Caboose Snoozin'

During the boys’ afternoon nap, the family steamed hard 200 miles east to Titusville, Pennsylvania. This was a new state for the boys, their 11th, and we were impressed with the rural beauty of the area. In 1859, oil was successfully drilled in Titusville, resulting in the birth of the modern oil industry. Arriving after dark, the family checked into one of the country’s few caboose motels. Visiting a real caboose is one thrill, but staying overnight in one is a very exciting rare pleasure. Trey Davey and Benji were so energized that sleep didn’t come easily for them on our second vacation night.

One Thousand Days Old

Trey Davey and Benji were born on December 5, 2007 at 10:12 and 10:13 a.m. About 10:30 a.m. that morning they turned 1,000 seconds old, and about 3:00 a.m. the next morning they became 1,000 minutes old. Forty two days later on January 15, 2008 they became 1,000 hours old. Each of those century marks were important milestones and provide a perspective of relativity. Age is a number and hopefully a maturity measuring stick. Just as they’ve done, we should strive to continually grow intellectually with each passing moment and make each opportunity count. Today, in almost their 33rd month, the boys are turning 1,000 days old. They’ll be 19 years olds and enjoying college Freshman Spring Break when they turn 1,000 weeks old, and hopefully, they’ll be sipping cool water on a beautiful spring day in their 83ed year when they turn 1,000 months old.

Taking a Branch Line

The family branched slightly off track on our second vacation day traveling 50 miles north to stop first in Marion, Ohio where we found this Erie Lackawanna Railway C306 caboose next to a grand old depot going through restoration. Busy adjacent rail tracks afforded us the opportunity to see three passing CSX freight trains during our brief visit. Next, we stopped fifty miles further north, and found the Mad River and NPK Train Museum in Bellevue, Ohio. This exceptional venue featured 6 locomotives and about 25 pieces of moving stock. Most of these train cars were open and filled with interesting locally-donated railroad memorabilia. We could have stayed a couple of days there, but the boys ran out of steam after just a couple of hours. Included in this collection were six more cabooses.

Deep in the Heart of Buckeye

After lunch while the twins slept, the family headed east. Seeing a train on a sign for La Grange, KY we jumped off track briefly to check that historic town for a caboose. Finding none, we resumed our journey towards Ohio. In their brief lives, Benji and Trey Davey have already visited 10 states, including Ohio, although their first Buckeye State visit was little more that a border crossing. This time we headed directly into the heart of the state to Hilliard, a charming little community just outside Columbus. Hilliard’s Historical Village offers visitors a walk into the past. Beautiful icons of the past included several 19th century buildings, a mobile voting booth, covered bridge and a renovated 1923 Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O) wooden caboose. We explored this park for about an hour before finding a hotel for our first vacation night.

Star Treatment

Another twenty minute ride took us to West Point, Kentucky where we immediately spotted the brightly painted red Illinois Central caboose positioned prominently in the center of town. After taking photographs we walked over to the Star Cafe. Built nearly a century ago as a hotel serving rail travelers, this charming structure later became a boarding house after passenger service on this line discontinued. The top offering on the menu is the “Robert Plant Special”. This peaked my interest and the owner, Cindy Rutledge, gushed when she told me about Sir Robert Plant’s visit to her café two years ago. The rock legend and former lead singer for the 1970’s super group Led Zeppelin had stopped in for lunch. He was in the area to perform a concert with Bluegrass artist Alison Krauss and was spending the afternoon visiting the historic Civil War battlefield, Fort Duffield.

Leaving the Station

This vacation’s first day began reasonably with the family taking the Kentucky route from Owensboro to Louisville in order to visit cabooses. Not all are found in playgrounds. Many sit beside restored railroad depots like L&N 903146 in Irvington. We had actually stopped here on a previous drive, but it was raining and the boys were sleeping, so we didn’t count it then. The community of Vine Grove, KY was located about 20 miles away. We had no address for this one, so we stopped for gas and directions. The clerk steered us just a few blocks to where we found a weather-beaten red Illinois Central caboose sitting in a small clearing next to an active Paducah and Louisville (PAL) rail line.

Rescue Stops

Sandy recalls her family’s driving vacations when she was a little girl and how her parents would stop frequently in little towns along the way. Small towns seemed to always have a clean, well-groomed park in the center of town. This stop would allow the family to enjoy bathroom breaks and the children to burn off excess energy on the playground. Similarly, I remember my family unloading my tricycle from the car at each stop and encouraging me to ride circles around the rest stop for the same purpose. These stops rescued our families from four-alarm travel meltdowns. Our nine day northeast trip was scheduled with three travel days departing, three days at our destination and three days returning. Each travel day was supposed to cover about 300 miles, so we planned frequent sight-seeing stops to keep everyone smiling and happy.

Techno-Toddlers

For the boys’ entertainment, we purchased a duel Digital Video Disc (DVD) machine for our minivan. Our plan was to keep the DVD player stoked with a constant supply of Thomas the Train movies during their waking hours in the car. Several rest and recreation stops were planned for each morning. In an earlier era, we might have gotten lost searching for the addresses on my caboose and playground list, but those were the days before GPS. Our car’s Global Positioning System (GPS) navigated us directly to these locations like we lived in those communities our entire lives. Prior to the advent of these technologies, a trip like this was inconceivable, but our twins will never know a world without these gadgets.

Sweet Successes

When Sandy’ employer required a business trip to Syracuse, New York, we took the opportunity to make it a working family vacation. Anybody who has traveled with active toddlers knows how challenging it can be. They require constant entertainment and frequent opportunities to work off excess energy. Knowing this, we attempted to use modern technology to design a fun adventure. Seeing this trip as an opportunity, I endeavored to search the internet for cabooses located along our vacation travel route. There is no comprehensive list or national caboose trail. Finding new cabooses and playgrounds requires a great deal of searching, often town by town. Before the Internet, this would have been nearly an impossible task, but now it’s only time consuming. Still, the sweetest successes are those that are difficultly won.

Advanced Booking

On their last visit, Pa and Granny brought an interesting gift for the boys. It was a children’s book they said they purchased 40 years ago and just found. This captured my curiosity and they both smiled at me as they explained. It seems I checked this book out of the Washington Elementary School library when I was in the first grade and failed to return it. At the end of the school year, the librarian asked my parents to return or purchase the book. Apparently, we bought it. So what was the book I treasured so much that I kept? It was “The Engine That Lost It’s Whistle” by Genevieve Cross. It appears that I liked trains as a little boy too!

Tools of the Trade

Our caboose quest took us to a unique Southern Indiana home last month. We not only found the train car we were looking for but also lots of other very interesting items. Among them were an outhouse, a Model A coupe, a Model T truck, a covered wagon and a fire truck. The home owners were very hospitable people, and they encouraged us to explore their acreage and admire their treasures. The Mrs. is a professional photographer, who collects the pieces to serve as backdrops for her models. Once released, the boys instantly ran to this old fire truck. Inspecting one up-close was fun and easily accessible due to its mud-sunken condition.

Come Back Mack

Our friend Mack, who lives next door, has a much different sleeping schedule from ours. He doesn’t take afternoon naps, goes to bed much earlier in the evening and gets up later in the mornings. Consequently, we don’t get to see him as much as we’d like. Sometimes his dad takes him outside before work, at lunch or just after work. Occasionally, these excursions occur when we’re outside and we get together, briefly. Mack is a nomad, constantly on the move. He will appear, examine various activity areas in our backyard, and then he will wander off. We always enjoy seeing him and look forward to a time when he’ll stick around longer and play a while.

Wet Behind The Ears

This phrase is probably hundreds of years old and refers to someone being inexperienced and new to a task. Many animals are born totally wet and have small depressions behind their ears, which are the last areas to dry on newborns. By the time it does, the animal is presumably a little older and possibly wiser. It has been a pleasure watching our twin’s ears dry. Every day is a new learning experience, and they are excellent students. Each has been expanding his physical and mental skills rapidly, showing great enthusiasm and little fear. Already, they are calling us on each misspoken word and correcting our song lyrics. While Sandy and I are enjoying their seasoning, we hope the boys preserve their essence of innocence for a long, long time.

A Wagon Load

Throughout Saturday morning, Pa and I took turns pulling one or two boys around the yard in the red wagon. The grass was high and the pulling was strenuous. As the day’s temperature rose into the high 90’s, all three wanted to ride together. Pulling the 112 lbs boy load very far through the yard was out of the question, so we took to the streets endeavoring to circle the block. While pulling them up the old library hill was difficult, so was controlling their downhill pace. We all enjoyed the adventure and along the way people smiled and waved. I’m glad we took this photo because they will soon be too big to all three fit in our little red wagon. In fact, before we know it, they’ll all three be too large to fit together in Sandy’s little red Volkswagen.

Northern Exposure

One of the Museum of Transportation’s benefits is allowing our area’s enthusiasts the opportunity to inspect trains from far away railroads. While most of the cabooses that we’ve seen thus far have been former L&N or IC rolling stock, this example was built by the Northern Pacific Railway, which operated in the west along the Canadian border of the United States. Former President Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in central Montana on Sept. 8, 1883 to open its main line, which ran from the Great Lakes to the Pacific. The company built this all-steel caboose as number 1082 in 1948. Our interior inspection found it offered oil heat and electric generated lights. When the NP later merged and became part of Burlington Northern, this car was renumbered 10435.

Happy Fourth Birthday Cousin Levi

As Cousin Levi’s recent visit came just a few days before his fourth birthday, we took the opportunity to throw a little party for him Saturday night. Actually it worked out great as we had a special gift for him. Knowing he loved to color, we ordered a special rollup to hold his crayons. These custom-made roll ups were created as a child-adoption fund-raiser for our friends Adrienne and Stephen Parks. We chose a Thomas the Train design for Levi to celebrate our earlier summer visit. While he might not be as train crazy as his cousins, but he seemed to be pleased with the gift and the crayons and coloring books he received.

OMOM’s Pool Party

The Owensboro Mothers of Multiples organization scheduled a pool party activity long before they knew there was going to be a record hot summer in our area, and the turnout reflected their good timing. With temperatures near the century mark, the cool pool water was wonderful relief. It was easy to find which home was hosting the OMOM’s party as it was the one with approximately a dozen minivans parked in the driveway and around the curb. Of course our water boys loved another opportunity to swim, but this pool offered something new to them: a diving board. After watching some of the older children diving, our two-year old boys gave it a try and found it addictive. Had Mommy and Daddy not given out to exhaustion, the twins would still be there diving.

The Days of Our Lives

While watching the boys play in their new sandbox early Monday morning, I sent a text message to Uncle Steve telling him about his nephew’s new acquisition and speculating on the amount of sand that would find its way into our house. He later replied that Cousin Levi was coming for a visit later in the week and any sand he found back in their Indianapolis home next week would be a treasured souvenir of the marvelous time the three Edds cousins enjoyed playing together. Today was a fun day of outside play in the sandbox, on the swings, down the slides and through the sprinklers, and despite our best cleaning efforts, I’m sure some souvenirs make it home to Indiana.

The Inside Voice

We are trying to train our boys to use their softer, inside voices, but Sandy and I too often find ourselves “teaching” them this concept at the top of our lungs. Toddlers seem to have three volume levels: loud, louder and loudest, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to explain the inside voice technique to twin boys who are simultaneously competing to be heard. I suppose all the excitement over their newly developed talking skill is understandable, and once you’ve learned to talk, you certainly want to be heard. It follows that if you feel your audience isn’t listening then volume is the most logical device available to garner their attention. Perhaps if Daddy and Mommy can learn to be more patient and explain the “inside voice” concept in soft tones, the boys will someday hear us.

Yard Artists

We arose at our customary 6:00 a.m. yesterday like any ordinary day, but then Benji spotted something extraordinary from his upstairs window. Pointing down into our next-door neighbor’s front lawn he exclaimed excitedly, “pee pee potty, pee pee potty!” As a fundraiser, Bellevue Church was selling “Terrible Toilets”. For a donation, ornate water closets would be placed in the front lawns of your loved ones for 24 hours. For a $20 donation, individuals could purchase insurance policies to prevent this occurrence. Apparently, the Roberts family failed to buy any insurance. The timing was perfect as it was the first day of the new school year, and as the high school’s inbound traffic is directed right past our homes, all of young Jacob’s friends were talking about his family’s new yard art.

A Little Tasty Faux Train

Yesterday, Pa and I took the boys to Elizabethtown for a little genealogy research, while Julie did our house cleaning. On the way back we stopped in the small town of Caneyville, Kentucky in search of a caboose supposedly in use as a narrow gauge railroad depot. After a futile search, Pa suggested we try looking at the nearby Pine Knob Theater, a place he and Granny have visited on several occasions. Immediately, we thought we had hit pay dirt after seeing this shape from a distance. The boys were very excited, but on closer inspection we found the train to be an imposter. It was actually an enclosed theater box seating area designed to look like a dinner train car. Guests can enjoy a meal and prime show viewing from this climate controlled oasis. While this may not be a real train, it looks like a future fun evening.

This calls for Judo

Trey Davey loves to dig in the dirt. We’ve tried and tried using various methods to stop him, but he is just inexplicitly drawn to earth excavation. Rather than continuing a conflict of superior wills, we thought it best to employ a little Judo. That is the technique of redirecting the opponent’s force towards a superior outcome. Sandy had already purchased a sandbox two years ago, and we have been gathering sandbox toys ever since. All I had to do was purchase some fine sand from Lowes, and we were in business. I retired a few of their outgrown outdoor toys to make room for their new sandbox turtle. The boys were ecstatic with this backyard addition, and Davey hasn’t dug in the soil since. He still gets very dirty, but sand is much easier to remove.

“Daddy I have another problem”

After playing in the Yellow Creek Park spray-ground for about 45 minutes, Benji said “Daddy I have a problem”. The boys’ language skills are now growing daily, and as they begin speaking more clearly, we are hearing complete multi-word sentences. What is really surprising is that many of their sentences are grammatically correct. It wasn’t “me have a problem”, it was “I have a problem”. To address his issue, I led him over to a nearby picnic table. The rubber sole was separating from the bottom of his water shoe. After the repair, we returned to the spray-ground fun. Ten minutes later, Benji announced very clearly that he had another issue and led me over to the picnic table for another repair.

Our First Movie Theater Visit

Granny and Pa offering babysitting Sunday so we could have a date night out, something we hadn’t enjoyed in several months. Sandy expressed interest in a new Julia Roberts’ movie, a chick flick that wasn’t in our theater yet, but another title gave me an idea. I thought Toy Story 3 might be a great candidate for the twins’ first movie. Since we own DVD’s of Toy Story 1 and 2, we are already familiar with the characters, and I thought this third installment might hold the boys’ attention for two hours. We invited Granny and Pa to join us for this family date night at the movies. Sandy brought booster seats to improve our little guys’ view, and fruit snacks to keep their hunger at bay. The boys sat still and engaged until the story’s very end. It truly was a very entertaining movie, great for the entire family.

Star Shower

Saturday morning after visiting a few yard sales, we drove to Yellow Creek Park. Mommy packed swimsuits so the boys could enjoy this facility’s spray ground. It is smaller than Legion Park’s spray-ground, offers fewer activities and seems to possess less water pressure. While these many be negatives for older children, these qualities fit our boys better at this post-toddler stage. They especially loved running through the rainbow rings that projected a star shaped shower of refreshing water. With temperatures climbing into the 90’s, it was a perfect place to play and cool off.

If it swims like a duck

When Grandma Karen was a little girl, she moved with her parents from her Chicago birthplace to a small town in Florida. Swimming was a necessity for Floridian children growing up in the oppressively hot climate. She passed that love of water on to her children, and together they have enjoyed decades of summers at the lake house. Now she passes this affinity on to her grandchildren, and any reasonable person can tell it’s in their blood. Our twins love the water. These visits to the lake are a good opportunity to learn to swim, and they are progressing nicely. Neither is scared of the water, and both are learning how to propel themselves by paddling their feet. Here Grandma was showing Trey Davey a little dance called the duck waddle.

Benchmark Birthday Photo - 2 years 8 months

After what seemed to be a long dormant stage, our boys are really growing now. For some time they’ve looked taller, but the scales and ruler haven’t indicated much change. Despite spring rains and record high summer temperatures, we have managed to find daily exercise time either early in the morning, in the cool water, or at an inside facility. These physical activities have helped the twins maintain their sleep schedule and contributed to a marked increase in their appetite. We have maintained a healthy diet, free of sweets, sodas and fried foods, and this has helped them avoid doctor visits. As a result Trey Davey now stands at 37-1/2 inches and weighs 35 lbs while Benji measures 36 inches and weighs 34 lbs.

Baby Caboose

We saw this unusual caboose at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis last week. The short body on the standard caboose frame allowed for a very large end platform. Number 13889 was built by Missouri Pacific Railroad at their Desoto, Missouri shop and the interior was finished at their facilities in Sedalia, Missouri. It was one of 350 completed from 1977 – 1981, and one of the last cabooses Missouri Pacific built. While the boys thought is was a baby caboose, and it is based on a short haul transfer caboose design, this model actually served on the main line until its retirement.

Happy Birthday Great Uncle Gene Ray

This past year has been a difficult one for Gene Ray, but he is doing much better now. A year ago when we celebrated his 80th birthday with a big family reunion party, he wasn’t feeling very well. His stomach ached, he had no appetite and he lost a great deal of weight. After an operation, we learned that he had cancer, but he took his treatments and today the doctors consider him cancer free. Now he enjoys no pain, a good appetite and has added a few pounds. He loves his great nephews, which he calls his “little boogers”, and enjoys sharing country rides with us talking about the old times. With him feeling better we look forward to seeing him even more often.

Fairground Refuge

Each morning during our lake stay, Mommy would dress the twins while Daddy showered and dressed. The boys had bathed before bed the night before. Once all the guys were dressed, they would first go get Mommy’s coffee, then leave to allow her peace and quiet to shower and dress. This was the time each morning that we visited the playground located at the Laurie Park and Fairgrounds. Sunrise is the coolest part of the day, and it usually hadn’t warmed up much by our 7:00 am arrival. It is a really nice playground with plenty of toddler swings and slides. We would run and play for about 45 minutes until Mommy called for pickup. It was a great spot to work off a little excess energy.

The Museum of Transportation

In our quest to see trains, several people referred us to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis. Since it was on our way home from the lake, we decided to make a stop. It was raining hard when we arrived. We thought this might ruin our visit, but soon the skies cleared, and we discovered an awesome train museum. Founded in 1944, this venue houses one of the largest and best collections of transportation vehicles in the world. Certainly, with more than 70 locomotives, the museum boasts one of the most complete collections of American rail power anywhere, including an 1858 wood-burning locomotive, the world's largest steam locomotive, and a 1920s Pullman sleeping car. We took a ride on a real trolley car, explored the cab of a locomotive and photographed five more cabooses. It was too much for one day and we’ll have to visit again soon.