Tweetsie

Tucked into the mountains, just minutes from our house, is a family amusement park called Tweetsie Railroad. It is an old west themed park with a huge engine as one of the main attractions. We live so close to it in fact, that all day long we can here Tweetsie's whistle as it chuggs along and can see puffs of smoke from our living room window as it winds through the hills. As close as we are, we had yet to visit Tweetsie because it can be quite an expensive venture. That all changed last weekend when in less than two days we received free passes to the park from a sweet lady I barely know AND our cousins the Custers called to ask if we wanted to join them for the day when they made the drive from Greensboro. Yes!! At 10 o' clock on Saturday we made the 4 minute drive to the park.

Here is the engine that we hear and see all the time. They keep it really shiny and clean, despite the coal bits floating in the air. See, the engineer is cleaning it at the station.

 

 

The very first thing we did was ride the engine. Here are the Custers and a very excited Jonah! It wound through the beautiful mountains and made a couple of stops so actors could act out wild west skits.

 

 

After that we headed up the hill on the chair lift to the little kids ride area. Jonah loved the chairlift and you couldn't beat the view, going up or back down.

 

 

The kids area had rides for Jonah and Wade's ages, a theater to see skits and musicals, and a petting zoo. The boys took advantage of just about everything and warmed up to each other too.

 

After lunch we headed over to the petting zoo where the boys got to feed goats, pigs, deer, and llamas. Well, not so much the llama. He was weird and giving everyone the stink eye. There was a baby goat that got out of his pen that Jonah got to really bond with.

 

Hopefully we can save up and get a season pass for next year. There was so much to do and we are so close that it seems like a shame not to. Hopefully this has tempted all of the Cousins to come and visit us in North Carolina next summer too!