T is for Train

This past week in homeschool preschool, the theme was T is for Train, and an enjoyable week it was, too. On Monday we got lots of train books out of the library, and of course we own lots of train books, so there was much reading about trains all week.

On Wednesday, cooking day, we made a train cake -- didn't take a photo, but it turned out a little better than the train cake I made for their birthday a year and a half ago. I was good and only had one piece of this cake, and it is almost gone now (boos liked it a lot).

On Friday, we drove to Tiny Town (about a third of the way to the cabin), where we rode a "real" train.

If you go on the weekend you get to ride behind a real steam engine, but this was just a gas engine. Still, it was fun. The twins rode in the caboose with several other children.

Adults are not allowed in the caboose and the engineer locks it before starting up the train, so the kids can't get out mid-ride. This seemed slightly cruel to me, but we rode the train twice and the twins were just as eager to ride in the caboose the second time around, so it must be fine. It certainly made for a pleasurable ride for their parents!

We've driven by Tiny Town before, and it always looked kind of hokey to me, but up close it's a lot of fun. It was started in 1915 by a man who lived in this valley and had a young daughter. He began building her miniature houses -- they're 1/6 scale. In 1920, Tiny Town was opened to the public and for a while was an important Colorado tourist destination. Later it fell on hard times, but more recently a foundation was created to fix it up and keep it going. A lot of the houses look like they could still use some fixing, but overall it's really darling. Here are some houses we liked:

There's also a playground, and numerous picnic tables under the trees, so it's a good place to bring the family and have a picnic (they also sell refreshments). Admission cost is fairly low, too, though it does cost $2 per person to ride the train (and of course we all rode it twice).

The next day, Saturday, the twins and I went to the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, and I FORGOT TO BRING MY CAMERA. Arrrrrggggghhhhh! It's such a photogenic museum, too! Trains, trains, and more trains, and these are REAL trains. Saturday is "Ride the Rails Saturday" which means you can ride on a real train around the grounds -- as many times as you like! It's included in the entrance fee, which is a lot more than Tiny Town's entrance fee, but if you like to ride the train a lot, the fees even out. This Saturday they were not running a real steam engine, but rather one of their Galloping Geese, which is a train body on an automobile frame, very tipsy and fun to ride in. However, the twins did not think it was fun, so we only rode it once.

But there are so many other things to look at there. In the basement of the museum building there is a miniature railroad that you can operate by putting a quarter in a box (we spent all my quarters there). Outside there's a garden railroad that kids were allowed to control (a little). And all over are train cars that you can climb into and look around: engines, cabooses, passenger cars. It's a great museum.

So sorry I didn't bring my camera. If you go, be sure to bring yours!