Getting to Leavenworth

Charlie loves trains.  From the time he came to live here, he has been fixated on them.  We own three different train sets, and he plays with all of them.  We've gone to look at trains at various places.  But we had never taken him on a real, live passenger train.

We love Leavenworth.  It's a quaint little town in the Cascade Mountains of Washington that has been done in a German style.  My grandparents used to live close to Leavenworth, my dad grew up not far from there, and so it has even more appeal to me due to nostalgia.  However, I hate driving through passes.  So we almost never go to Leavenworth.

One day this summer we had the brilliant idea to take the Amtrak train to Leavenworth.  Our time share has a condo there, so we reserved a few days in November and booked our tickets.  We were very excited.  Charlie seemed ambivalent ... but as we got closer he started to get really excited too.  When the day finally arrived, we packed up and headed to the train station in Everett.

Charlie saw one of the Sounder trains go by and then he was beyond himself with excitement.  I think he finally understood that we were going to get on a really big train.  He started reviewing his ticket and asked me where they were going to punch the letters.  "Um, this train isn't quite like the Polar Express."  I hoped that he wouldn't care that this train wasn't going to take us to the North Pole.

 On board the train it was dark outside, but we could see the cities as we rolled by.  Ephram and Charlie were both wide-eyed and enjoying the ride.

Then Andy and Charlie went on an adventure to find the dining car.  They had a good dinner.  Charlie chose a hot dog and potato chips.  Ephram was asleep so I stayed in the passenger car with him.  They came back with a piece of cheesecake for me.  It was very good.  Ephram woke up and played with Andy.  He did train travel very well.

Shortly after this picture we noticed that Charlie wasn't making noise anymore.  He had so much excitement that he couldn't take it... he passed out asleep for the last 30 minutes of the ride.

When we pulled into the Leavenworth station it was freezing (literally.)  Luckily the shuttle was there for us and drove us straight to the condo.  We will be taking the train to Leavenworth more often - it was so much easier than the drive... and much more of an adventure for the kids.