Steam Fest 2009

Today we did something pretty cool. We went to Steam Fest 2009. It is a festival organized by the Louisiana Steam Train Association. There was a band, yummy food, a kid area, a Thomas train to ride on and the highlight of the whole thing a real working steam engine, a restored dinning car from the steam era and other baggage cars that have been converted into museum cars. We ended up getting a year membership to the LSTA because it was only a few dollars more than the fee to get into today's event and we get in free to all their other events for a year. We started with the engine. We were able to climb in, right where the engineer stands and ring the bell which has a pretty nice kick to it so I had to hold on to Chance while he pulled the rope to ring the bell so it didn't pull him off the box he was standing on. After the engine we went through the dinning car which was very fancy and sort of took me to a different place when travel travel was more prestigious than it is today. After that we walked through all the museum cars which told the story of the refurbishing of the engine and cars as well as the building of the Huey P. Long bridge. We learned that they used to take trains across the Mississippi on barges before the bridge was built. The engine we were on, the Southern Pacific 745, was built in Algiers, LA which is just across the river from where we live now. We were able to see part of a movie that was made way back when and discribed New Orleans in a totally different way than what it is now. We traveled down the ramp and off the real train cars right over to the model trains. Chance really enjoyed watching the model trains go around and around then he moved on to the train tables where he could play and play which he did. Chance went in the bounce house for a few minutes but ultimately it was the trains that kept his interest (no surprise there) so back to the train tables he went. After playing a little longer we we collected drinks, popcorn and cotton candy from the venders on site and sat on the grass to enjoy the band. This was Chance's first time having cotton candy and he did not like it, I was surprised by that one but he tried it twice and both times said he did not like it and handed it back to me. All-in-all that's fine with us, now if we could just keep his hands out of the cookie jar... After listening to the music for a while we caught a ride on the little Thomas train that took us out of the festival area, past a few soccer fields and back. Then we made one more round of the festival, train table, model train and then one last walk through all the real train cars to take us back to the exit. We stayed much longer than we had planned (right through nap time) but it was worth it as we all had a great time. There has been so much going on the last few days I have a lots more to share and post hopefully I will get it done tomorrow and the next day. Also I hope to have our Flickr account back up and running in the next couple days so I can share all the picutres I have taken over the last month with you.