Malcolm and Julie Visit - Summer '11 (pt. 2)

On Monday we visited to Virginia Museum of Transportation. It dealt with planes, trains, and automobiles. Malcolm was in heaven. We weren’t sure if we would even see anything after he saw the layout (which is like a model train city with several lines and all sorts of scenes). He spent a lot of time running around finding out which train ran on which line.

After that we moved on to the train area. This was where he was most excited. He had trouble actually looking at anything because he just ran excitedly from one engine to another. Julie and I were both surprise at how much he actually knew and truly understood about the different types of trains.

Arguably one of his highlights was getting to see a train go by while we were looking at all of these trains in the yard. He is of course sharing what he knows about the train going by.

He got to sit in the drivers seat of one and really enjoyed looking at all of the parts.

We stopped after looking at all of the trains and ate a quick lunch and learned that the airplane section was closed because it was damaged in a large storm and the car section wasn’t all that big but did feature some famous cars like the Love Bug, General Lee along with Boss Hog’s car from the Dukes of Hazard, and Jeff Gordon’s car.

The next day Malcolm and I went hiking all by ourselves. We drove up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and hiked the Falling Water Cascades Trail. It is a loop trail that is 1.5 miles long. 

This was really Malcolm’s first real hiking experience. I was interested that the things he noticed the most were the different smells. He kept commenting that it didn’t smell like gas or oil but that it smelled sort of fresh. He enjoyed the sounds of the waterfalls before we could see them and asked a ton of questions along the way. Needless to say I was much less worried about a bear run-in when I realized how much he talked even while hiking.

When we got to the waterfall I realized it was going to be difficult to keep him moving. He LOVED re-routing the water by building dams and digging gullies. He was thrilled to be playing in the water.

I knew however that we had a LONG way to go uphill and that we needed to keep moving so we moved from this wonderful location and stopped a few other places on the way. I didn’t want to be stuck on a trail with a starving Malcolm. We had to get home for lunch. He did surprisingly well on the way up (straight up). Toward the end he kept wanting to stop to “look at things” and kept telling me he needed to stop because he wasn’t getting “any oxygen”. He did soooooo well though. We made it home in time for lunch and while Aunt Julie was finishing lunch preparations he laid down on the couch and ……….

We spent the rest of the day around the house. He rode his bike and we played together. This was the end of a GREAT but tiring day.