You ever wish you could travel back in time so you could experience some great things. One of those great things that I would have loved to do is to ride on the old steam engines back in the 20's-40's. Dressed in those old style dresses and have big trunks to carry...or rather have hired help to carry them for me.
So anyway, here in Omaha we were able to go to Train days where we paid $10 for the family and went to 5 different places to learn and experience the history of Omaha and Union Pacific. It was so great to go to all the different locations and learn so much. Some of the time I had to take a picture of the information page because the kids wanted to get to the next thing! We went to Durham Museum which was actually and old train station. I love going there. They got a ticket from the counter and they had to go to 6 different stations and get punches from men that were dressed as ticket masters. The kids thought that was so cool! They got to color trains, find a bow tie in trunks full of clothes, get on trains and look through all the rooms, watch a movie about trains, and finally they got to see a real train outside that Union Pacific made one just for the Boy Scouts of America. The Union Pacific has only made 12 commemorative locomotives in its nearly 150 year history. It was so cool to see it up close and to know some of the history behind Union Pacific and the Boy Scouts. Kaitlynn took the picture of us...she did a great job!
We also went to Lauritzen Gardens Here in one of the many themed gardens, they had huge model trains. They also had buildings from Omaha's history. Mikey loved watching the 7 different trains go around on the tracks. He wanted so badly to have one and get up close to it and touch and play with one. He was rather bummed when we told him "No Way"!! The other cool thing to see is two of the largest locomotives ever made! The "Big Boy" and the "Centennial". They were not kidding when they said the largest made. The rail wheels were taller than I was by quite a bit...I would say at least 6 feet tall. It was so cool! I REALLY wanted to get into the Big Boy and look around. It's too bad they had it all sealed up.
We went on mail cars which were neat! I couldn't imagine sorting mail in that tiny area and have to do all the work in such a warm car. I'm sure there were many workers getting the job done. How interesting! It would have been fun to try and do it for a while though!
We didn't have enough time to go to the Union Pacific Museum or to the Dodge house, but we were able to see an old and very small train station that was full of artifacts from over the years. There was acutally a lot of information about Sun Valley, Idaho which was really cool! They used an old locomotive engine to power the ski lift for skiing there! The first chair lift ever recorded was for the lift in Sun Valley and was made by a man and his engineering group here in Omaha!
I hope to one day go throught these places and spend a bit more time there learning and soaking it all up instead of rushing to the next thing! The kids had fun, and it was a great evening and day. We had a wonderful time and I look forward to when we can go again!
That looked so fun and something that Dad and I would have loved, had we been here then. Looking forward to some other places to see and be in Omaha though, what fun!
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