Tiny Railroad Day

For our weekend fun moment, we finally got out to Molalla to visit the Pacific Northwest Live Steamers railway. It's a miniature track and trains that you ride around a mile or so track. What is a bit odd is that it is in a residential neighborhood - man, Sundays must be a hard time to take a nap around there what with all the bells ringing, not to mention all that chugga chugga chugga.

The entire thing is run by volunteers and is free. We left a pretty good donation, though, so we didn't feel guilty about taking two rides. They have a nice covered spot with nice benches, so the waits weren't painful. Quinn was on his Best, Very Best Behavior and barely made a squeak.

This is the main steam engine. Apparently it takes a thousand hours to make one of these puppies, so I see why they only have one. They actually had a model of a diesel engine, too, as well as a funky one that looked like left over parts were used. Quinn likes that one the best.

Now, let me explain these shades. We found them at a park or something over a year ago. Quinn has decided that they are the nicest ones and wants to wear them. I know they are pink, I know it. But, he likes them and I doubt that it a predictor of anything other than the child has a little flair for the dramatic.

Getting on board the steamer for the first ride.

Wow. Doesn't everyone look thrilled? Hence the reason I was in charge of capturing the moment for prosperity.

Waiting in line (again).

The little blue train. See? Doesn't that woman look like she's so excited she might just pee her pants??? I couldn't risk it.

After their ride, the engineer asked Quinn if he wanted to sit in the engineer's chair and get a picture. This was the very moment, of course, that my flash card was full, so in front of all these people I had to erase a couple of pictures to make room for this:

It was a fun day driving through the country. We got to see a group of about 100 horses and riders waundering down the road (stopped traffic); we still don't know what they were up to.

All in all, a nice time. Quinn had his first snow cone, which was a serious hit. I took a nap when we got home. See? Everyone was happy.