Some Boys Never Grow UP

While in Sacramento, Dan and I had a great lunch on the Sacramento River in what is known as "Old Sac" and then headed for the Train Museum. If you have never been here, it is AWESOME! If you are a 3rd or 4th grade teacher in California it is a must see. The museum is huge and broken into 3 basic sections.

The first part is about the history and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Big 4. There are many artifacts and photos from the 1800s. Some of it is like a wax museum. There are actual and replica engines and cars from the period. What they had to work with to build the railroad is just mind-boggling.

In the next section you see the history of railroad cars and engines. There are dozens of these huge locomotives! The museum is actually built on an old "turnabout". When they have events in the museum, they just move the cars out on the tracks and then bring them in later that night.

A few of the cars you can actually walk through. A sleeping car from the early 1930s is set up to actually shake and move as it

would be if it was really riding the rails. Boy, did it look uncomfortable. No such thing as a memory foam mattress~I think they said it was horse hair!

Then there was a dining car set up with all the different china selections for the different rails. Beautiful stuff. One of the California lines had china with the California Poppy on it. There was also a mail car where mail was sorted as it went across the country. Amazing technology for the time.

The last section of the museum is for the BIG BOYS as well as little tykes. It is a play area full of all kinds of toy trains. There are also deluxe model cities constructed behind glass that move and shelves and shelves of model cars. Dan found many that he had as a kid! Does any of this remind you of your youth? Dan was fascinated by this place and I liked it even though I had been through it several years before. This was a fun little get-away weekend.

The next day Dan hung out at the Hyatt while I presented at the state Gifted Conference. I presented on "Celebrating a Mosaic of Diversity through Multicultural Literature." It was well attended and I got some good feedback for future sessions. The program supported the book I wrote a year ago. We came home on Sunday and while in the airport found a clever disguise for a pillar! Check it out :)