Day Out with Thomas

How do I begin to summarize the experience that was Day Out with Thomas? First of all, I/we had been eagerly anticipating this day for a few months. We bought our tickets early and watched the youtube video that made the whole experience look sunny and magical. A real train ride on a real Thomas engine, meeting Sir Topham hat, activities, story times, etc. Everything in the video had a sunny gleam to it. It began to occur to me that this may not be the actual experience when a facebook friend posted some pics of their day the day before ours. It was at the Midland Railway in Baldwin City and basically looked like the whole event was in the middle of a stock yard. The "coach" (as Pierce would call it) looked like an open air cattle car and the whole event was just set up under tents in the grass. And to make matters worse it was supposed to rain the whole night before and morning of. Not.good. I was also starting to get worked up because the event was supposed to be handicapped accessible and a giant grassy area really isn't that. I'm glad my expectations were tempered because it was pretty much all that I had lowered my expectations to be.

It rained most of that morning and partly on our way, but we forged ahead. Parking was terrible and in nearby church lots and gravel areas and it was definitely not free as we had been promised on the site of lies. We made it in and the whole thing was just on muddy terrain under tents. Under the tents there were lots of train tables set up, a music stage where kids were banging drums, a petting zoo (although we never made it over there), and food stands. The boys went straight for the train tables and Pierce connected with some plastic ones. When it was time to take our train ride he was sooooo upset to leave the trains that he didn't even want to ride. I'm talking major meltdown. We finally got him over there and boarded the train. Ironically that was the most handicapped-friendly, easiest part of the day. Although I would have to say that actual ride was pretty "wame" as the boys would say. It was just down the track backwards for 15 minutes and then back the other way. Booooring. I'm being so negative about this whole thing, but for $18 a ticket I just expected a lot more.

After the ride we went back to the train tables which was a total mistake because it caused another major meltdown as tried to go to lunch. I was ready to call it and just go home, but Nana, Papa, and GG Bon helped calm everyone down and get us to lunch. By this point the ground was so soggy we all had mud up to our ankles. The funniest comic relief of the day was to see GG Bon's perfectly white Keds turn into a mud dipped mess. We still crack up today. Bless her heart! We ate lunch and then pretty much decided to call it. The boys seemed to enjoy themselves (minus leaving the toy train area) for the most part, but even they weren't enthralled like I expected. It definitely created some memories though!