The Happiest Place on Earth

I know what you are thinking, but it is not Disneyland.  Haley hasn't been to Disneyland.  Yet.

It takes several days to get to Montana.  Haley's Dad made a reservation at a place that he had been to, but never stayed at.  Haley had never been there.  We tried to tell her that she would like it.  All she knew was that we weren't going to be at Grandma's yet.

Haley really wanted to go to Grandma’s.

When we drove up I think she started to realize that maybe we were right.  She really would like it.

We stayed at the IzaakWalton Inn in Essex, Montana.   

 

The inn is built right next to the train tracks.  There is a caboose and an engine parked right next to the inn. You can actually spend the night in them.  Up on the hill there are cabooses in all colors that you can also stay the night in.  We didn’t do that because they require a two night stay, but I think we may have to try that someday.

Once inside the inn there is train memorabilia everywhere you looked.  And I mean everywhere.

 We couldn’t even get inside the doors before Haley had to stop and look and point and talk about what she saw.   

She was in heaven.

 

The inn is old.  It is quaint.  It is really cool.

Our room was nice.  It was basically two rooms.  We had a bed in the main room and the girls had bunk bed in theirs.  There was a sink in the main room and a bathroom with a toilet and shower off of that.  The weather was really nice so we opened our window.  We were in the middle of nowhere so there was no traffic noise, just the occasional train.  There was no TV and no phones.  We didn’t even have cell service.

We ate dinner on the deck and watched trains go by.  We went for a walk and watched trains go by.  We sat in the porch swings and watched trains go by.

We bought a deck of cards and went to our room to play cards on our bed.

The only thing I would have changed about our stay would have been to request a trackside room.  Haley could hear the trains, but she had to go out of our room and walk to the end of the hall to see them.

Our breakfast the next day was just as delicious as the dinner had been the night before.  We got to watch rail equipment go by all through our meal.

We will go back, and this time I imagine that Haley will look forward to it.   

She kept saying it was a “fun time.”