Wild West train ride

Grandma bought 5 tickets for a "wild west" train ride for Jake's birthday. Pam, mom , me , Jake and Haliegh drove about 45 minutes to the local of the train ride this past Sunday. When we got there he was beyond excited...hopping up and down and running all over the place. The whole parking lot was set up like an old west town and lots of people were dressed in period clothes and they never broke character. The "Marshall" asked Jake if he would help fight the train robbers if they got on the train and Jake was happy to be of service. Each ticket came with play money and fake gold that we were supposed to give the train robbers. Grandma bought him and Haliegh little six shooter guns, sheriff badges and train conductor hats for the ride. We had some time to kill before our ticket time, so we let the kids take a real stagecoach "ride". It was only 2 dollars per rider and was being pulled by 4 of the BIGGEST draft horses I've ever seen in my entire life. Jacob loved that ride and chattered the entire time about how this was the best thing in the whole wide world.
We waited in line to board the train and we were really thrilled to see that we had the "special seats" in the nice car. Jake took his seat by the window and just sat there absorbing the entire scene. Before the train left the station they put on a HILARIOUS wild west show just outside of the train for us to watch. One of the horses in the show lifted it's tail and pooped right there on the spot, which made Jake pull out his toy gun, aim and shoot at the horse saying loudly, "no pooping in the parking lot".

The train finally left the station and we went through some very pretty farm land, but Jake kept his eyes peeled for robbers. About 5 minutes into the train ride we saw them on their horses in the woods. He was so freaking excited and he and his cousin squealed and counted their money. Several of the cast from the wild west show kept coming up and down the aisles and chatting with the kids ...asking if they had their gold "safe". Suddenly, the train slowed down and came to a stop and the sheriff came running down the aisle shouting, "the bank robbers are on board, hide your money!". Jake and Haleigh were eating pop corn, so they both hid their money in their pop corn bags. The "robbers" got to our car and asked our group if we had any money. Haliegh smiled and said, "nooooooo", but Jake instantly got his money out of his bag and handed it right over. LOL He's so easy to rob!! They wandered up and down the aisle and finally came back to our group and found Haliegh's money. Then they all went outside and did another big show where the robbers were caught and all that fun stuff. They took a bow and we clapped for them and then the train went back to the station. Jake shot at every leaf and tree the rest of the way back, until he nearly fell asleep staring out that window.
We got back and he asked Grandma for one more stage coach ride, which she happily obliged. He LOVED those horses.
It was really fun and not scary at all. I was worried that it would scare him, but it was done very cleverly and was pretty funny most of the time. The only thing that Jake didn't like was the loud sound their cap guns made. I wasn't thrilled about letting him have a gun allowing him to pretend shoot people, but we talked a lot about it at the beginning and he actually hasn't touched the gun since the train ride.
If you ever get a chance to take an old train ride...do it!