choo choo barn

one of our favorite places to visit in lancaster is the choo-choo barn, which is down the road from the strasburg railroad.  this cute train is out front and makes the perfect photo op.  trying to get 3 kids to sit still long enough for a shot, not so much!

after paying admission, we entered the display.  it was tweaked since our last visit and it was fun to find the differences.


hubby tried to take shots of the display but it was tough to catch the moving trains - they made the pictures blurry.


twilight in the imaginary world of the choo-choo barn...


we also purchased a new dvd of the display (freddie watches it, on average, 3 or 4 times a day).  we discovered that the new dvd was blue ray...which we don't have!  guess what we acquired the day we got back from vacation?

the beauty of this train display is the details the designer creates.  there were sections of the display not featured in our old video and i'd forgotten them (the underground mine with its glowing aquifer), and visiting gave me a good idea of where pieces of the display were located (i couldn't tell very well from the video).  our favorite "house on fire" was there and we got to see it twice, and i had a blast finding the little animations in the circus.

i think the little kids were more perplexed by the display than excited.  i think they're used to seeing the scenes on the tv screen, and in reality some are very tiny (i couldn't get over how small the sword swallower at the circus is - he's no bigger than the tip of my thumb).  i felt a little rushed (i had tummy trouble and left early) and would have loved to spend more time absorbing the wonderful scenes.

the choo-choo barn is a wonderful excursion for a day trip.  it's open seven days a week, from early spring until christmastime (the display is closed for a few months for repairs/cleaning/additions, plus major holidays in between).  it's located in a small strip of shops including an adjoining gift shop, two train hobby shops, a thomas shop and isaac's restaurant (the same one we ate at the day we saw thomas).  another shop was being worked on - during our last visit it housed a candy shop and i bet that's what this shop was going to be as well.

we had lunch at olive garden then spent the rest of the day at the hotel resting and swimming.  i think this was my favorite day of our trip.