GHOST TRAIN

July 24th -26th, 2008

We left Thursday afternoon, Pioneer day, for Ely Nevada. I spent the morning packing and bathing children. We had to wait for Craig to get home from work. It took us about 4 hours to drive there. That was with one stop in Wendover at a park to feed Jackson. We stayed at Motel 6. We got up Friday morning and went to breakfast. Everyone there thought the kids were really cute. We then went over to the train station and bought our tickets for the 4:30 ride and 3pm walking tour.

We drove around town to get a feel for things. We tried to visit the Charcoal ovens. But the road was too rocky. Luckily the kids went to sleep and got a nap. By this time Craig had started to get heat stroke. We then headed back to the train station.

We were not allowed to take a stroller on the walking tour, so I put Jackson in a Snuggli. We got very hot. The tour was one and half hours long. The kids did amazingly well. Towards the end when I decided to take Lexy outside of the Engine shed, Jaden didn’t want to leave. He was very interested in the tour.

We learned that Steam trains take 5 ½ hours to get ready. For every one hour you run the train, you have to do about 3 hours of maintenance. They also have a sand box. Tubes spray sand onto the tracks to give them traction when there is snow and ice. The "Cow Catchers" are actaully called "Pilots", but they run over so many cows, they got this nickname. When we went into the Train sheds Lexy yelled out, “Choo, Choo!” over and over again. Everyone laughed and thought she was great. People also commented on how good the kids were.

Train number 40 is the ghost train. During World War II the train was moved from station to station so that the inspectors could not find it. They would cover it up with scrap metal. The only time people would see the train was when it would roll through town, moving to another station. So they called it the Ghost train.

We thought there would be AC on the train but there was not. It was an original 1906 train. Once on the train ride we broke out the snacks. We learned Lexy only likes the middle of the Oreos, and not the cookie part. We went through some original tunnels. The conductor got on and said, “This is the Ghost” in a ghostly voice. Well it was pitch black you could not see a thing. I saw Jaden’s face when we came out of the tunnel and his eyes were huge and his mouth open. He was a little afraid that we had actually heard a ghost.

It was fun to have the train stop and switch the points, then watch the worker in the back wave to the engineer. The train was not smooth, it rocked and banged. I can’t imagine this being a main mode of transportation. We really did have a good time.

Craig was feeling very sick when we got back to the Motel. So he stayed inside and I took Jaden and Alexis swimming. Lexy loves the water. She got a lot of the water in her mouth, once because she fell in off the stairs. Because she swallowed so much water, she gagged and threw up in the pool. That was a little embarrassing. So we ran inside. Took hot showers and then I went and got some Chinese food. It was actually really good and the kids had some too. Jackson slept really good last night as well. But he is so congested that he swallowed a lot of it and threw up his whole bottle this morning. So we got up and moving. We were able to make our ride home in 3 hours. No stops. Amazingly Jackson slept the whole time. Lexy didn’t. She is not the best car rider. I think we will ask Santa for a DVD player for our car. We will need it next summer to come to Washington for the family reunion.

That is it in a nut shell. This really was a fun treat for Jaden’s birthday. I think I am becoming a bit of a train nut myself. They really were amazing to see up close.

There is a slide show below.