Carissa wasn't so keen on the idea of going to see a train (not high on her priority list) and pretty much fought us the whole way. When we got there, and we finally found the end of the line (believe me...the line was L.O.N.G!) we were told the wait was 3 hours from that point, and then it takes about an hour to get through the exhibit. There was no way that Carissa was going to wait patiently for that long, and it was a good thing that Andrew was with us (it was just down the street from his office, so he took a "little" break!) so he very sly-like found a spot that we could slip into. That reduced our wait from about 3.5 hours down to 1.5 hours.........still that is a VERY long time to be stuck in line with a grumpy girl (and 2 less than enthusiastic teenagers!) And even with a bag of "bribe" M&M's, she still was a major grump!
When we got to the point where we could see the train, she started to get excited, but still needed some reassuring from us. (And we didn't really know if there was going to be anything in there that would hold her interest) Here's the side of the Amtrak train....it was HUGE!
Like I said, strange to think "Christmas" in June, especially when I saw the "carolers" dressed in the full authentic Christmas Carol costumes
(they had to be ROASTING....the sun was out after hiding for several days, and both Nikelle and I got sunburned...but that doesn't reaquire much sun. But it was warmer than it's been for weeks!)
When we got inside the train exhibit, they had displays of the types of costumes that people would have worn around the time this story was written. And they had on display some authentic Charles Dickens literature. It was neat to see the bindings, and worn pages.
Then the next section had the models that they used to film the animation. This is the model of Big Ben.
Then we walked to the next car. It had a bunch of equipment that they used to do the animation motion capture. They film in a room with mirrors so that the movements are captured from all angles. Carissa discovered the mirrors and began doing her cute little "I'm a pretty princess" dance. And I discovered my worst nightmare......
FOUR of her!!! Can you imagine that??? I think I'll stick with ONE for right now. She was so captivated with the mirrors, and she held up the line for a couple of minutes. Then when other kids wanted to look at themselves, she was back to the grumpy girl!!!
It was a fun little road trip. If you want to check out the other stops along the way, here's the website.
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