BEN'S BIRTHDAY and RR MUSEUM IN SCRANTON, PA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEN!!

Saturday, May 11th we hit the road with our oldest son, Victor, to visit our youngest, Ben.  We went to celebrate his birthday - - - - which means that we are getting older also!!  We had not seen Ben since before Christmas when he moved to eastern Pennsylvania.  It was a good change for us and a chance to sight see a little more and a good reason to celebrate!

Dunmore, Pa.

We had forgotten how many hills there are within the cities of eastern Pennsylvania!!  And this is not the worst by a long shot!!

On Sunday after attending church with Ben we went to Texas Roadhouse for his birthday dinner and returned to his apartment and watched movies.  Much to our dismay, when we went to go back to our motel we found our front tire flatter than a pancake!!  Since it was Sunday and after 6pm all we could do was have it changed to the donut and wait for Monday to see about a new tire.  Did I say tire???  It ended up being four new tires since we had put so many miles on all of them!!!

Gary spent the Monday morning hours at the tire shop, so we did not get to sight seeing early.  We started and ended with a trip to the Scranton Railroad Roundhouse Museum.  We had been through one of these in Savannah, Ga., however, this one had much more restoration of trains going on.  All very interesting!!!

This is the train "turnabout" in the center of the yard, museum and work buildings.  I could not get back far enough to get it all in one shot.




Gary and the tour guide.

Gary, Ben and Victor listening to the guide (who is hidden behind the equipment.

See the feet under this car on the right?

Here he is leaving his work stool!!

They had a welder, and an engineer on duty, as well as other workers and volunteers.  It appears to be a full time operation.
It was very interesting to see this engine with the "cut away areas".  The guide was good at explaining the function of it all.

Steam Dome and Sand Box

Steam pipes



Coal Furnace

Steam Dome "cut away"

Well preserved Mail Car.

Since it was such a long tour on concrete, we were glad to take a lunch break at Glider's Dinner!!  They have some awesome sandwiches and those we saw eating breakfast, that looked awful good also!!

 

Gary, Victor and Ben

Check out that Pastrami !!  Guess that is going home.

After our late lunch we decided that we would take in the Coal Mine Tour on another visit.  What wimps we are!!

We went to the Loading Dock Restaurant after a nap and again had more than we could eat.  Guess the pizza will feed us on our trip home. The appetizer of potato wedges with cheese and ranch dressing was sure piled high!! 
We had a good visit, Ben, and look forward to doing it again, hopefully before we head south this fall.  Take care and have a great summer!!  Love you!!