We had SO MUCH FUN at the Orange Empire Railway train museum in Perris, CA this weekend!

I made the mistake of mentioning to Phil that we were going to go see trains at the train museum when he got out of bed that morning, and all I heard for the next few hours was train noises. Train noises in the grocery store, train noises on the way home, train noises while we put away food, train noises while Phil ate his lunch, train noises while we got ready to go.

Train noises on the way to the train museum in Perris until Phil pheck asleep for his late morning nap. Josh’s cousin Michelle and I scheduled this outing so well – by the time we finished the hour-plus drive, little boy was well rested and ready for TRAINS!!

It’s super cute when Phil gets to hang out with his cousin Thomas. Thomas treats him like a little brother, and Phil thinks Thomas is 100% the bees knees. Thomas brought Phil this sweet conductor hat that used to be his, but is too small now – check out Phil’s new “smile for the camera” face!

I had never even heard about the Orange Empire Railway museum before last month when Michelle mentioned it to me, but the second she said “wanna go”? I was like UM YES! Our little guy Phil is so completely bananas about everything vehicular. He’s obsessed with cars, trucks, buses, planes and trains.

The awesome thing about this train museum? You not only get to see lots of cool old trains, you get to ride them!

Phil was super into it. I mean SUPER INTO IT. He was at about 150,000% energy level all day long. He and Michelle are pointing at things outside the train window, in case you couldn’t tell.

Of course you could tell.

I really love that you can ride these old trains, guys. You just sit back in an old passenger car, and it chugs around on a track for a bit, and you get to dream about a time long ago and far away when it wasn’t 8 billion dollars to take a train somewhere.

A time when train robbers were something more than what you’d see at Knott’s Berry Farm.

(Michelle’s getting held up – see her hand in the corner there?)

I think it’s important to note that when the train was being held up, Phil was completely unaffected by it. Like it was something he dealt with every day.

When you chance to visit the train museum in Perris, you must advance token to the gift shop and get some ice cream. Because it’s in the 909, you see. And it’s about a billion degrees out. You will be completely drenched in sweat. But at least you’ll have your ice cream! Phil and I were supposed to share this big stick.

Supposed to share it.

You hear that, Phil? You were supposed to give me a couple more than a couple of bites! GROUNDED!

I really love this picture of Phil and Thomas running off to the play trolley together at the train museum. Here’s a hot photography tip! Would you like to get a dreamy, soft-focus effect with your point and shoot digital camera? I highly recommend having a little boy put his fingers on the lens. It’s magic!

Here’s one of the really cool old trains you can ride at the Orange Empire Railway train museum in Perris. It runs every half hour, and seemed like one of the more popular ones – we had to go back to it a few times to see if we had timed it out right or if it had any room for us! When we finally went to get on it, I’m not kidding, Phil started clapping. He was SO JAZZED about these trains!!!

Another awesome vintage train at the museum. The only thing I loved more than all the cool old trains was how well they were kept up! Some of the trains have been featured in movies, and it’s neat to hear the conductors tell those stories. One of the trains we were on (I think it was the black engine above this pic) was in that Changeling movie Angelina Jolie was in recently. And the volunteer chatting with riders in that passenger car had been on The West Wing!

I’ve never seen The West Wing. But I’ve also never legitimately been on tv. So I’m easily impressed with that sort of thing.

I say legitimately, because I have been on tv a few times. But in more of a photo-bomby sense most of the time. Except for the time Good Day Wisconsin read my letter to the weather guy on the air. That was totally sweet.

But I’m getting derailed here.

See what I did there? Puns!!!

As we rode one of the trains later in the day (you can tell it’s later on, because Thomas has some train cases packed under his eyes), Thomas regaled us with tales of which Pokemon turned into what other Pokemon, and that Pikachu is actually known as the mouse Pokemon. Which left me kind of dazed… I had no idea Pokemon were actual animals. I thought they were just a cruel joke being played on us by the television people.

Thomas is so into Pokemon, and so good at naming them all, Michelle and I decided that there needs to be an educational kids show where it doesn’t tell you, but it’s secretly teaching you something really useful – like if you learned all of the characters names, you were secretly learning the entire periodic table of elements or something. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Also amazing? The amount of intricate detail put into the model train dioramas at the train museum in Perris. I went a little nuts with my macro setting on my camera to snap some pics of the scenery – this railroad sign is one of my faves.

Phil was digging these dioramas, too – he’s gotten extremely observant lately, and while he doesn’t say a lot of actual words he made it extremely clear how excited he was about every single animal, car and truck in the model train dioramas!

There’s another really cool train car that’s more like an actual museum, with all kinds of antiques and memorabilia to check out. Here’s some gauges! So you can… gauge something, I guess?

Thomas finished out the day with a quick scamper up a tree while we listened to Wreck ‘n Sow play for a bit, and then we all headed for home. Phil had such a blast at the train museum that I know we’re gonna be making the drive back out to Perris again soon!

If not soon, then at least we’ll go back in November when they have a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine visiting – Phil is so gonna poop his pants over that!!!

Anyone else do anything good over the weekend?