Steam in the valley is over now, but a few days ago Alice and Stephen accidentally came across old 765 around the Bath Road Crossing and followed it all the way to the Akron Station…Stephen was very excited about this!
We celebrated Stephen’s Eighth Birthday last Saturday! (Fill in all the cliches about the rushing by of time!) There were fifty two guests with both families and lots of friends! Thank goodness the weather was good and we could spend some time outside! Stephen is very interested in rocks and minerals since Andy gave him a lot of cool specimens from his collection. Stephen was eager to do lots of odd jobs to earn money to spend at Mama’s Rocks in the valley. But sad to say, that little shop seems to have simply vanished. It’s gone, alas. We’ll see how this hobby can continue. But meantime, Stevie asked his Mom to make him a geode cake for his birthday celebration and she achieved something rather amazing.
I didn’t know one could buy rock candy and use it so creatively! But now I do.
I gave him a hogwarts express lego set which I think he has completely finished building already.
Meanwhile, the weather has turned quite cold! I was briefly afraid that the furnace was not working correctly, but that turned out to be wrong. All is well. Life moves on toward those cold weather holidays and shorter hours of daylight. I’ve already bought three Christmas gifts which is quite unlike my procrastinating self.
Oh, my, old 765. I grew up on North Hill, above the switching yard. There still were steam trains in my youth, and those whistles were so distinctly different from the locomotive whistles. How often we followed the train along Riverview, on the way to visit my aunt and uncle. I am so pleased your grandson saw AND rode along with it.
I first saw Riverview Road in 1972. I was newly engaged and we came to visit Paul’s brother George who lived in Bath with his family. I would have loved to have seen it when you were growing up…We’re roughly the same age – less than a year apart, I think.
Alice’s geode cake is absolutely brilliant — I am in awe!
Wow, that is some birthday party for an 8 year old! The geode cake looks great, although I am not sure I would like to crunch on so much rock candy 😉
There was not too much rock candy! But the kids loved it, and so did the grown ups.
That is an incredible cake! So creative and beautiful! Stephen seems like an extremely intelligent young man with very cool passions. Are there rock hound sites or geode ones on-line?
I’m sure there are rock hound sites online, but happily we have discovered that Mama’s Rocks has just moved to a new location and not closed forever as we first thought.
That is excellent news!!
My son loved trains as a preschooler. I have always felt warm and cozy at the sound of a train whistle, whatever kind of engine it was, because the small town I grew up in had a train track running through it and the whistle could be heard all day.
When Em was attending Penn State they lived near a train. When we came to visit I was just getting used to the whistle when it was time to return home.
Your little Stephen is obviously a very bright child. That is the most incredibly original cake I’ve ever seen. I need to show your post to my daughter. Wow!
A comment from Vee of A Haven for Vee because the powers that be do not believe she is herself:
“Let’s see if this flies… Furnaces always give one a start as winter approaches. I was happy to get mine serviced last week. Phew! What a wonderful birthday gift…I do love trains. What a cake!:
This is an AMAZING cake.
Don’t know if it would be available in the USA however, The Pebbles on the Beach by Clarence Ellis is a lovely book. Part spotters guide with colour pictures, part autobiographical. Originally written in the ‘50s.
I just remember steam trains in the UK – the very last were running when I was a small child and ‘our’ branch line had them.
That geode cake is sensational! I don’t know what rock candy is and I am not sure I’d like to eat it, but hey this is certainly a cake for looking at. I’ve never seen anything like it before!
Such a lovely post.
I enjoyed seeing all of your photographs – that cake looks amazing.
All the best Jan