Gigi rides the train in Washington

Gigi went to Washington DC this past week for the Inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. She tried to take some video and pictures for me of the Whistle Stop train trip from Philadelphia to DC but the security was extremely tight and it grew dark before she could get to anyplace where she could see the train. Luckily, lots of other people captured video like this video from Elkton, Maryland, and this person who is standing really close to the train tracks, and this roll through at Edgewood, Maryland. (Photo of Capitol: JCKole)

She went to the concert on Sunday on the Washington Mall - which is not a shopping mall but it's what they call the area from the Capitol all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial. She really liked seeing Oklahoman Garth Brooks jazz up the crowd plus there were lots of others like Sheryl Crow who performed with Wil.i.am and Herbie Hancock, U2, Usher, Shakira and Stevie Wonder, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce who did a remarkable rendition of America the Beautiful .. and lots more.




On Inauguration day she got up early (5:45) and caught the subway with friends to North Farragut station ... can you find the station on the map? Then she walked over to the Mall. There were about 2 million people there, the largest crowd ever. The Metro also moved more people than ever before at a little over 1.5 million! Here's some pictures of what Gigi could see from where she stood at the Washington Monument.


The best image of the Inauguration is this 3-D image from CNN that you can zoom in and around so you can see lots of details and the next neatest photo is this satellite photo showing the Mall earlier in the morning.

Gigi came home on Thursday. She took the train back to the airport in Baltimore so she took some pictures of the trains for me. She got on the train at the station in Gaithersburg, Maryland at about 7:00 and then rode down to Union Station. Then she got on another train, the Vermonter, that made a stop at the Baltimore airport.Gigi is happy about getting to attend the Inauguration and be with so many people who believe our country needs change and that the way President Obama thinks about and approaches problems will help us find new and different ways so that more people can have a better life. He says to "right the wrongs you see and work to give others the chances you've had".

She always likes taking pictures of trains for me too. She thinks trains are a great way to get around. Maybe we'll get a few more out here in Oklahoma?

Kids Train at Muskogee Mall

Gigi made a trip to the Arrowhead Mall in Muskogee last week. It is about a half hour from her house down at Lake Eufaula. She took some pictures of the little holiday train inside the Mall for me.

There only one engine and a caboose but they go pretty fast. The engine has a cool bell you can ring if you sit in there.

They'll be taking it down soon and putting it away, until next Christmas season. We've added 69 train pictures to our collection on Flickr.

And here's a couple more pictures from the Mall trip.

Trains at Papa and Nana"s

Gigi and Papa stayed with Nana and Papa over the holiday. The morning after Christmas Gigi heard the train. There's switching tracks that run behind Nana and Papa's house so Gigi took these pictures for me. There were four diesel engines, this one is Farmrail 4079.

Trains Blocking Highway

As Papa David and Gigi drove through Kansas two weeks ago they had to stop for a train blocking the road for a little while. Gigi thinks they were in Coffeyville, Kansas. She isn't sure because she was reading and not paying attention while Papa was driving. Gigi took pictures from the car. She wanted more pictures but cars were starting to stack up behind them and Papa was a little anxious since they didn't know which way the train would move next or how long the road would be blocked. As it turned out it the train went forward for awhile then backward then forward again ... so it was blocked for at least 5-6 minutes.

Here's some more pictures of the train.

Steam Trains - Could They Come Back?

Here's a video about steam trains.

A train ride

My Gigi is on Twitter (@coyenator) and she follows Chris Brogan who has a little boy who likes trains too. His dad posted these neat pictures of their train ride on Twitpic.






Now I gotta get my Mom to send my Gigi some pictures of me and my little brother on the train at the park by our house. Thank you Mr. Brogan for showing this cool train.

Trains, Jet Skis and Yogi

For the Labor Day Holiday, mom, Garret and I went to visit Gigi and Papa at the lake house. Daddy had to stay back in Clinton because he was on-call for his job and Gigi's house it too far for him to come when he's on-call. Mom brought the Jet Ski though so I took Gigi for a ride and Garret wanted to ride with Mom. He said she was the best driver. Once we all three rode it together.

We went to eat at our favorite place in Eufaula, Gator's. We like to sit outside to eat because there's lots of ducks, turtles and fish we can feed. Last time we ate there, Garrett threw his fork in the lake. I fed the ducks and fish most of my french fries and Papa David gave me Gigi's bread so we fed it to them too.
While driving back to the lake house from Gator's, I spotted the light from the train. It was funny because I had just told Gigi I wanted to see the train on the "train bridge" that runs along the highway next to Lake Eufaula. So, Papa stopped the car and Gigi grabbed the Flip Video camera to get this video for me.



This is the Union Pacific 2369 followed by a second engine, a BNSF. This is a really short train compared to most that we saw like this one that came by while we were at Jellystone Park.

Jellystone Park had lots of stuff for us to do. We played on a cool slide they have in a small cove near the marina. They also had paddle boats but Mom and Gigi got tired of peddling pretty quick.


We play miniature golf too and shopped in the little store where I got a Yogi visor and Garret got a camo hat, looks kinda like Crocodile Dundee's hat. :o)

We waited until 7:00 to meet Yogi and Boo-Boo. They finally came out of the Ranger Station and took us on a ride on a old firetruck. There were lots of kids. Garret was really excited about seeing Yogi. We got to sit really close to him - it was fun.

If you want to see more pictures, you can look at the whole set on Flickr and there's more new train pictures too.