Tweetsie Railroad

Our second full day of our little mountain vacation took us to Tweetsie Railroad (or Teetsie Ri'road as Grant eventually called it). It was probably the place we were both most excited about taking Grant. Husband was excited because he loved it so much as a kid. I was excited because I thought Grant would freak out when he saw the train. The whole way there we told him he was going to ride a big train. "I ride bi' choo choo train?" he'd say. And we'd say yes and try to get him excited.

So we get there. And while he didn't freak out over the train, he was pretty amazed by it. We got there a few minutes before it took off for a trip around the mountain so we stood there so Grant could watch it go.

Look at that happy face!

So after it took off we asked him if he wanted to ride it. He said "Yeah!" with a nod of his head. They run about every 30 minutes or so and since we had time to kill we walked around the park a bit and had a late lunch.

Flash forward to when the train is filling up for its next run. We ask if Grant wants to ride, he says yes. I let him pick the car and the seat and we wait for Husband who was going to catch up after some picture taking. Everything with Grant right now is "I need" so when he surprised me by freaking out in the train car he yelled "I need get off! I need get off!" I tried to calm him down (the train was still filling up, so not even moving yet) but it didn't work. We had to get off...it was causing a scene.

We made our way up the mountain to where they have animals and some toddler friendly rides. Including a small train ride that the bus driver suggested to maybe help Grant get over his unexplainable train trauma.
 

There were goats that got loose.



And some not loose ones too.

We worked out a way for Grant to feed them without making
contact (which I insisted on).

It made him happy.

 

Deer. Or "dee-yahs" as Grant called them...he's apparently from Boston.

They had some other animals too, but we didn't get very good pictures of them (emus, donkeys, llamas, and pot bellied pigs). So after the animals we hit some rides.


He had the boats to himself!



And we did the little train.



Which he loved.

It was getting late in the day and we still hadn't been on the big train. We asked Grant often if he wanted to ride it and every time he said no. So we headed back down to the "main street" area for a snack.


An ice cream lover like his Mama!

I also had the idea to walk Grant through an empty train car while I was holding him. Thinking that if I let him touch stuff but not make him sit down unless he wanted to that he wouldn't be so scared of it.

He pretty much whimpered the whole time.

From this point on I have no pictures. I was keeping it in the back of my head that the last train of the day ran at 5:00. So we're sitting on a bench eating our yummy treats and I knew it had to be getting close to 5:00. I asked Husband what time it was. It was 4:55. "Throw away that funnel cake and get on the train!" I sort of said it like a maniac. "He's not going to ride the train" Husband tells me. But I knew that if we could get on the train right before it left that once it got moving Grant would love it.

We get on the train and Grant gets fussy but I managed to distract him for a few minutes until we got moving. And I was right, Grant liked it! He was smiling and happy and I was all "Yay! We got him on the train!" But I forgot about the fight that cowboys have with guns (why in the world did my twisted head think they used bows and arrows??). And just in case you might not be able to hear the gun shots, they've got microphones. Grant jumped at the first shot and when I looked his bottom lip was poking out and he was a half second away from total meltdown. People in the next car were staring because he was crying so loud. But it was over kinda quick and once moving again, Grant was ok. Then came the cowboy & indian fight! At that point, while holding my hysterical child who I forced into this situation, I declared myself the worst mother in the world. We got moving again and the murderous screaming turned to toddler sobs. Then one of the cowboys came and gave Grant a bullet shell and told him that he was tough. He seemed to like that but was still eager to get off the train when it stopped.

He seemed to forget the train trauma rather quick and it turned into pride over riding the "big choo choo". It wasn't long once we got in the car that he fell asleep. That was quite a day he had (truthfully, I could have used a nap too). But there seems to be no lasting effects from the train ride that probably shouldn't have been. And it turned out to be a pretty good day.