Golden Gate Express

We took the kids to the Conservatory of Flowers to see the Golden Gate Express...a model train set in the back drop of San Francisco. I know, it's an odd place to have a giant model train but as I hope you can see in the pictures, everything in the city is made from recycled materials. They even had a model Thomas Train that Timo went nuts went over.

The Conservatory is long building that you enter in the middle. The train was at one end and of course we went the wrong way and walked the whole building before we found the train. Timo really enjoyed all the crazy flowers, water pools, fish and water puddles, but Cameron was scared the whole time. She wouldn't get out of her daddy's arms, not even to splash in the puddles. The one time we did get her down for a group picture, it was so humid, the camera lens fogged up!

Then we hit the jackpot, the train! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...


This one of the Ferry Building was my favorite. And while you're enjoying the amazing exhibit, there are all sorts of sound effects. We heard fog horns, a snippet of a Giants game, had an earthquake, and saw the fog roll in under the GG Bridge.

They also had a big wheel there to spin and find the recycled material...of course Timo had to take a turn at spinning...and spinning, and spinning, and spinning...
Then the hard part came...it was EXTREMELY difficult to get Timo away from the trains. We tried a lot of distractions and the one that worked was promising him he could go running outside. He loves to just run and run without being told to stop. So we headed outside to the beautiful gardens to let the kids run all around. But they especially loved the big clock! They don't know their numbers in order yet but love shouting out random numbers as if they are counting.
There are posters all over town of the Golden Gate Express...I would love to steal one and have it framed for Timo's room one day...let me know if anyone has one they want to give away...