![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Weekend (Father's Day, 2005)
What a weekend! It was a long one, since I took Friday off. And why did I take Friday off? Why, to take Sebastian to see Thomas the Tank Engine at the Edaville Railroad!
I should explain that my parents took me to Edaville to see the trains back when I was a little boy, and I still have a lot of memories. The old steam trains would ride through cranberry bogs and forests, and hidden cleverly in the forests were magical little scenes of elves and animals - painted wooden ones, that is. At Christmastime the whole place was lit up, and it was simply amazing to me.
But Edaville went bankrupt, and their rolling stock was sold off (some of it to the >Boothbay Railway Village, which we've visited several times with Sebastian). Several new owners tried to resurrect the place over the years, and they all failed. Apparently the latest group has managed to make it work, although there are almost no steam engines left - they use diesels instead - and the place doesn't feel quite the same.
But it was still pretty great for Sebastian.
Time for a cut. There are four medium-sized photos behind it.
Sebastian had been counting down the days until he got to ride Thomas, with stickers on a sheet we'd taped to the back door. He was incredibly excited. When we picked him up early from school on Friday to take him to Edaville, he'd told everybody that he was going to ride Thomas. But despite that, I wasn't surprised that he cried in terror when we pulled into the Edaville parking lot, and begged to go home.
He hadn't even seen Thomas yet, but an engine is awfully big. And in a way, he was about to meet a god; a little panic was natural.
But we managed to calm him down after a while, and he had a wonderful time. Unfortunately my camera's batteries died before I could get a photo of him in front of Thomas, so we paid $14 for a staged photo of the three of us. But I got some decent photos anyway:
A long-distance shot of Thomas, from the stairs leading up to the huge black steam engine on the left. That thing must have been at least 14 feet tall. Hell, maybe 20. It looked exactly like the Big Strong Engine from The Little Engine That Could, and also like a train from an obscure book called Roundabout Train (which Sebastian calls "Robota Train").
Notice that there was a diesel engine behind Thomas, which was the one that was actually pushing the train. Smoke did come out of Thomas' funnel, so he may have been functional, but I'm not sure about that.
Sebastian looking down from the cabin of the huge black engine. He loved that engine.
Sebastian on a smaller black steam engine, which (like the big one) had been converted into a playground attraction. I managed to boost him up to the top of the boiler next to the funnel later, so that he could ring the bell.
Later still he took a ride on one of those little kiddy-train rides. the sort you see at carnivals; that was a first for him, since the last time we'd put him on a ride at a carnival he'd cried and made them stop the ride.
On Sunday (today), my parents came over, along with my brother and his family, to celebrate father's day. It's strange to realize that this is only my third one! Sebastian was ecstatic, of course; he absolutely loves to play with his cousins.
The grass was incredibly green. Just a lovely day, and it was wonderful to see everyone.
I guess that's it! Funny, I can't remember what we did on Saturday.
Holy crap, I must be getting senile. On Saturday Teri and I went to the Antiques Road Show in Providence. Stood in line for two or three hours with three antiques, only to find out just what I'd expected - they were only worth $350-$47 in aggregate. Although one of them is priceless to me, a backgammon board that my grandfather brought over from Turkey.
I was interested to see how it all worked; they don't film everything, or even much. They pick certain people to be filmed, and those people are brought to a different area where they're made up and filmed getting their stuff evaluated all over again.
After, Teri and I drove back to Woonsocket. We stopped by the house, but my parents (who were watching Sebastian for us that afternoon) weren't there - they'd taken him out for lunch. So we went to Chelo's. I suspected they might have taken him there, but even I was surprised when the people standing in front of us when we walked into Chelo's turned out to be them!
Incidentally, photographs were forbidden at the Antiques Road Show. But just imagine five thousand people standing in endless lines in a huge civic center, and you've pretty much envisioned it. We did see one or two of the people from the show, but I don't know their names. I don't watch the show much, to tell you the truth.
I should explain that my parents took me to Edaville to see the trains back when I was a little boy, and I still have a lot of memories. The old steam trains would ride through cranberry bogs and forests, and hidden cleverly in the forests were magical little scenes of elves and animals - painted wooden ones, that is. At Christmastime the whole place was lit up, and it was simply amazing to me.
But Edaville went bankrupt, and their rolling stock was sold off (some of it to the >Boothbay Railway Village, which we've visited several times with Sebastian). Several new owners tried to resurrect the place over the years, and they all failed. Apparently the latest group has managed to make it work, although there are almost no steam engines left - they use diesels instead - and the place doesn't feel quite the same.
But it was still pretty great for Sebastian.
Time for a cut. There are four medium-sized photos behind it.
Sebastian had been counting down the days until he got to ride Thomas, with stickers on a sheet we'd taped to the back door. He was incredibly excited. When we picked him up early from school on Friday to take him to Edaville, he'd told everybody that he was going to ride Thomas. But despite that, I wasn't surprised that he cried in terror when we pulled into the Edaville parking lot, and begged to go home.
He hadn't even seen Thomas yet, but an engine is awfully big. And in a way, he was about to meet a god; a little panic was natural.
But we managed to calm him down after a while, and he had a wonderful time. Unfortunately my camera's batteries died before I could get a photo of him in front of Thomas, so we paid $14 for a staged photo of the three of us. But I got some decent photos anyway:
A long-distance shot of Thomas, from the stairs leading up to the huge black steam engine on the left. That thing must have been at least 14 feet tall. Hell, maybe 20. It looked exactly like the Big Strong Engine from The Little Engine That Could, and also like a train from an obscure book called Roundabout Train (which Sebastian calls "Robota Train").
Notice that there was a diesel engine behind Thomas, which was the one that was actually pushing the train. Smoke did come out of Thomas' funnel, so he may have been functional, but I'm not sure about that.
Sebastian looking down from the cabin of the huge black engine. He loved that engine.
Sebastian on a smaller black steam engine, which (like the big one) had been converted into a playground attraction. I managed to boost him up to the top of the boiler next to the funnel later, so that he could ring the bell.
Later still he took a ride on one of those little kiddy-train rides. the sort you see at carnivals; that was a first for him, since the last time we'd put him on a ride at a carnival he'd cried and made them stop the ride.
On Sunday (today), my parents came over, along with my brother and his family, to celebrate father's day. It's strange to realize that this is only my third one! Sebastian was ecstatic, of course; he absolutely loves to play with his cousins.
The grass was incredibly green. Just a lovely day, and it was wonderful to see everyone.
I guess that's it! Funny, I can't remember what we did on Saturday.
Holy crap, I must be getting senile. On Saturday Teri and I went to the Antiques Road Show in Providence. Stood in line for two or three hours with three antiques, only to find out just what I'd expected - they were only worth $350-$47 in aggregate. Although one of them is priceless to me, a backgammon board that my grandfather brought over from Turkey.
I was interested to see how it all worked; they don't film everything, or even much. They pick certain people to be filmed, and those people are brought to a different area where they're made up and filmed getting their stuff evaluated all over again.
After, Teri and I drove back to Woonsocket. We stopped by the house, but my parents (who were watching Sebastian for us that afternoon) weren't there - they'd taken him out for lunch. So we went to Chelo's. I suspected they might have taken him there, but even I was surprised when the people standing in front of us when we walked into Chelo's turned out to be them!
Incidentally, photographs were forbidden at the Antiques Road Show. But just imagine five thousand people standing in endless lines in a huge civic center, and you've pretty much envisioned it. We did see one or two of the people from the show, but I don't know their names. I don't watch the show much, to tell you the truth.