The Quick Turnaround

The boys jumped right into the motel swimming pool without hesitation and swam (with the aid of floatation) all around the pool. Benji particularly enjoyed swimming laps back and forth across the pool’s width. When Granddaddy Roe began showing Benji how to push away from the side using his feet, he found an interested pupil. Jim had once taught complex aeronautic concepts to highly educated pilots at the Trans World Airlines (TWA) Training Center, but this task may have been equally challenging. It required speaking Two (the language of two-year olds), which can limit one’s verbal approach. But, using the fact that the boys want to emulate everything their parents and grandparents do and say, he simply showed Benji how to do it and encouraged him to follow.

Maria

Maria spoke no English. Her family was visiting Florida from Denmark, and she loved this wonderful place except that she was lonely and didn’t speak the language. She had James, but her baby brother was only 9 months old and too young to play with in the sand. Maria was almost 3 years old and yearned for someone her age to play with on the beach. Then came two answers to her prayers, and they were named Davey and Benji. The boys were just a month younger and exactly what she had wished for. At their age, language differences mattered very little and discovery was their Rosetta Stone. Together they built sand castles, swam in the ocean and pool and shared the beach experience for several days. Before her family left, Maria hugged each boy goodbye to say thank you for a wonderful time.

Play Stations

This photograph, taken in our Florida motel room, may be an interesting insight into each boy’s future strengths and talents. Both boys are fascinated by trains and show strong interest in design engineering. We noticed that while Benji seems to enjoy the theoretical side more, Trey Davey appears to be drawn to the more practical side.  Benji without question prefers the passive enjoyment of train books, videos and the photos on my laptop computer while his brother is more hands on, preferring to actively lay the toy tracks and push the small trains along them.  Because they share so much, each is exposed to the other’s preference, which broadens their experience. Hopefully this twin synergy will one day produce two well rounded men.

St. Pete Beach

We returned to the slice of paradise we discovered on last year’s Florida visit, the Palm Crest Resort on St. Pete Beach. We even stayed in the same adjoining rooms, which are large and well equipped. While Florida’s east coast suffered rain most of the week, we enjoyed beautiful weather all week on the Gulf side. Each day we would set up our tent right on the water’s edge allowing for swimming and sand play all morning. Then after our afternoon nap, we would splash in the motel’s warm swimming pool. This time of year we enjoyed affordable, off-season room rates and nearly empty beaches and restaurants. It was almost like we had the place to ourselves.

Carpe Puella

On our way to Florida Sunday morning, we visited the Forsyth, Georgia Wendy’s for lunch. Approaching the door, we noticed two large blue University of Kentucky buses parked nearby. Soon the building began filling with band members and cheerleaders. The group was returning from the previous night’s UK – University of Florida football game in Gainesville. After lunch, I asked a few of the female cheerleaders if they wouldn’t mind a photo with my boys. Three graciously accepted and as we assembled everyone for the photo Trey Davey wrapped his arms around one of the attractive coeds. I asked “Davey, wouldn’t you like to turn around so we can take your picture” and he replied with a loud, sharp “no!” which brought an understanding roar of laughter from all the envious young men in the room. Even at two, my boy knows when to seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Mega Slide

Before leaving for Florida Saturday morning, we visited Reid’s Orchard where the Owensboro Mothers of Multiples was holding a play date. This was an activity we really enjoyed last year, memorable for the apple Davey picked from a tree and ate. It was his first, ever. Reid’s has a playground like none other that we’ve seen, and we’ve seen a few. The activity centers are all constructed of farm related items and designed for various ages. One of our favorites is the Mega Slide. It is constructed of large plastic corrugated pipe that has a smooth inner liner. Attached to a riser approximately three stories high, this altitude makes for a long, fast slide.

Potty Partners

We were told not to rush potty training. When they are ready, the experts said, they will tell us. We purchased training potties in anticipation and placed them prominently on standby until needed. Neither boy showed any interest, so the issue was not addressed directly. There were a few discussions on the matter, but they seemed to fall on deaf ears, or so we thought. Then suddenly last week Benji walked confidently down the hall and announced he needed to use the potty. Before I could respond he had lowered his pants and diapers and sat on the pot like a veteran.  Quickly I called for his mother, who brought him books to read. Soon Davey wandered in to join the poopy party. This patient group effort yielded only a few drops on this first attempt, but this was a fine beginning. Perhaps greater privacy will assist his future productivity. 

Successful Journey of 101 Cabooses

We followed our new friend, John’s, pickup for about five miles, parked, then walked down the tracks about 100 yards. There, as dusk fell on the last day of our vacation, we snapped photos of our last two cabooses. To many our adventure must sound like a whimsical indulgence involving too many miles in too few days, but Benji, Davey and their parents loved it. Two-year olds don’t have the longest attention spans, so you have to keep things moving. We didn’t set out on a quest to find 101 cabooses; we simply found something that we all enjoyed and used our modern resources to maximize the opportunities. Along the way we discovered some neat out-of-the-way places, met some of the nicest people anywhere and found an extraordinary adventure.

Don’t let the Sun go down on us

The Bluegrass Railroad Museum in Versailles, Kentucky was the last place on my list. Arriving there on our last vacation day after 6:00 pm, we hoped to find four cabooses in order to make our century mark. Darkness loomed as we approached the rail yard. We immediately spotted one caboose in the train grouping closest to the road, then after crossing a pair of parallel tracks we discovered two more coupled to a second line of cars on the back tracks. These three gave us 99, one short of our goal. It was a meaningless pursuit, but one shy seemed like a cruel conclusion to our fun quest. Just then, providence intervened, and we met John. He was a volunteer for the museum. After explaining our plight, John said he knew where the museum had parked a couple of spare parts cabooses and volunteered to show them to us.

My kind of backyard sitting

After the challenge of finding the Ironton, Ohio caboose, the next one was easy. We crossed the Ohio River again back into Kentucky, drove a few blocks and spotted our 96^th caboose, a beautifully restored Chesapeake and Ohio Railway bay-window model sitting right behind the Russell Train Depot. The fountain, patio, benches and landscaping made it feel more like a backyard that a park. This city just northwest of Ashland, Kentucky once boasted possession of the largest privately-owned rail yard in the world. It was 4:00 pm EDT on the last day of our vacation. We were 300 miles from home and still needed four more cabooses to make our triple digit goal. Time and daylight were slipping away quickly.

Hidden in Plain Sight

Ironton, Ohio was our next stop. Ironically, twin bridges linked this community to Kentucky, and one was painted blue and the other was painted green. Noticing this, Benji declared from the back seat “Benji’s bridge and Davey’s bridge”. We color code our twins’ personal items; blue is Benji’s color, and green is Davey’s. Once across the river, we followed our GPS’s directions to the address and found a depot, but no caboose. We made several passes around the block and were tempted to give up and move on, but something told us to persevere.  Just to be thorough, we drove through the flood gate and down to the boat launch behind the depot where we found our missing caboose sitting high on the bank by the flood wall. Unfortunately, vandals had damaged this Toledo, Detroit & Ironton Railroad car. A bonus was the great mural that had been painted on the flood wall depicting important town events.

Extended Family Fun

Of all our adopted Uncles and Aunts, we see Lisa and Al Bell the most. My earliest memories of Al date back to perhaps age 10 and I met Lisa when she moved into my neighborhood during high school. We all worked our way through college together and maintained our close friendship in spite of their move to Tennessee 20 years ago. We’ve always helped each other with whatever projects we were into. Last summer Al helped me roof the garage, and we built a backyard gate this summer. When she visits, Lisa loves to sit down on the floor and play games with the boys. She also often brings very thoughtful gifts. We look forward to their every visit and consider ourselves fortunate to call them our friends.

Pardon me boy, it that the Catlettsburg Caboose?

When a photograph of this caboose appeared recently in our local newspaper, it understandably caught my attention. An individual purchased this train car for the community of Catlettsburg, Kentucky and a group of volunteers spent countless hours restoring it to this sparking condition. I had never heard of Catlettsburg, and when the map indicated that it was in far eastern Kentucky, I discounted the chance that we would see it anytime soon. Then, Sandy’s business trip to Syracuse came up and our off-track sightseeing brought us right past it. So on the last day of our vacation we crossed the Ohio River from West Virginia into Kentucky and quickly found the newly refurbished 1969 Chesapeake and Ohio Railway caboose next to the Catlettsburg Depot.

Big Old Coal Hauler

Our next stop was at the Huntington Railroad Museum located in Ritter Park. Volunteers operate the museum on Sundays from 2 until 5 pm, and we were fortunate to arrive before closing. The venue features a Baldwin H-6 steam locomotive, one of the last ever built. This huge 2-6-6-2 steam powered engine was built to pull heavy coal-filled cars up the steep West Virginia Mountains. Among the other cars were two more beautifully restored cabooses. The volunteer staff was very knowledgeable and friendly in only the way small town people can be. The boys took full advantage of this stop to run, play and flirt with the locals.

Vacation with a Soundtrack

Our final vacation day began by branching about 15 miles off line to visit Grafton, West Virginia where we found caboose number 91. Driving back towards the interstate we stopped in Clarksburg, WV at the Red Caboose Italian Restaurant and found no caboose but enjoyed visiting with the owner, Mr. Engine. He showed us the old train depot and recommended some excellent pepperoni breakfast rolls at a nearby bakery. As we drove the 200 miles to our next destination, the boys watched Thomas movies while Sandy and I listened to music we purchased at one of the train museum gift shops. It was a copulation of railroad songs preformed by Country and Bluegrass Music artists, and the compositions felt like the perfect soundtrack for a family traveling through Appalachia looking for trains.

The Boys’ Fourteenth State

We stopped for dinner about an hour west in Cumberland and visited the beautifully restored Western Maryland Rail Station and photographed another caboose. As we drove west on that next to last evening of our vacation across Maryland, Sandy began calculating our caboose tally and realized we had seen 90. Could we find 10 more on our last day? We passed into another new state for the boys, West Virginia (#14), and stopped for the night in Morgantown, home of the University of West Virginia. After putting everyone to bed for the night, I searched the Internet again for just a few more cabooses.

The Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum

On the afternoon of our vacation’s eighth day, we drove to Maryland, which was another new state for the boys (#13). In Hagerstown, we visited the Roundhouse Museum. Built in 1939, this 25 stall roundhouse and shops were the major facility for maintenance and repairs of Western Maryland’s locomotives and cars. Unfortunately the Roundhouse facility was demolished in 1999. Museum volunteers constructed a large scaled model of the Roundhouse facility and the surrounding area as it may have looked in the 1950’s. The boys loved watching the multiple model trains passing as they circled the mock-up. Outside, we found a trolley car, a diesel engine and four more cabooses. A brochure at the counter promoted the Hagerstown Railroad Museum in the Park a few miles away.  While that museum had already closed for the day, we were able to see seven more cabooses and run around in the park.

A GeoTrax Fantasyland

To thoroughly examine the huge Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, one would need to allow several days. However, we only had one morning on our next to last vacation day to fit it all in, so we attacked the task at full-steam. After walking around and through over 100 train cars for nearly three hours, the boys were totally beat and cranky until we discovered the Stewart Junction. This hands-on learning area offered model trains of all kinds. When Davey and Benji saw the GeoTrax and Thomas the Train tables, their adrenalin began pumping overtime. After another 45 minutes, they were done. Hunger, exhaustion and over stimulation resulted in sensory overload. We carried the crying, worn out boys to the car, where they fell immediately into a deep satisfied sleep. Exhaustion like this only comes from total enjoyment in the morning’s activities.

Too Much To Leave

Wanting to see more before leaving this area, we chose to stay an additional night. The popular Red Caboose Motel was sold out for Friday night, so we had to move to a traditional hotel nearby. While this wasn’t as exciting as sleeping in a real train car, it did offer an indoor swimming pool which we enjoyed. Early on the morning of the eighth day, we visited the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. It is considered one of the finest locomotive and rolling stock collections in the United States. Inside their huge building we saw dozens of beautifully restored engines and scores more examples of various train car varieties. The museum provided a detailed legend for each artifact and many were open to inspection. Outside we saw a working round-table and many more trains and cars waiting to be restored. In all, we saw five more cabooses.

“Hey, That’s My Toy!”

When the boys and I visited the site of the Owensboro Mother’s of Multiples’ (OMOMs) Rummage Sale, our twins noticed a number of familiar items. Sandy has been working hard for months culling out the clothes and toys they have outgrown in preparation for this event. The bounty of her efforts filled her car and the van, with a couple of large items like the baby slide and swing riding on our trailer. This was Sandy’s fifth OMOM’s Rummage Sale. She attended the first as a buyer and has participated in the last four bi-yearly sales as a member. This was her first as the organization’s President, so she wanted a good showing, and she got it. The church hall was filled to capacity and sales were brisk. We left with less than half the stuff we brought and a nice roll of cash to purchase older boy stuff.

No Foolin’ Benji, Uncle Jessie

Granny’s first cousin, Anna Doris, and her husband, Jesse Shanks, visited us recently. They live in Texas and have traveled extensively in their retirement. Her scrapbook-like publications and short stories of their adventures were an inspiration for this blog. The boys were in good spirits, playing and talking incessantly. “I have read all their blogs,” Anna Doris said, “but seeing them in person really allows you to observe their individual personalities.” Jesse is a tease. He likes to be called Uncle Jessie after “The Dukes of Hazard” television series character. When Benji brought him a train book to read aloud, Jesse looked at the illustrations and began making up his own story. Hearing this, Benji was incredulous. As he had the story memorized, Benji quickly set Uncle Jessie straight as to just how the story goes.

Train Heaven

We enjoyed breakfast on our seventh vacation day in The Red Caboose Motel’s restaurant, a refurbished P-70 railroad coach car, which overlooked the

Strasburg Rail Road

a quarter mile away. There the historic old locomotives bellowed black smoke and white steam as they boarded tourists for 45-minute excursions through the Amish farmland. After breakfast, we walked over to the National Toy Train Museum located next door to the motel. It was difficult to contain the boys’ excitement as they encountered hundreds of mint-condition toy trains of all sizes both on display and moving around five large professional looking layouts. Examples dated from the mid-1800’s to present and represented all the major toy train manufacturers as well as all five standard gauges; O, S, G, HO, and Z. The boys loved pushing the buttons to engage the trains.

The Red Caboose Motel

The guys packed the car on our sixth vacation day while Sandy completed her final work day. Afterwards, the family drove five hours due south through the beautiful New York and Pennsylvania country sides to The Red Caboose Motel in Strasburg, PA. It was late when we arrived and the boys went right to sleep. Early on the morning of the seventh day, Daddy took his still sleepy boys outside to survey the 38 brightly-colored cabooses, two dining cars and two baggage cars parked all around them. We slept in one of the oldest cars, a wooden cupola model. The Red Caboose Motel is the largest example of this very special accommodations genre. Established in 1970, its location in Pennsylvania Dutch country near several train-related attractions has provided a steady visitor stream for four decades.

Rural Excursion

Urban areas like Syracuse don’t tend to offer cabooses in their parks; they are usually found in small towns where the railroad had once been a prominent feature. Commonly, smaller hamlets add cabooses to their community parks to honor their rail history. While my web search produced no cabooses in Syracuse, I did find some in a nearby town, so on our vacation’s fifth day while Mommy was working, the guys drove over to Utica, New York. We found one old wooden Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad caboose being used as a hair salon and a Pennsylvania Railroad caboose on display behind a Children’s Museum. At the train depot we saw old train cars belonging to the Adirondack Scenic Railroad. The boys were so delighted that Dad knew he had to find more trains. That night the family decided to reroute our journey home, adding some mileage and opportunities to our trip.

Labor Day Celebration

To most people, the Labor Day holiday means the last weekend of summer. To politicians, it marks the beginning of heavy campaigning leading up to Election Day. For many children the holiday marks the beginning of the new school year. To sports fans the Labor Day weekend marks the traditional kickoff to the college and professional football seasons. For Trey Davey Edds, this Labor Day marked his first opportunity to help Mommy make breakfast. They made waffles, bacon and strawberries while Daddy and Benjamin James Edds straightened up the family room. Each child was proud of his labors and contribution.

Benchmark Birthday Photo – 2 years 9 months

It seems like in the last few days I’ve noticed a profound change in both boys. They seem markedly older and more mature all of a sudden. Now, at the age of 2-3/4, they seem more like preschoolers than toddlers. Vocabulary has a lot to do with it. They are using less and less baby talk and speaking much more clearly. Davey’s speech is especially progressing. He is now saying his th’s clearly. He talks all the time now…to everyone…incessantly. Benji, who was already talking clearly, has picked up more complex phrases and is constructing longer and longer sentences. When asked if he was finished with his lunch yesterday he replied, “Not quite, I’m still working on it.” They both are.

Train Withdrawal Pains

On the fourth day of our vacation the boys suffered major ‘Choo Choo’ withdrawals. While Sandy was at work, we set up their toy GeoTrax train set in the hotel room, but this thrill paled in comparison to seeing thirty-three cabooses and the constant stream of train videos they had enjoyed over the previous three days. At lunch Davey whined, “No food; I want to see more trains,” so during their afternoon nap, I searched the web for Syracuse cabooses and found none. Later, the boys and I drove around inspecting playgrounds and looking vainly for cabooses. The closest I found was a trolley at the Spaghetti Factory restaurant, which we later enjoyed.

Niagara Falls Short

For the boys, spending the night in a caboose motel was a hard act to follow. They talked about all the cabooses for the entire three hour drive to Buffalo. Not even entering a new state, New York (their 12th) or our quick visit to the great Niagara Falls could deliver the same excitement as seeing 22 cabooses in one day. We’ll visit again someday when they’re older and we can spend more time appreciating this beautiful place. Leaving Buffalo, we drove another 150 miles to our Syracuse hotel. The duration of most Thomas the Train DVDs is about 45 minutes, and as they finished each the boys would ask for “another one? May we have another one please?” At first we weren’t sure if they were asking for another video or caboose.

A Flock of Cabeese

Before departing early on our third vacation day, father and sons inspected and photographed the motel’s fine flock of cabeese. The twenty one examples sitting side-by-side on two parallel tracks represented a good cross-section of designs and vintages. Some sported cupolas while others, like the one we stayed in, offered bay windows. Most were constructed of steel, but a few older wooden models were present. All had been modified inside with new furniture, plumbing, electrical, heating, and cooling to become modern motel rooms. Each was painted differently to honor a historic railroad. The Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad located next door was closed that day, but we were able to walk through the yard and inspect their fine locomotive and rolling stock collection. Among them was “Old Number 10”, a 1913 OC&T wooden caboose.

Happy Wedding Anniversary Pa and Granny

One trait that Granny has always appreciated about Pa has been his creativity. She said that back in the day when they were dating, Pa was always coming up with new and different activities for them to enjoy. They would go swimming one day, wax the car the next, drive to a neighboring town for a coke, go see a concert, etc. It was never the same old thing. Pa and Granny still enjoy new adventures and each other even after all these years. Now many of their fun dates include their grandsons, and together they are plowing new fields of fun. One recent example was viewing of the digitally animated “Toy Story 3” movie in 3-D. Not even Pa and Granny had ever done that before, even back in the day.