It could've sucked.

Maybe it even should've sucked, but it was a nice weekend. DH and I have determined that we can reverse the effects of drought by simply planning a fun family weekend out of town. Where ever we go, it rains.

This weekend we thought would be calm and lazy a trip out for train foo. Then I tried to get a caboose at the Red Caboose Motel only to discover it was sold out. WTF? A quick trip to the Strasburg Railroad site confirmed the one thing that would do that - Thomas the Tank Engine. In the iron.

Then we had the little thing where I thought DH got tickets for Thomas, he thought I had. Saturday morning before soccer I'm online trying to get tickets to ride - Saturday sold out, Sunday sold out. I manage to get pre-reserved spots for Monday noon. Then DH informs me that one of the places I thought was part of this outing (Steamtown) is really 3 hours away from Strausburg. Ok. No problem. Plenty to do in Strasburg without that.

Do soccer. Hop in the car and head north. Miss one of the turns, drive through the very run-down center of Lancaster. Stop for lunch just prior to me killing DH. Leisurely drive out to Strausburg. The railroad is packed. They aren't letting any more cars in. Doesn't matter really as it has started to rain and we aren't riding today anyway. Munchkin waves to Thomas as we pass. We decide to hit the Toy Train Museum. It's quite nice. We've been there before but not since they expanded it. As we finish up the heavens open and it pours. We decide not to try for the corn maze and head to the shops and the Choo Choo Barn. Much shop browsing (and buying). Then the Choo Choo Barn. Munchie was a much better age to appreciate the layout this time. We had fun finding all the animations. We finish around 5 and I allow munchie to spend his cash on 2 of the most annoying toys ever made - spark and noise making ray guns - but even I must admit they are pretty cool.

Check in to the motel. Eat dinner among the hundreds of religious groups on an outing to see Daniel and the Lions at the Millenium Theater. Spend some time perusing the books and ads to find out that 1) the corn maze is only open fridays and saturdays 2) the various religious shows are closed on sunday and monday (not that this bothered me horribly). Now we have to figure out what to do on sunday.

We ended up getting up and heading out to finish the shops that we missed the day before. Munchkins choice - though all he wanted was to play with the Thomas train layouts. We headed past the railroad and at 11 it was already packed with no more parking. Hmm. We decide to try Dutch Wonderland.

It's smaller and may not be as exciting as the big amusement parks, but munchie had fun. It drizzled most of the day, but we didn't let it bother us. Instead we rode a bunch of rides and let munchie go over and over on some of them - it was as easy as running from the exit to the entrance. On one ride the operator just kept it going until munchie asked if it was ever going to end. We wasted money on skeeball and other arcade games. It was lots of good fun. The boys rode some waterslide thing last and got totaly soaked. They did it three times. They were sloshing so we called it a day and went to the motel to change.

Went out to dinner. Tried a chain restaurant and were very discouraged by the wait - I knew we were toast when it took DH 10 minutes just to find out how long the wait was. So we decided to go to the little local italian place at the other end of the parking lot. The service wasn't great, but the food was delicious and it ended up being a delightful meal.

Monday we were up early packed and checked out so that we could get in to the railroad for sure. The weather was mostly clear for the first time all weekend. We were there before basically anything opened, but we didn't have any trouble parking. We started with what was open and worked our way through each thing as it opened. They really go all out for Thomas at Strausburg. They had a whole 'mid-way' of food, facepainting, moonbounce, giantslide, and pony rides. By the time we'd tried it all it was time to ride Thomas. Afterward we got lunch, then hopped across the street to the PA Train Museum and enjoyed the big engines. By the time we headed home we were tired.

So it all worked out. Not a thing happened the way we would have planned it, but it all worked out. Minimum grumpiness, minimum fuss. Lots of fun.