Rail day

While Mama and Audrey were gone for an out-of-town birthday party today, Kate and Dada decided to head down to the grand opening of the Oregon Rail Heritage Center. Turns out today was also the grand opening of the east-side loop of the Portland Streetcar, so Dada thought it might be fun to ride the new streetcar to the train museum. As we probably should have expected, there were some opening-day glitches, and we had to wait almost 45 minutes. When the streetcar finally came, it was standing-room-only, which made the trip somewhat unpleasant. So we were both a bit annoyed when we finally got down to the Rail Center, and Kate was consequently not feeling very photogenic.

But we tried to make the best of it. Honey Grandpa met us there, and it was fun seeing the historic locomotives and the new building that houses them. Kate even recognized the locomotive -- the Spokane Portland & Seattle 700 -- that pulled the Santa Train we rode last December; she remarked that it was missing the Christmas decorations it had when we last saw it. There was a band, a Lego train display, speeches by local dignitaries, and lemonade and cookies.

The thought of the return trip home on public transit seemed daunting, but Grandpa offered to drive us. Walking back to Grandpa's truck, we had to wait for a couple of freight trains to pass. So we had lots of train exposure today. We stopped at a food cart pod on Belmont on the way home.