My sister called us the other night and told us we had to check out this place right around the corner from our house.  Apparently, there is a model train hobby group that has its headquarters in a house right near here and they were having a small open house on Sunday.  I'm so glad we went over!  I always thought the model train hobby was about those little toy trains that went around the Christmas tree and was never that interested.  Not so.  There is a whole other type of train hobbyist that specializes in larger model trains.  Trains that you can RIDE ON.  Seriously.  Take three little boys to someone's backyard where they have over a mile of track going through the acres behind their home all through the forest and it makes for a magical day.  When my sister told me about it, there was a definite reference to the old T.V. show Silver Spoons and Ricky Schroeder to help me get the idea of what this place was about.  And it was so cool.  Riding through the forest on this little train over bridges and through the gorgeous trees...so neat.  They didn't even charge for the ride but just had a small jar for donations.  The older men who made up the group were wonderful and showed us everything.  They had engines they had built from scratch and explained how they worked.  We were given two long rides through the woods.  The owner of the house even showed us his basement workshop.  John Paul is already trying to figure out how to build a track and train for our own yard.