Trains!!!

This morning Hailey, Bo and I went to the Minnesota Transportation Museum. I would have never known this place existed, but I'm glad we found it!! Our library has a Museum Adventure Pass program that allows you to check out a free passes to visit several museums in the area. We haven't used the program in ages, but this week Hailey asked if we could get a pass. I read her the descriptions of the different museums and let her choose which one to go to. I was so surprised she picked this one!! She told me she was really excited to walk around on the inside of a train.

Mission accomplished!! Here are Hailey, Bo and Ducky climbing around on a restored passenger car. It was over 100 years old. Hailey was surprised by how narrow the hallways were, how small the beds were, and how may pottys were on the train!!

Bo's favorite part was the train tables. They had 4 or 5 train tables for the kids to play at. It was WONDERFUL!! We got to play with some other kids, but there was enough room for each kid to have a decent section of train, and to play without running into each other. We'll go back for the train tables alone!!

My favorite part of the museum was the volunteers. A bunch of sweet retired men in engineers caps. They loved trains, and loved sharing what they knew with the kids. Hailey, Bo, one of the volunteers and I stood next to a window and watched a train going by together. I looked at that man and could tell that he loved watching trains every bit as much as Bo (and that's a lot!!). It was a neat moment!!

I have no pictures of this, because I was busy being nervous mama and trying to keep everyone from falling off the edge (no idea where I got that from), but we also got to ride the turntable. The man that suggested it acted like he was giving us a very big treat, but to be honest I had no idea whatsoever what "riding the turntable" meant. Hailey asked me what we were going to do and I whispered, "I think we're going on a train" under my breath. No, WE were going to ride the turntable. We all got on to the railroad track and then he spun the turntable around. After that he let us back into the shop where they work on restoring the big steam engines. Bo had been pretty reserved on the turntable, but as soon as we got into the shop he sprang into action!! He wanted to be let down, and he strutted around that place with his Minnie Mouse case full of cars, pointing at stuff and jabbering as fast and as loud as he could. It was like the mother ship called him home!!