! 
Like I said before we could only get 5 tickets and Cierra's friend Alivia went with us to pick up tickets and was so excited, I would have felt horrible if she couldn't come with us, so Bill gave up his seat for her. While we were waiting another 40 minutes for us to get on the train we went and got Sonic Milkshakes to help pass the time...ironic because we were not dressed for the weather last night, showing up in shorts, sandals, and no jackets (except Alivia, but she was in shorts still), waiting in line 5 people wrapped in a blanket freezing because the weather was cold. Oh well those kinds of things make good memories don't they?
The ride lasted about 40 minutes, we went through Idaho Falls out just past the Airport and then came back. The girls crashed about 30 minutes into it. Oh well it was still fun!!! 
3 comments:
That's quite a memory! They made us ride in train for drivers ed while watching a video where people were killed by running into a train. Disturbing.
I've never been on a train.....but I don't think I could have handled all that waiting very well (whether it was free or not) because I am an impatient person.
Fascinating and a cool adventure. :)
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