Steaming Into History is a non-profit organization that runs a replica Cival War era steam locomotive in New Freedom, Pennysylvania. Learn more about them here.
The short of it is that you ride on this super cool old train for an hour trip to a Christmas tree farm. Once you arrive at the destination there’s horse drawn carraiges waiting to take you from the train stop to the Christmas tree farm. You cut your tree down, pay, grab a hot chocolate and head back to the train.
It’s a really nice day for the family and it’s looking like it’s going to become a tradition for us. We were even able to take my mom this year! Here’s photos from last years trip, and photos from todays trip are below.
Great way to cap off a fantastic Thanksgiving wekeend. 🙂
Simon is super excited!
Jen is super focused.
Moms first train ride!
Arty Simon shot.
Simon and Pop.
Simon and Pop
Simon telling Santa that the coffee shop is out of snicker doodle cookies
The giant Christmas tree hill
View from the top!
My heart and soul. 🙂
Couldn’t find a tree we wanted
Headed back down…
me cutting down a tree, at the bottom of the hill!
Hot chocolate station!
Nothing beats an elf with a flute playing the Peanuts theme song on a Civil War era steam train!
Man, I’ve got 16 years clean today. I knew the date was coming but I’ve been so busy that I didn’t realize today is the 19th, until my wife texted me this morning and congratulated me.
It’s been a great year. I’m no longer self employed, I took a gig doing web development at an agency called Ainsley & Co. and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. 2 years working for myself was an amazing experience, no doubt, but a really good opportunity came my way and I took it. Now I commute 15 minutes to my job and spend my day doing great work with an incredible group of people.
I’ve also lost about 50 pounds over the past year, woot! Simon and Jen are doing great, and Jen and I are finally starting to see real progress towards our long term goals.
I feel lame that I’m not writing more, but I did write a pretty epic post last year if anyone wants to check it out.
I don’t know what else to say, other than, thank you, I’m so grateful. 🙂
We’ve been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hungry for indulgence, willing to pay a lot for convenience and entertainment, and most importantly, vaguely dissatisfied with our lives so that we continue wanting things we don’t have. We buy so much because it always seems like something is still missing.
My wife sent this over to me today and it’s a fantastic read. It’s funny because I was just talking to a co-worker about the exact scene from The Corporation mentioned by the author in this article.
Jimmy Smutek 