Tweetsie Railroad

Our joint gift to Thomas turning four today and David turning two in three weeks was our family's first day trip to Tweetsie Railroad. Now, David, of course, was clueless that his birthday is upcoming or that this trip was in his honor, but that's okay. Let me tell you, the ages of our four- and six-year-old boys were perfect for a visit to this Wild West-themed train amusement park. They took dressing up as cowboys and shooting their pistols very seriously.

The first of the children woke on their own at 5:45--when I was already awake baking muffins for them and packing our bags--and they decided to sit and watch the sun rise while reading books on the front porch.

The two-hour drive there went smoothly and we stopped to eat peanut-butter sandwiches before entering the park. Outside food is allowed into the park, which I think is a family-friendly feature, but I knew I didn't want to haul it around all day when I would already be pushing a cooler full of eight water bottles and snacks in my double stroller.

There were countless little boys dressed in cowboy gear and shooting their toy pistols at everything and everyone in sight! It was the most precious show of nascent protective manliness! Phooey on all this talk lately of "toxic masculinity"!

We started by riding the Wild West train, which involves live actors. There are good cowboys who ride the train, and our cowboy sheriff immediately deputized Joseph and put him in charge of protecting everyone on the train in case we ran into bandits . . . which, of course, we did.

At several stops along the train ride, there were bandits who leapt out and ensuing fisticuffs and gun battles. Everything was done in an exaggerated comedic manner (think of the Three Stoodges), so even our particularly sensitive younger children were not afraid.

Thomas, guarding our train from bandits

Thomas, posing to be a fierce cowboy

There are three ascending levels to the Tweetsie amusement park, which is built into the side of a steep mountain. The first level is almost entirely stores, and we were trying to do the whole day without buying souvenirs or any food inside the park (at which we were successful), so we just walked on by. Chris took part of the crew up the gondola and I took part of the crew and the stroller on the bus to the top level.

Up at the top, we played on the playground, rode some rides, and visited the enchanting petting zoo.

I was surprised at how much our children loved the petting zoo animals, but we spent extensive time there and they probably could have stayed an hour.

Toddler David went from terrified of the little goats--one of whom climbed halfway into his stroller and tried to eat our snacks--to cautiously curious.

Then we descended down to the middle level of Tweetsie for more rides.

On the carousel, David kept whispering to me in his toddler way, "Tight, tight," meaning that he was going to hold on tight.

After four or five hours in the park, nerves were frayed and everyone went from cheerful to falling apart rather all at once, the way your parents know can happen. After that is rather a blur of marching out of the park, tears from this one, tears from that one, losing a kid momentarily, kids "starving," finding a restaurant, fighting, vomiting at the table (from gagging on a bite), messing up the dinner order, more kids "starving," more fighting in the car, more vomiting in the car (from crying so hard), and then finally, finally all the kids blessedly asleep.

We will forget the typically rough end to a long, adventurous day, but we will remember the fun family times!

Happy birthday, Thomas and (almost) David!