A Day Out with Thomas!

We started our morning really early, leaving our hotel near Sesame Place to drive over an hour to Amish country and train country - Strasburg, PA. It was a really pretty drive! We got to see Thomas the Tank Engine! My girls know who he is, but they're not as fascinated as with Elmo and Disney Princesses.


Here's all six of us with Thomas! Thanks to the picture people for taking pics with our cameras and not just their cameras and pictures we have to pay for!


Thomas was getting ready to pull out for the 9:15 ride. We had the 9:45 ride.


The train engineer waving good-bye!


After spending the next few minutes scoping out the other activities, we got our ride on Thomas!

Which picture is better? Luella yawning...


Or Katja's angry face from the red eye light on the cameras?


The Jackson family all smiles!

On our 15-ish minute train ride, we saw the Red Caboose Motel. Legend has it that the owner saw cabooses up for auction and put in a ridiculously low bid, even lower than what they'd sell for scrap, and forgot about it. He won the auction and was asked to come get his cabooses. What do you do with them all? Turn them into a motel! "Next time" we're coming back here and staying in the Red Caboose Motel!


We saw ponies and an American flag!


We waved to the kids on the tractor ride as they waved back at us!


We saw corn that was knee-high way before the 4th of July!


Luella was loving the trip and all we saw out the windows! This was her second train ride, with the first being when she was just 3 weeks old!


This was Katja's first train ride. Wonder if she'll remember it, or just how sleepy the fresh air and rocking motions made her?

Luella the budding photographer took this picture of the cozy Mr and Mrs Jackson!

There were old train engines with attachments out the other side of the train windows. There were plows, coal cars and many more that we're sure Uncle Alan could tell us all about!

We had to pause for awhile on our way back into the train station. This train passed us and got off our track.

On the way out Stuart had to check out the seats. Turns out that the backs flip from one side of the seat bottom to the other, that way you can always face forward, or talk face to face with the people on the other bench! Very cool!

There were two big coal burning stoves on either end of the car. We definitely didn't need those today!

Lynn, Luella, Katja and Kyla decided to ride the miniature steam engine train. It was really interesting to watch the engineer load the coal, add water, release steam and do all that needed to be done to run the train!

Luella and Lynn sharing a seat on the miniature train.

Luella taking this photo of Kyla and Katja sharing a seat.

On our way home, 3 of the 4 fell asleep in the backseats. We left around lunch time and couldn't find a lunch place on the way home. They did have food at Strasburg, but Lynn heard it was best to skip it. Luckily we didn't get too ravenous on the way home and ordered crab dip pizza! Gus's Pizza on Highway 40 in Edgewood is the only place we've found that makes this pizza and it is worth the drive! After lunch we had to drive the rest of the way home. The girls slept most of the way, which was great because we got stuck for over an hour covering five miles. Kyla saw the remnants of the accident with seven crunched-up burnt-out vehicle shells on the back of a semi-truck and the blackened interstate from a very hot fire.