Was I not paying attention? Was the train misrepresented? I don't really know (okay, I wasn't paying attention) but I will never forget the hour I spent clutching my babies thinking of all the ways we could die on the narrow gauge train ride at Driving Creek Railway and Pottery! If you are not the faint of heart, you can see Barry's story here...It was actually really amazing and Barry has lots of plans to save his little part of the world -- Very commendable!
We arrived and everyone was excited! Look, there are tracks to explore. See here, pottery and pottery sculpture!
The new organic waste water treatment plant was endearing...
The entire place was gorgeous really and I didn't really record it well (I didn't realize that I wouldn't really feel up to it upon return from the train :)
Here is the kind of train that we rode...Caged in to the half way point, open at the top.
Here we go!
So, the photo above is from one of the areas where the train goes out onto a cliff, actually, off a cliff on tracks where it sits with no gaurd rails, while the (very crunchy) conductor walks to the other end to put the train in the opposite gear and pull back onto the zig-zag tracks. Seriously, how easy it would be to forget to change the gears and go right off the cliff down the bazillion foot drop (for real, a bazillion!). I was concered when we went over the non-tressled bridge that was a trillion feet up a mountain but by the time we got to the bazillion foot drop I was writing headlines in my head!
Yep, took this photo while riding the train!
Oh, look, there is a piece of track down below!!
At the top it was almost worth it. The views were amazing, like nothing I'd ever expected to see in my whole, entire life!! When we got back on the train to go down I almost had myself convinced that it wasn't as dangerous as all the times I ran around and rode on rides at the Buck Creek Festival as a kid but I still don't really believe that!
