We decided that if we couldn't go see the little guy and his parents this weekend (I have the unfortunate duty of being on call) we may as well get out of this infernal apartment and go do something fun. It was also imperative that we find a way to make The Teenager go with us since his life lately is pretty much school and the apartment. So, we laid out options and decided that we would start with breakfast, followed by a trip to Union Station (the old Ogden train station) where we would visit the art gallery and the various museums available for one admission price.
The art gallery was small and featured paintings by Daniel Ramjoue', who not only has a curiously misplaced apostrophe at the end of his name, but also seems to have an obsession with vegetables. Paintings of green onions, carrots, and radishes aren't very inspiring - although the prices on the paintings were. For the life of me I couldn't imagine why anyone would pay $1000 for a painting of beets. But I'm open minded enough to consider that there's someone out there that would.
On to the Railroad Museum, which was by far the most interesting. We learned all about the Brakeman, the Conductor, and the Station Master which prompted me to embarrass The Teenager by singing the song all my kids loved when they were little (and doing the hand motions....):
Down by the station, early in the morning
See the little pufferbellies all in a row.
See the Station Master turn the little handle.
Puff, puff! Choo, choo! Off we go!
We marveled over the unimaginable feat of building tressles without modern engineering technology and were just like three little kids as we waited for the trains to come around the bend of the elaborate model railroad setup that ran through a good part of the museum. "Here it comes! Here it comes!" we'd shout.
On to the Browning Firearms Museum.....
....which I tried to like. I really did. But it just seemed like too much death and destruction in glass cases plus we got cornered for what seemed an eternity by the museum volunteer. 20 years! his vest pin announced and that's about what it seemed like. He felt the need to tell us the whole history of the Browning family including their polygamous ancestry which prompted a lot of eye rolling on my part. I nodded and smiled and tried to share his interest in lever actions, calibers, and superimposed shotguns but my eyes were starting to glaze over. We finally extricated ourselves from him, did a polite walkaround of the displays (Look! Here's another gun!), then moved on to the Classic Car collection which, even though it featured the classic gangster car - the 1932 Lincoln - and made us envision cops and robbers shooting at each other with something Mr. Browning probably dreamed up, it seemed safe and benign compared to the imagined carnage upstairs.
....which I tried to like. I really did. But it just seemed like too much death and destruction in glass cases plus we got cornered for what seemed an eternity by the museum volunteer. 20 years! his vest pin announced and that's about what it seemed like. He felt the need to tell us the whole history of the Browning family including their polygamous ancestry which prompted a lot of eye rolling on my part. I nodded and smiled and tried to share his interest in lever actions, calibers, and superimposed shotguns but my eyes were starting to glaze over. We finally extricated ourselves from him, did a polite walkaround of the displays (Look! Here's another gun!), then moved on to the Classic Car collection which, even though it featured the classic gangster car - the 1932 Lincoln - and made us envision cops and robbers shooting at each other with something Mr. Browning probably dreamed up, it seemed safe and benign compared to the imagined carnage upstairs.
So that was a lot of fun and then Kent got a Railroad Museum inspired whim to ride the train down to Salt Lake. The Teenager even thought that would be lots of fun, so, we bought our tickets and climbed aboard The Frontrunner which is a "push-pull" train that runs between Ogden and Salt Lake.
We chose to sit on the upper deck where I snapped this picture as we pulled out of the station.
It was quite fun, rocking along down the train tracks. Kent and The Teenager wanted to go faster, faster, faster and gauged our speed by comparing our progress with the cars on the interstate. Since we were only keeping up and not passing them by there were feelings that we just weren't going fast enough, but I reminded them that this is Utah, after all, and everyone on the interstate is going about 150 miles an hour so it was safe to assume that we really were moving right along.
On the way there we decided we would check out the "Black Holes" show at the Planetarium and grab something to eat at the Gateway Mall. Unfortunately, once you're in Salt Lake you have to take the dreaded TRAX system to your next destination which is really just the city bus on a track. I shouldn't be so negative. It's actually quite nice once you're on it, but the Utah Transit Authority seems to think that everyone has the system figured out because it's very difficult to know which train to get on and there are no signs pointing one in the right direction. Finally, one of the workers heard us debating and grumpily instructed us that "all the trains go to the Planetarium". Oh, well....thanks for SMILING while you're providing customer service. In addition, waiting outside at the station in the cold isn't so great even though we were entertained briefly by a policewoman citing "George" for some kind of infraction that obviously included alcohol and, probably, public indecency although we luckily didn't witness it.
The planetarium was fun, Z'Tejas (what's with apostrophes these days??) provided yummy Southwestern fare and before we knew it we were back on the train, rocking along back to Ogden. We were tired from our journeys, counted down the stations on the way home.....Woods Cross, Farmington, Clearfield, Layton, Roy, then Ogden....and peacefully watched the sun set as we reminisced over the fun day we had had together.
We chose to sit on the upper deck where I snapped this picture as we pulled out of the station.
It was quite fun, rocking along down the train tracks. Kent and The Teenager wanted to go faster, faster, faster and gauged our speed by comparing our progress with the cars on the interstate. Since we were only keeping up and not passing them by there were feelings that we just weren't going fast enough, but I reminded them that this is Utah, after all, and everyone on the interstate is going about 150 miles an hour so it was safe to assume that we really were moving right along.
On the way there we decided we would check out the "Black Holes" show at the Planetarium and grab something to eat at the Gateway Mall. Unfortunately, once you're in Salt Lake you have to take the dreaded TRAX system to your next destination which is really just the city bus on a track. I shouldn't be so negative. It's actually quite nice once you're on it, but the Utah Transit Authority seems to think that everyone has the system figured out because it's very difficult to know which train to get on and there are no signs pointing one in the right direction. Finally, one of the workers heard us debating and grumpily instructed us that "all the trains go to the Planetarium". Oh, well....thanks for SMILING while you're providing customer service. In addition, waiting outside at the station in the cold isn't so great even though we were entertained briefly by a policewoman citing "George" for some kind of infraction that obviously included alcohol and, probably, public indecency although we luckily didn't witness it.
The planetarium was fun, Z'Tejas (what's with apostrophes these days??) provided yummy Southwestern fare and before we knew it we were back on the train, rocking along back to Ogden. We were tired from our journeys, counted down the stations on the way home.....Woods Cross, Farmington, Clearfield, Layton, Roy, then Ogden....and peacefully watched the sun set as we reminisced over the fun day we had had together.
You take the most awesome pictures! They really should be in the Utah tourist magazine... if there is such a thing. :) Sounds like y'all had a lot of fun. We missed y'all and wish we could have been there.
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