A Ride on the Sumpter Railroad

Yesterday we finally got around to taking Quinn on one of the trips we had planned for the summer (before it's over, that is).

There is a refurbished railroad in a town about 65 miles from La Grande between the small towns of McEwen and Sumpter. The Sumpter Valley RailRoad (http://www.svry.com/) has an honest-to-goodness black steam engine and tender that pulls three cars and a caboose along a five mile stretch of narrow gauge tracks. The volunteer who punched our tickets told us that it took $250,000 to refurbish the engine, which was built in 1920 and that it takes $600 worth of oil a day to run the engine. Yikes! No coal power here.

The trip is both ways and we started at McEwen, which is the first depot on the road. Quinn wanted to sit in the period covered car right behind the engine on this leg, and we were the only ones who were interested in the soft seats. People who traveled back then must have been tiny, because there was no way two people could fit in those seats today. The steam whistle was really loud, and it took Quinn a couple of times to get used to it - everyone jumped, so it wasn't just him.

We were surprised to see that Quinn was the only person under 20 on the train - we had figured that more children would have been there. Quinn had his conductor hat along and everything, so he was a hit for the mostly elderly train enthusiasts.

The scenery is beautiful, with the Elkhorn Mountains in the background and the Powder River along the way. On either side of the tracks there were huge mounds of rocks that had, during the gold rush, been dug out of the river and deposited everywhere.

Once in Sumpter, we had about 45 minutes to wait until they turned the engine around and headed back at 11:30. We gave Quinn a snack and then took pictures and a tramp through the tall grass next to the tracks. On the way back we sat in the covered but open-air car. This way we could take better pictures and be around other people. A group of university students from England were there, and it was fun listening to them talk in their accents with the older couple from Florida with their strong southern accents.

Quinn was pretty pooped on the way back and kept trying to lay his head on my chest for a short siesta. He perked up by the time we pulled into McEwen and wanted nothing more than to play in the little playground. We had to visit all three of the swings (just to make sure they were working) before getting back in the car.

To top off the day, we stopped to have lunch in Baker City and treated ourselves to a rootbeer float, one of Quinn's favorite things.

It was definately something interesting to do, and fulfilled some of Quinn's train fixation, along with making us feel like we did something out-of-our-ordinary. We highly recommend it.

Now, if we could only find him a preschool cooking class....