An Outing with Bob

Bob's sister, Verna, and her husband, Tom, invited Bob and me to join them for a slow train ride to see the fall colors. Since it was nearing the end of October and the best colors had faded, we decided to add to the trip by making a stop at Vermont's Montshire Museum.

It was a sunny day. We met at White River Junction and climbed aboard an old Green Mountain Railroad dining car which meant we had a table to sit at...

I found out that while Verna was in the Army she had earned a train engineer's license! She and her brother share an affinity for trains.

This is a scenic train. It doesn't go very fast. Thank goodness, because it gently rocked from side to side as it traveled forward.

Most of the time we followed beside the Connecticut River...

The engine car was never moved so for the return trip it was pushing the train. We got off at the Montshire Museum and had a few hours before the train would be coming by again to pick us up.

It was after noon. Snacks were sold on the train, but I assumed a museum would have a cafeteria where we could get lunch. I should never make assumptions! There were only a couple of vending machines!

The fish tank was interesting. These were fish that actually live in the rivers and lakes of Vermont.

There was an explanation for why turtle shells are built differently. Both snapping and painted turtles live in slow moving water, but the bottom shells of the painted turtles are streamlined because they swim after their prey. Snapping turtles have relatively small bottom shells to give them better mobility for snatching prey that swims past them. 

The directions say to set up 12 matchsticks to look like this and then to move 4 of the sticks to create 3 squares instead of the 4 squares. Give it a try. I haven't figured it out yet...but I will.

These metal bars and the rubber hammer were for making music outdoors. Little kids were having a great time with this...and I just had to try it out as well!

The pipes in the picture below had several small hammers so real musicians could create harmony. The rest of us would just have fun with weird melodies.

There was a huge enclosed environment for leaf cutter ants and a magnifier that could be moved to keep track of the queen...the monster in the middle...and project what was happening onto the overhead screen.


There was another machine that showed happenings in slow motion. It was really neat to see the splash of a dropped glass of milk.



A Vermont museum would not be complete without a moose... 

Back on the train we ended up on the same side of the car so there really weren't different pictures to take.

The banjo player was still entertaining our crowd.


And then we were back where we started from. Bob climbed onto the platform to get a better look at this old-timer!