Thursday, July 1, 2010

Sacramento Railroad Museum Field Trip

I wanted to share with you some of the fun things we’ve been up to so far this summer.

First on the list is the  historical California State Railroad Museum located in Old Town Sacramento. The museum is about a two-hour drive from our house, so we loaded up all the little ones we had running around that week (10 in all) and headed out for our adventure.

Before heading into the museum we did a head count to make sure of our number and continued with head counts throughout the trip to make sure we didn’t lose anyone!

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This is one of the neatest museums I’ve been to. Upon entering the main area of the museum, you see the very first steam engine train on display. And it is huge! One of the little ones (3 years old) started jumping up and down, exclaiming to his Grandma, “This is so cool, Grammie. This is so cool"!” What a delight!

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Here are the boys in front of a replica of a railroad camp.

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All along the way, there are signs and exhibits that document the building of the railroad and the changes throughout history.

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There is a large display floor with twenty-one restored trains situated on it. Unfortunately the lighting was too dim for my particular camera, but if you visit their website you can get a pretty good idea of the enormity of the area.

One of the exhibits is about safety on the railroad. This old-time prosthetic hand was a favorite with the kids.

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The kids were able to climb up into the cab of a train, view a private coach where President and Mrs. Reagan once dined while he was governor, walk through a sleeping car and a postal train  and view a dining car complete with china from the various rail lines.

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There were displays of model trains, train toys, and train paraphernalia.

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I thought this was pretty funny. Get it?

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There was even a play section for the kids with Thomas the Train toys, of course.

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Afterward, we had lunch at Fanny Ann’s Saloon. The kids thought it was funny that they got to eat lunch in a “bar.” The burgers and fries were yummy! We then spent some time wandering around Old Town Sacramento. It was a great way to spend the day.

I’ll leave you with this photo of my lovely niece showing off her blue teeth from her rock candy.

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Till’ tomorrow (or the next day!)~

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1 comment:

Cranberry Morning said...

How Fun! I love railroad museums. They are fascinating! When you get to Duluth, MN, they have a great RR museum you should stop in and visit too. :-)

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