Rail Fanning for Travalon's Birthday

 

Today it has been snowing all day, and everything we were going to do has been canceled, so we just sat at home. I did join the Irish Conversation Circle, since what else is there to do when you're snowed in? It was enjoyable to hear other people talk in Irish, but it was a real struggle to do it myself. All day I've been in a hoodie and pajama bottoms and, best of all, no bra, except for putting on jeans and boots (and my big white coat and third eye toque) when we took a vigorous walk outside in the falling snow. Despite the title of this blog post, Travalon's birthday wasn't yesterday, or even today, but this coming Monday, but our big adventure yesterday was part of his birthday festivities. Since he is having a landmark birthday, he gets several days to celebrate.

Yesterday we had lunch at the Beefaroo on the south end of Rockford, then we drove south to Rochelle to go to the Railroad Park. On a previous trip down to Florida we remembered seeing the nuclear power plant not too far from Rochelle from the highway, but the last few times maybe it was too warm and we didn't see the steam pouring off the two cooling towers, because we could never find it off to the west. However, yesterday we were on a smaller road that went closer to it, and the temperature was very low, so we easily spotted the steam and the two cooling towers. Just as we were about to pull into the Railroad Park, we were stopped by two trains going in opposite directions. Finally we got into the park and hopped out into the cold, listening for another train to come as we walked around the park to get some exercise. The gift shop was closed because of the holiday, but fortunately the restrooms were open. We saw one train go by on the southside tracks, heading east, then we saw another one on the southside tracks heading west, and finally we got cold and sat in the car, where we had a great view in comfort of one heading west on the northside tracks. Here are some photos.

Travalon made videos, which I have compiled for your viewing pleasure. A guy who was photographing the trains told us that the big train cars, which we thought were for transporting cattle, are actually for transporting automobiles.

After that we drove to the Illinois Railway Museum for their Happy Holiday Train. Our first stop was the hobby shop, where there were model railroads set up. Here are some photos. Check out Lambeau Field, Holy Hill, and the La Crosse giant beer cans in miniature.

This Ferris wheel changed colors.

The Domes lit up! And on the far upper left of the first photo, you can see the flame that's on top of a building in downtown Milwaukee.

I loved this ice castle and campfire.

Then we took a magical ride on a trolley through a display of Christmas lights. There were genuine ads on the trolley from back in the day.

Some of the trains were decorated. Here are photos I took with my phone.

And here are photos from Travalon's good camera.

We walked around outside after getting off the trolley and found more lights.

Our main purpose for coming to the Museum was to ride the train on the Happy Holiday Railway. As we waited to get on the train, we watched a fireworks display.

We rode in old railcars that were decorated inside, while holiday music played and the lit-up pine trees sang along. Here are a couple of photos.

Teenagers dressed as elves served us hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies, and toward the end of the ride Santa appeared to give each child a carefully wrapped jingle bell on a string. I loved the cheerful sound they made when all the kids were shaking them. Lest you think Santa forgot the adults, we each got a beautiful pin.

Here are photos of the outside of the train.

The train cars were double-decker, but nobody was allowed to go into the upper levels because that's where the wiring was for the lights inside. And here is a photo of the trolley we rode.

Our next adventure was going into one of the barns containing old train cars, where there were stuffed animals pretending to ride them. Here are photos from my phone:

And here are photos from Travalon's camera:

Here are a collection of signals outside.

Then we saw a barn with an arrow on it:

So we went inside and had our minds blown. Except for the first two, these photos are from Travalon's good camera.

This weird snowman head said things like, "I know I'm a little round, but it's just water weight."

It was very cold in the barn, so I thought I was going to get frostbite while making a video of the whole thing. There was another barn open and lit up, but it just had undecorated street cars in it.

They even had a little pop-up coffee shop, so I had a latte (decaf at that hour). We did see more decorations as we were leaving.

And even the guardhouse was done up for the season. Check out my shadow in the foreground.

I took videos that Travalon and I had made and created a longer video of our whole visit. Enjoy!

What a magical trip! And even as Travalon is days away from becoming an "old man," we felt like children because we were so full of wonder at everything. I can't imagine how magical it must be for the actual children! 

Famous Hat