Trains and Turtles!

Today was Train Day 2009!

I took the kids on a Train Day today. We did this last year and it was a blast. This year Susanne and Gretchen tagged along too. It was a sort of cold and cloudy day but trains are worth it!

We started in Moorpark at the Metrolink station:

The kids are a year older but just as excited as last year. They LOVE the tunnels between Simi Valley and Chatsworth. They also got to see the buildings Gretchen and I work in as both are right against the train tracks.

And I think Gretchen was having fun too.

The kids think the Metrolink trains are cool because they have STAIRS:

We ended up at Union Station in Los Angeles from whence we took the Red Line subway to Downtown. Our destination was the Bonaventure Hotel – the one with the 32 story high glass elevators on the outside of the building!

The elevators drop you through a glass atrium roof and you have the feeling you’re falling into the glass:

You may recognize the hotel from a couple of movies as Gretchen pointed out. They have plaques on two of the elevators. Gretchen turned tourist for a moment to get pictures of them.

Yep, Clint and Arnold rode in these elevators.

After we ran out of elevators and stuff at the Bonaventure we took the subway to Chinatown so Susanne could look at the shops. They have a lot of those “mall” buildings where there is a large building full of little stalls for various vendors. In fact we found whole huge buildings full of floors and floors of crap from China. But we found a nice 24 quart stock pot for $14 instead of $40 or more other places!

Then we went into one last store and Susanne saw this:

Yes, two tiny turtles for $5. And she told me to buy them. Yep. We bought turtles in Chinatown.

Gretchen was a bit incredulous:

But the kids were really pleased and the turtles didn’t seem to mind:

Back in Thousand Oaks, Dishmaster Sarah kindly donated a small aquarium she wasn’t using and we made a quick trip to the pet shop for all things Needful for Turtles. The $5 turtles are now the $50 turtles but they are completely hypoallergenic and will not cause Susanne to swell up into a mass of itchy misery. So, yeah we have turtles:

Nate wanted to call them “A” and “B” and Peter wanted to call them “Nate and Peter” No way I’m going for that – can you imagine what happens when Turtle Peter dies? A and B also seem a bit close to home as that was Nate and Peter’s names respectively until they got official names. So I thought and it occurred to me that the turtles resembled something like this:

And this:

So may I present the Admirals Senyavin and Ushakov!