The rest of the vacation story--Sunday and Monday

Well, it's about time I finish this up!! It hardly seems possible that it was two whole weeks ago that we were finishing up our vacation in Amish country. I'll wrap up briefly with descriptions of what we did on Sunday and Monday.

Sunday: We took the kids to a place called the "Choo-Choo Barn." It was this huge model train layout of Lancaster Cty. Not only was the layout very elaborate, but a lot of it was animated. Lots of little people that moved, a circus with moving animals and performers, etc. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera that day, so we didn't get any pictures of it. But it was very cool! After spending a few hours there and in the nearby shops, we headed back to
the B&B for lunch. Julia conked out for a long nap, and Jim, Sam and I spent most of the afternoon out on the front porch, watching the buggies go by. After a while Sam fell asleep too, then Julia woke up, so we continued to sit on the porch with her. She just loved it whenever a buggy went by--she would get all excited and smile and wave. We discovered that Sunday afternoons must be a prime time to watch horses and buggies! Apparently most Amish go out visiting each other after church. The funniest thing we saw/heard was a buggy with a loud rock beat coming from inside! I had read in Beverly Lewis' books about the "Rumschpringe" (the running around years when the teens are sort of allowed to try out the world's ways before they make a decision of whether or not to join the Amish church. It was very interesting to observe the Rumschpringe in action! There were two teen boys in the buggy, and they hollered and waved at us as they went bopping along. It seemed a perfect example of the Rumschpringe in action!

Sitting on that porch all afternoon was probably the most relaxing thing we did on our vacation! It was really nice. Later in the evening we went back to Strasburg with the goal of buying Sam a new engine for his wooden tracks, as a souvenir of our trip. We got him a nice diesel engine from the PA Railroad, and in the same building there was this Thomas train where you put in 2 quarters for a pretty long ride. The kids loved it! Thankfully I had the camera with me that time.
On our way back, it started to rain, but I was able to get a fairly good picture of one of the Amish farms.
After getting back to our room, we got a good night's sleep and the next morning we headed for home. We went back a slightly different route, through Scranton PA, so we could stop at Steamtown, another historic train museum. It was gray and overcast, and we were only there for about an hour or so, but we enjoyed the time to stretch our legs and see some more train stuff. Jim's favorite was the huge "Big Boy" engine--if you click to enlarge this one, it will give you a better idea of how big it is (notice how small Jim & Sam look, standing in front of it!).
Part of the Steamtown museum and roundhouse
Julia was happy to be out of her carseat for a while, even though she still had to be cooped up in the stroller.


After that, we hit the road again, and after a long drive and a couple hours of crying from a very unhappy baby during part of the drive, we arrived home safe and sound around 9:45 pm. We were so thankful for all the fun times we had and all the special memories we could make on our vacation. And I guess that wraps it up! Thanks for reading. :)