Thoughts & Ramblings: A Day in Tavares

With the holidays quickly approaching, there are always too many activities to choose from on the weekend. Early this week, I was thinking about train rides and stumbled across a blog that described a steam train ride in Tavares, Florida. This piqued my interest, so I did a little research and found the Facebook page of the Orange Blossom Cannonball. Reading through the page, I discovered that they were giving away free tickets for this weekend and there was a special lighting up the town event happening tonight. I signed up for the contest and told Susan about it. She liked the idea and signed up, too. Well, neither of us won the tickets, so we decided to buy tickets online and make a day of it.

Official logo

Before leaving this morning, Andrew and I did a little bit of browsing in Google Earth to see where the train ride might take us. We started in Tavares and followed the tracks to the south and west. We saw three cars sitting on a siding and continued a few miles to another siding. I guessed this is where we’d stop and the engine would swap ends and pull us back to town.

We arrived in Tavares around 10:15, well before our 12:30 departure time. We found the train station and traded our email receipt for actual tickets. Meanwhile, Andrew caught sight of the playground and was anxious to check it out.

Our tickets to ride

The people are Tavares are blessed with an amazing park. Wooton Park not only contains the train station of the Orange Blossom Cannonball, but also a fantastic playground, a spray park, a marina, and a float plane base. Andrew doesn't spend much time on playgrounds these days, but we couldn't get him out of this one. We played tag for awhile - until I was too tired to run or chase him anymore. I wanted to see the rest of the park, so we promised to return to the park after our train ride.

Andrew in the Wooton Wonderland playground

As we walked along the edge of Lake Dora, I was surprised to see signs that read “Tavares: America’s Seaplane City”. That seemed a bit of an exaggeration to me, having lived in Seattle and after hearing stories about the seaplane activity in Anchorage. All told, I saw about four seaplanes in Tavares. But hey, they can call themselves whatever they want. A city with an aviation theme is my kind of place.

At 11:30 we headed back to the train station. By now, there were more passengers hanging around, but the train was nowhere in sight. From our earlier Googling, we figured it was probably hiding in the Y just east of the park, so Andrew and I went back to the playground, while Susan sat in the car charging the phones. A few minutes later, we heard a loud whooshing sound coming from behind the trees. The sound repeated a couple times, but there was no motion. Andrew and I walked along the tracks and soon heard the telltale chuffing of a steam locomotive. But still, no motion. Around the bend, we found the locomotive. The crew was doing some last minute checks before the 12:30 departure. Andrew and I watched for a few minutes, then hurried back toward the station to find a good viewing spot. We sat in the shade along Main Street as the train slowly rolled our way, then past us into the station.

Meanwhile, Susan was in the park shooting pictures of the train rolling in. She was not alone. There were now dozens of families, mostly either elderly or with small children. The conductor gave the all aboard call and we hurried to the back car. The family in front of us was one of two who won free tickets on the Facebook contest.

After a short discussion of do's and dont's from the conductor, we were on our way. We started out very slowly, as we traveled west through the park along the edge of the lake. Once out of the park, we crossed a canal that is one of many that connects Lake Dora to the Gulf of Mexico. Further along the tracks, we passed the three white rail cars that we saw earlier in Google Earth. We passed through a trailer park, past a propane tank factory, and past many orange groves. Through all of this, our pace never got much faster. We didn't mind, though. We were enjoying the nostalgia of riding behind an authentic, wood-burning steam locomotive. Nothing beats the sound of a steam whistle singing at every crossing.

Eventually, we arrived at the endpoint of our trip. We stopped in a siding and the crew ran the engine around to the opposite end of the train. While this was happening, the conductor told us a little bit more about the train and it's part in many movies over the years. As the engine approached to re-couple to the passenger cars, we jumped back in and got a very close-up view from the rear car. The engineer bumped into the cars, then backed off to remove the slack and test the coupling two times.

The ride back to the station was very pleasant. We sat in the seats closest to the engine for most of the trip, watching the piston push and pull the rod that connects to the drive wheels. All the windows were open and the warm breeze, mixed with a touch of steam and smoke, swirled through the decorated passenger cars.

Back at the station, we took a few more pictures, then went in search of lunch. We found a place near the park called Al’s Landing. The menu was divided into sections: Air, Land, and Sea, containing items from air, land, and sea. Cute. Then we realized that the letters in Air, Land, and Sea are the name of the restaurant. Cuter still. And then we realized that you can land there from the air, land, or sea. Cutest naming scheme ever.

Before we ate, Susan texted Aunt Cathy and told her what we were doing. Many text messages followed and then Susan told me that Cathy and Dave would be calling soon when they left their house to come meet us in Tavares. That was a pleasant surprise.

After lunch, we sat in the sun on a small hill along the tracks and waited for the second run of the day to pass by. After it past, we walked to the ice cream store for dessert, then upheld our promise to Andrew by returning to the playground. We played there until we got the call that Cathy and David were in town, trying to find a place to park.

Parking was difficult now because of the lighting of Tavares celebration and parade. The parade route included Main Street, so it was blocked off through town. We gave them directions to our location and Susan went off to find them. Andrew and I stayed at the playground until we saw them walking into the park. They were hungry and headed for the vendors, so I let Andrew drag me back to the playground again.

Just after dark, the festival activities got geared up. It all started with a parade. We found a good spot on the corner of Main Street and the park entrance. It was like Halloween all over again, except the candy was coming to us instead of the other way around. It seemed that every car and truck in the parade tossed candy our way. The parade was pretty long and had a nice mix of public servants and local businesses. There was only one band, and it didn't have a banner, so we guess it was the Tavares High School band.

After the parade, we walked back into the park for the official tree lighting. Andrew found an “ice” skating rink and wanted to go. Susan went with him, while Cathy, Dave, and I listened to the singers, counted down the tree lighting, and enjoyed the unexpected fireworks show.

Cathy and Dave left after that, and I waited for Andrew and Susan to finish skating. At 8:15, I told them it was time to go. It was a long drive home and I wanted to get going. Back at the car, we settled in for the trip, but the car wouldn't start. There wasn't enough juice to turn over the engine! Apparently, charging two phones sucks a lot of energy. We asked a pair of police officers for help. They found us a portable jumper kit and we were on our way.

On the turnpike, we noticed that the SunPass toll gate said Thank You with LOW BAL written below. We'd never seen that before, the realized that we hadn't given them our new credit card information. Susan logged into their web site and updated the numbers, but the response said it would take up to 24 hours to take effect. How much money did we have left? Who knows. Then we started seeing signs about $100 fines for toll skipping. Yikes! I decided to get off the turnpike and go home the non-toll route, just to be safe.