Memorial Day Tradition - Monday

Last year, for Memorial Day, we visited the Illinois Railway Museum. It was such a hit, we decided to do it again this year!

The weather wasn't looking so good; they were calling for a severe thunderstorm sometime in the late morning or afternoon. However, we're would not be daunted and made the trek anyway.

Since we weren't sure how long we'd be able to stay, we decided to start with the rides that were longer and squeeze in as many as we could.

First, we rode the silver Nebraska Zephyr train (so comfy I may or may not have dozed off a little along the way).

By the time we finished that ride, the big steam engine was up and running so we hopped aboard and rode the one. There's something a little extra special about the smell of the smoke that makes that my favorite one to ride.

While on our steam train ride, it'd begun to sprinkle, so we had to run in between the drops to get to our next ride, the Chicago street car.

The street cars make a few stops around the museum campus, where they've got storage barns with more train displays, so we hopped off to explore a few of those. The rain was on again, off again, so we were able to duck inside the barn and not get too wet.

During a less-wet moment, we stopped by the playground by the depot. There the boys "drove trains" for a few minutes.

The last thing we rode in was an old time CTA car. While we were there, the rain decided to get serious and it was about then we decided we'd had enough.

Despite all the rain, we had fun! I suspect this will be a recurring exodus for some years to come.

Memorial Day Fun - Weekend

It's crazy to think that the school year is almost done and that summer is practically upon us! It seems like just last week we were whining about all the spring snow (happily, that seems to all be behind us now).

Though, unofficial, Memorial Day is really the beginning of summer. We try to do something fun that weekend, to kick off the fun. This year it turned into a very full weekend!

First, Saturday, we went to the conservatory. It was beautiful, as always! We checked out the flowers and played and took the train home.

We finished off the adventure with a stop at our local donut shop.

Then, Sunday we planted the patio garden.

And there was still time and sunshine, so we went for a bike ride. Of course, the destination is almost as important as the ride, so we worked in a visit to a new park with a playground and also a little water fall! (with some train spotting in between)

An excellent beginning. It's so fun that the boys are getting bigger and we're able to do more things! Bring on the summer.

Starting Summer Vacation

So, officially, school is out for the summer. Townshend is pretty excited. In preparation for all the upcoming free time, Townshend and I worked together to make a list of fun things we wanted to do to make the most of the time off. Turns out, he's got lots of ideas! Still, my goal for the summer is to try to keep it fun, but not over scheduled. To that end, I got a little nerdy and printed out some calendar pages and hung them on the wall. I took the list and, spacing them out nicely, penciled in activities (strategically) to get us through over the next couple months.

First up: Illinois Railway Museum!

This is an outdoor museum, not too far from us, with bunches of trains - "a museum in motion". It's supposed to the biggest museum of its type in the US. I'd heard through the mom-vine that it was a pretty cool place, which gave me hope.. however, the website was a little jumbled. Still, I managed to piece together enough that we decided to go for a visit on Memorial Day. And, though it was crazy hot, it was a great day to visit!

All their trains were out so we were able to ride a couple! First thing to catch Townshend's eye - a retired El train:

those silly sliding doors... I don't miss those! (hooray for retirement)

The El cars they had were retired in 2013... it was kind of a strange feeling to be in a museum piece that I remembered riding in for real! But, in this setting, the conductors let Townshend sit in the drivers seat and showed him all the buttons and how things worked. He was pretty star-struck! We may or may not have ridden this one twice.

Then there was the trolley bus around the grounds. These also were used in Chicago, back in the day. As we drove around the big loop at the museum, it highlighted just how much there was to see there! I suspect we will visit again:

We also rode on an electric "interurban train" that used to run in Chicago back in the 1940's. There was no air conditioning, so they had all the windows open. Townshend called this ride the "Windy Ride."

 They had a few old-timey ads, like what would have been in the cars at that time. Some of them were cracking me up:

 This was a pretty long ride, and by the end Moon was starting to object to holding still (and I'm sure the heat didn't help any). So, after this one, we decided to just look at the driving trains rather than ride them.

They have a steam engine that was originally meant for delivery to Russia, but things didn't work as planned and so it came to live here at the museum:

We also saw their Nebraska Zephyr articulated streamliner (used in the movie, "A League of Their Own") drive by, and a few others I didn't get pictures of. After lunch, we played for a while at the playground and then we took our hot and tired selves home.

There were lots of exhibits with stationary trains in barns which were more informative than interactive - these were of no interest to the boys at this visit. Still, overall, it's safe to say that everyone had fun. Our visit definitely started our summer vacation off with a bang!