15 Miles!

 Today we biked through the Port to catch the open house they were having at Tacoma Rail.

  We made it onto the last train ride of the day!

 Whoa!  This train is really moving!

 We went right through the rail yard.

 Papa got to contain the squirmiest kid in the world.

 We were right behind the two engines.  We learned that Tacoma is the 8th largest port in the country, and that the biggest ship in the world just came through Tacoma's port a few months ago.

 We saw the auto unloading yard and even saw the refrigerator cars they use to transport hot dogs!

 Which way to look?  There's so much to see.

 A dream come true - N got to sit in the engine of an actual train.

 Here's S in the look out seat.

 S sat in the driver seat, too.  It's enormous.

 Look at all those levers.  She wanted to know what that big yellow button was for? I told her it was the soft serve button, of course. I'm going to really miss when they stop believing I have all the answers.

 Down the cat walk.  Can't imagine walking this when the train is rumbling along at 70mph.  (That was the max speed, according to the spedometer!)

 What a tour.  So fun.

 Three cheers!

 Tacos + trains = happy.

 Is it bad that all I could think was "Throw Mama from the train"? I'd just wave as the train pulled away and I was left all alone. Bliss.

N almost loosed the caboose! You should have seen the conductor's face when N released the brake... priceless.

Over the Puyallup River.  Usually there are tons of folks out here in waders fishing for salmon, but we didn't see very many today.

Where else but in Tacoma would you find an actual rocket just hanging out in the barbed wire fence of an industrial warehouse?  This little beauty came home with us, since you can never have too many rockets laying around.

All that riding made us hungry!

S has really taken to these sunglasses, and the diva personality that they inspire.  I keep expecting her to be on the cover of some tabloid with those shades on.

No one believes that he wears his own cape all day.  It isn't easy being super, but someone's got to do it.

We got down just in time to see the tall ships coming back into the harbor.  Today was the Maritime Festival, so there was lots going on.  Including the quick-and-dirty boat building competition, which we missed.  Because while we do do dirty quite well, quick is not a strong suit.  But watching pirate ships fire canons at each other was a fine consolation.

Look at that beauty.  (The boat is pretty nice, too.)

Up the hill to Gibson's for some frozen yogurt.  I not sure that they'd ever get me up the hill without bribing me with a second scoop of hot fudge on top.  That's one serious hill.

A little pop up band serenaded us while we ate.  Live music.  Frozen desserts.  Sunshine.