Day Trip - Mid-Continent Railway Museum
In the summer, Ed and I thought it would be nice to take a countryside train ride in the October / Fall timeframe to see all the fall colors. We are lucky enough to live relatively close to the Mid-Continent Railyway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin. In addition to their museum (which features restored train engines and cars), they offer train rides that are approximately 1 hour long. We put a pin in the idea and revisited it a weekend or two ago.
Going online to the railway / museum website, we were suprised to discover that all weekend rides were booked through the remainder of the fall. Bummer. Then Ed had the idea to go mid-week. Before heading out the door on Tuesday, Ed checked the website one last time for seat availability and noted that there were 90+ tickets still available. Given the "ample availability of tickets", we decided to buy our tickets at the gate (vs online).
We arrived about two hours early so that we could take in the museum, gift shop, etc. Not many cars in the parking lot - so we thought "great"; although, we did notice a group of people under the picinic pavilion getting set up for food / lunch. First stop was the ticket window (a train ride ticket includes admission into the museum buildings).
While paying for tickets, Ed learned that the train had subsequently been reserved but that the reserving party (a veterans group) had graciously allowed for ticket sales for two of the four passanger cars (whose seats would have otherwise been unused). Whew!
While in one of the museum buildings, one of the long-time volunteers (the railway operates strictly through volunteers, ticket sales, and donations) said that for whatever reason, they railway's ticket sales have gone through the roof relative to all of its past years which had seen a somewhat steady and predictable level of sales. He said that they weren't really sure why that was as they had "always" had a facebook and webpage pressence. But for some reason, the "algorithm" had changed in their favor. Interesting.
Coming back to the station from the museum, we noticed that there were now a alot of kids / parents now out and about and picinicing as well. What? kids on a school day?? They all seemed to know each other such that it appeared they were a group of homeschoolers. I even overheard one of the people reference "a homeschooler".
By the time we boarded, most all of the seats were taken. It was a very enjoyable / slow paced ride with beautiful scenery and some interesting facts thrown in by the conductor from time to time.
While at the gift shop, we bought our son a small tin of little peppermints (train themed of course). Ed also picked up a piece of pink quartzite gravel which came from the nearby quartzite mine. This was particularly meaningful to me as my great great grandparents on my mom's father's side had settled in Rock Springs (home of the quary) from Prussia. My great great grandfather had been the superintendant of the quary and my extended family has a long history of working in that and other quaries. (My mom's maternal side is from neighboring North Freedom which is how I was familiar with the railway museum in the first place..)
On the way out of town, we stopped at an awesome BBQ place for lunch in Rock Springs - called Station 136.
All in all - it was a beautiful day, a wonderful drive, and an "adventure" all in one.
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