First Day of School 2011

Train Ride To St. Jacobs, Ontario

"The community of St. Jacobs is located in southwest Ontario, just north of Waterloo in Woolwich Township, Waterloo Region. It is a popular location for tourism, due to its Mennonite heritage and retail focus. The Conestoga River, which powered the village's original gristmill, runs through the village.

Three kilometers south of the town centre is the St. Jacobs Farmers Market, another popular tourist draw. Fresh farm products are sold from across the area, plus many vendors have discount clothing, toys, candy, and other wares. A factory outlet is located adjacent to the market site. The market, town and surrounding countryside are marketed as St. Jacobs Country.

St. Jacobs is also the headquarters of Home Hardware. This national chain of over 1000 independent retail stores located across Canada was founded in the village in 1963."- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jacobs,_Ontario

In my almost weekly travels to the future Waterloo Courthouse site, I've discovered that there is a semi-historic train ride that runs from north Waterloo to St. Jacobs. We thought that this would be a fun day activity for us and the girls right before school starts.

"All Aboard!"

Some of the shops in St. Jacobs are located in renovated historic buildings.

The grain silos in this picture have been converted into shops.

As previously mentioned, the headquarters of Home Hardware is located in St. Jacobs.

According to our train announcer, all merchandise from each and every Home Hardware in all of Eastern Canada originates from a warehouse in St. Jacobs.

Hannah and Caitlyn wanted their picture taken with "this funny looking guy".

This store had a model train running suspended from the ceiling, I took this picture right as the train was going by.

Another "funny looking guy"

The St. Jacobs train 'station'

As we were waiting for the train it started getting very windy and it rained very hard.

Luckily for us, we were covered. Three kilometers away, at the Market things weren't as lucky!

Our train had to stop at least six times to pick up debris that had been blown onto the tracks!!