Peoria Illinoisan

How many police officers does it take to attend to someone suffering from heat stroke?

7 - not counting the ambulance, if you’re at Railroad Days in Galesburg.

We had big plans to go down to Kartsville this weekend, but after reading Sunday’s paper and seeing the picture of the Diesel Locomotive, I changed plans.  C’mon kids, it’ll be fun, we’ll tour the Railroad museum, Climb into a Diesel, maybe go to the Model Train Show, there’s a little carnival, and then (as the big highlight) we can take a bus tour of a Train Yard.  We can go to Kartsville anytime, this’ll be cool, whadayathink?

After some groans from the audience a few ‘my dad is so lame’ looks, and a “I don’t even like trains” comment, we hit the road in search of a deep-fried carnival lunch and trains.

My great ‘dad’ plans got derailed, so to speak, after we arrived and saw the carnival rides and a Children’s Museum.  We got our deepfried lunch, as planned, I had a $6 rib sandwich, a $3 french fry, and a $3 small lemonade, they all had kid stuff and slushies before we headed over the the Children’s Museum to kill some time before the rides opened.

As far as Children’s Museums go, it’s not great, but it’s ok, considering the small market in which it is based.  The exhibits are mostly small budget, “let’s get a bunch of volunteers to help build this thing” looking.  The running water exhibit was a big hit, as was the grocery store and restaurant.  My daughter served me an excellent pretend milk-shake, although I think I was overcharged for my empty box of Hy-Vee macaroni.

It was suggested that we do not go to the Railroad Museum so we can have enough money to go on the rides, and the 40 minute yellow school bus tour of the train yard didn’t look very enticing to the kids either.

Ok, I give- on to the carnival.

I start with 30 tickets at a dollar each. 

First ride: 3 tickets x 4 people.

2nd ride: 4 tickets x 4 people.

Whoa - two rides and $28 later I have to go back to get more tickets.

(Ever wonder how the carnie’s decide how long a ride should last?  It’s the length of time it takes them to smoke a cigarette.  No joke) 

Ok, I’m running out of cash, so 1 more ride- they choose the tilt-a-whirl for $12, and we get 3 tickets from a nice lady who overbought and was leaving; perfect! Just enough for a ferris wheel ride for the little one.  Thank You, stranger.

After another $3 lemonade and a few $2 bottles of water, we decide to head home after some very nice, albeit expensive, old fashioned grimy summer carnival fun.

Next year I swear I’m taking that tour of the train yard… pending kid approval… 

This entry was posted on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 10:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.