HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW 2017

IS IT THIS COOL EVER YEAR?

Barbara and I have quite a few traditions with family we try to keep an annual basis. Some of those traditions include celebrating the start of summer and jamming together a couple of grandson birthday’s in DC over Memorial Day weekend, Thanksgiving in Yellow Springs, Christmas morning with Jordan and crew followed by a sojourn to DC to hang with Kea’s brood. When together the time does fly by, but there’s an iconic question of how many activities we can squeeze into those few days-what memories can we make to hold us over until the next time?

So, it’s Christmas, 2017 and we’re off to the United States Botanic Garden for their annual Holiday Train Show. Parking in DC is usually a chore and can be especially daunting when going anywhere near the Mall, but Paul got us in the neighborhood at just the right time, and with his knowledge of where we were heading made parking stress free. After a short walk we queued up for entrance. Being late December we were indeed fortunate that while a little cold, neither winter’s cold rain or snow was our companion.

Have you ever been to a Holiday Train Show? I’ll bet there’s probably one right around the corner from you and you never knew it! A quick google search and you’ll find shows held annually during December at the Botanical Gardens of major cities like NY, Boston, Chicago and, well, DC, and who knows where near you throughout the US. Being a Chicago boy at heart I knew well the magnificent train set on display for oh so many years at the Museum of Science and Industry, but never connected to special shows for the Holidays.

You may be wondering why this adventure is part of our blog? Each year the Holiday Train Show has a theme used to create the displays. This year it happened to be “Roadside Attractions,” and since we hope to be visiting many of the places creatively displayed in the show in the next couple of years I thought I’d share our perfectly wonderful time at the US Botanical Garden. Check it out…