Dec 11: Train Ride!

This was another Saturday when Adam needed to get work done, and I took the boys to do something fun. The train museum was running its "Santa Express" on December weekends, and on this weekend, they'd fired up the steam engine. I was pretty excited to ride in one of the old passenger cars and see how the engine looked in action.

We arrived early enough that there was easy parking and no line. As soon as we opened the car doors, we heard the train whistle and the clack-clack-clack of the engine (it really does make that noise!), and we saw a huge white puff of steam backlit by the morning sun.

Our car was from the 1880's, and there were guides - grandfatherly men who loved trains like our little boys do - who were full of information about how the cars and engines worked and what they'd done in their working lives. We got to go around the circle three times. I was fascinated; Jonah just wanted to point out all the ceiling lights; Isaac eventually got bored and asked if we were going to get off soon.






But Isaac did enjoy watching out the window, as we passed old cars, mesa views, the museum, even an old roundhouse. We stopped at one point to take on water - I didn't even know that old water tank worked! But when we tried to go watch, there were too many people in front of us, so we sat back down.






After our ride, we visited the amazing model train setup in the basement, where the model train club members had everything working, from the little ferris wheel, to the tiny streetlights, and even an extra train that we'd never seen before.

Then we went outside to play in Isaac's favorite car.






We could still hear the train chugging around the track, and the steam caught my eye again.






We walked over to the water tank, hoping to catch the men putting water in the engine.


This red caboose is my favorite car.


The train rounded the curve in front of us but didn't seem to need any water.






Santa was inside the museum visiting with kids, but Isaac only wanted to see trains.

From here, we drove back to our neighborhood for Isaac's school holiday party. Santa was there too, but Isaac stood at a safe distance and wouldn't talk much. Jonah just gave him his unnerving, intense stare. In any case, it was a fun Saturday, starting to feel like Christmas!