Our ride wasn't until 4:45 so we decided to look around first. Sir Topham Hatt was there greeting the kids, shaking hands and doing photo ops. Ben wasn't too interested, so we just took a picture. Then we headed to the roundhouse. We got to see lots of old trains, and even got to climb on a few of them. At one point we stopped to color some pictures of Thomas. And when we went through the mail car, Mom stopped to write out and mail a post card from Thomas to Ben. Pretty cool. The line for face painting was really long (2 hours) and thank goodness Ben wasn't interested (though they did a really great job). We later learned from some families at the hotel that if you plan to have it done to get there first thing in the morning. At the end of walking through the roundhouse we got to ride the turntable. It was cool. It didn't go real fast like the one that made James spin like a top and wiggle his eyes around - but Ben wiggled his eyes for us anyway. After that we made it to the gift tent and bought an engine for Ben. The prices were a little higher than stores and by that time in the day the selection was pretty slim. But Ben was happy he got Rickety Troublesome Truck just like he wanted and that's all that mattered.

At this point we realized we still had a couple of hours until our scheduled ride, and Ben was getting tired, though it wasn't worth going to the hotel room for a nap. As I look back on it, if we do it again, I would schedule an earlier ride instead. So we took a break on some bales of hay, had a snow cone and listened to a country band. There was a pretty good variety of food, fairly priced, but the heat made us go for the snow cones! Afterwards we took a trolley ride around the lot a few times and a steam engine ride to relax and give Ben some rest. He didn't quite fall asleep, but was at least able to relax and re-energize. It also gave us the chance to learn about Spencer's history, which was nice for the adults. We even saw a breakdown train and took a picture.

Finally we made it to our ride. We sat on one of the back coaches to be away from the whistle for Ben's sake. Unfortunately none of the coaches were Annie and Clarabel, just regular, refurbished old time coaches. We all sang "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and waved to everyone as we went by. It was a 20 minute ride and it took the same route as the steam engine, so it was no surprise. But the fact that we were on Thomas was all that mattered. We took a few more pictures of Thomas before we headed back to the hotel.

The Holiday Inn we stayed at was pretty nice. You can tell it was fairly old, but it had all the stuff you need - a pool, a game room, a restaurant, and a bed to sleep on. They were also helpful in getting us to a pretty nice family restaurant call the Sagebrush. Ben's favorite part of it was that we could drop peanut shells on the floor and later stomp on them as we walked to the bathroom. Afterwards, we hit the pool, watched some TV, and played Thomas Bingo on the bed. By the time the lights were out, Ben was snoring in 60 seconds.

After such a long and busy day, we certainly took our time waking up and getting ready the next morning. We ate breakfast at the hotel and then drove out to a place called Dan Nicholas Park. Wow - what a park. There was a huge playground area with tons of jungle gyms to play on for all different ages. There were two great mini-golf courses that were lots of fun, a pretty carousel, along with a mini train ride (decorated for Halloween and called the "Spooky Ooky Train Ride"), and a nice little gift shop too. We also found a little "zoo" with some local animals, a petting zoo, and a reptile room. There were lots of open fields to run around in, a lake to fish in, campgrounds, and picnic shelters too. I don't think I have ever had more fun at a park before. We grabbed some campground information and decided we will definitely be back. We figured that was enough activity and fresh air to tire Ben out for the long car ride, so we stopped for lunch and hit the road.

Just the other day I received a notice in the mail that Thomas will be at Dillsboro, NC this July. Hmmmm….