Yesterday I shared a little bit about our crazy day getting to our destination, and about an amazing bookstore. Today is all about the train! Buckle up, this is going to be a long, photo heavy post. Maybe refill your coffee..

Our Airbnb was 40 minutes from the station, so we got up early to drive to Akron. I was super nervous. The train itself is not wheelchair accessible, however it does have an ADA car that wheelchair users can ride on. The area we sat in, the skydome car, is not at all, so our plan was to leave the wheelchair in the car and Billy would carry Wyatt up to our seats. I have no idea why I was nervous about this, but I was. I didn’t need to worry however, because boarding went perfectly.

We felt pretty fancy, heading up the small staircase in the train to our seats. There were about 8 tables that sat four people in our area, and windows above us, forming the dome. The car we rode on is called the Silver Lariat, and was part of the California Zephyr back in the day. Now it transports tourists up and down the tracks, alongside the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Wyatt absolutely loved every second of the ride. And so did Billy and I!! The ride was beautiful, and we saw a beaver marsh, lakes, trees, and a woman working on the most amazing cut flower garden in her yard. There are stops along the way throughout the park, but since we didn’t have Wyatt’s wheelchair we just rode the train as a roundtrip ride, a total of two hours.

This was such a fun way to start the day, and we loved it so much that we want to go back, maybe during the winter. I totally want to see snow out the window and pretend I am in the movie White Christmas. It was well worth the drive to go on this ride, and well worth the relatively inexpensive tickets for the skydome seats.

After the train ride, we went to the Visitors Center at Boston Mills in the park. We had some ice cream, and Wyatt completed his Junior Ranger Badge.

When we finished up at the National Park, we weren’t ready to pack it in quite yet. So we found a nearby nature center, the Brecksville Nature Center. The building was really cool, with carvings decorating the beams. It also had a nice sized trail that we could take Wyatt on in his wheelchair. We even saw a couple getting married in a small intimate maybe 5 or 6 person wedding ceremony. We tried to keep a respectful distance and maintained quiet while we passed them.

After tooling around the nature center, we were ready to head back to our house. We were a little wiped out! So we got some takeout, took it back, and relaxed in front of the television. We were packing up the next day to head home but we had one more adventure before we did.

We weren’t sure in the morning where we wanted to go; there are so many options! The Art Museum, the Natural History Museum, the zoo, the aquarium – we just didn’t have enough time left to hit them all. Thank goodness we are just around the lake and can go back easily enough!

We ended up choosing the art museum. I wanted to make sure that we had more than enough time to spend in the Natural History Museum, so we are definitely going back for that soon. And while Wyatt may not have had as much fun as he did on the train, he did have fun. Billy and I however really enjoyed our visit. There are so many famous artists on display here! Picasso, Van Gogh, Rousseau, Rodin, Warhol, and Monet. Sigh. Monet. I love Monet. And I got to stand in front of one of his Water Lilies paintings and it was incredible.

We also saw a dining room rug that once was in Louis the XIV’s palace. It was immense and absolutely gorgeous.

I also may have accidentally set off an invisible alarm system….ok, I did. But I didn’t mean to, and I wasn’t really breaking a rule. There were these chairs, you see, tapestry chairs with wolves in the center, and going into full homeschool mom mode, I was standing next to it, gesturing and pointing to the wolf in the middle and explaining to Wyatt how they were based off fables and blah blah blah – and my hand went over the invisible alarm in my wild gesturing apparently. The alarm was not silent. Wyatt’s eyes went wide and I was like what is happening. A security guard did come over and she told me I set off the alarm, and told me so many people do that – and said that some people even sit in the chairs!

Billy and I also went nuts in the Asian arts area, over all the pottery. We felt so knowledgeable after watching The Great Pottery Throw Down. We were throwing out terms like we were experts.

Wyatt was super bored in this area. He perked up when we went to the armor room though. Both Billy and Wyatt really loved that room.

I met them over there though, because I wanted to spend time fawning over the Faberge…

And I need to wrap this up!! We of course all had favorites. Wyatt loved the armor room the best.

In addition to the armor room, Billy really liked these two pieces, but particularly the Bats and Peaches dish.

My favorite pieces were the Faberge, a Monet called The Red Kerchief, which depicts Monet’s wife Camille, which is said to have been kept with Monet his entire life, as he loved it dearly. I also absolutely loved this painting of Nathaniel Olds, painted by Jeptha Homer Wade.

I love it so much. This is what it says about it on the website. (and on the placard under the painting)

The green-tinted spectacles worn by Olds were designed to protect the eyes from the intensity of Argand lamps, a type of indoor light used during the early 1800s. These lamps burned whale oil, and many people worried that its bright flames might damage eyesight.The painter of this portrait founded the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1854 and soon became one of Cleveland’s wealthiest industrialists. His grandson, Jeptha Wade II, was a founder of the Cleveland Museum of Art and donated the land upon which it stands as a Christmas gift to the city in 1892.

It also apparently has inspired Halloween costumes in the Cleveland area. I can see why, it is such a cool painting!

And like I said, I need to wrap this up. After exploring for a few hours, it was time to hit the road. Thankfully our ride home was uneventful, and we were all happy to see our pets when we tumbled into the house two and half hours later.

If you get a chance, check out the train and the Art Museum. They are definitely worth the trip!