visiting another piece of disney history

walt disney was well known for his love of trains, even building a miniature train that went around the grounds of his home on carolwood drive in l.a.  there was a small barn that he built on the property where he would work on the train, and when the home was eventually sold walt's daughter diane made arrangements to have the barn dismantled and stored.  the barn ended up being reassembled near travel town at griffith park, and it's open on the third sunday of the month for visitors.

the old lady and her special friend were able to visit it a couple of years ago, but the bean and i hadn't gotten to see it yet...until this weekend.  while the guys were golfing, we hopped into the car and headed out to griffith park on a cool, cloudy day to check out carolwood barn.

here's the barn, lovingly restored and maintained by the los angeles live steamers museum.

inside the barn there are lots of items that were salvaged from the carolwood estate, including workbenches built by walt himself.

 this was pretty interesting, too:

a site plan of how things were laid out on the property:

 and more pieces and photographs from the old estate.

 so i'm not totally sure, but i think this was supposed to be a miniature replica of the train that runs through disneyland.  the bean was enchanted by the tiny trash cans, of all things.

 outside the barn there's a car from the original train that went around disneyland from opening day in 1955.  you can't go inside, but there's some fun memorabilia and other items in the building that it's housed in.

every now and then, we'd catch a glimpse of one of the miniature trains that were available for rides around the park.

and there are commemorative plaques in the ground that honor those who helped in the creation of and preserving of the carolwood barn.

 once we were done looking around, we walked the short distance to the train station so that we could grab tickets and stand in line to take a turn on the miniature train.  the line was fairly long, but it didn't take too long to get to the front.

it was a fun ride that lasted a lot longer than i'd expected, and every so often the train would pick up speed and go a little faster than you'd think.  tickets are just $3 per person, and it was really fun.

a quick yelp search took us here for a snack:

i chose a bubble waffle slathered with nutella and whipped cream:

 the bean opted for the thai tea rolled ice cream, topped with condensed milk and mochi.

and the old lady chose a bubble waffle with fruity pebbles, mint chip ice cream, sliced strawberry and strawberry wafer cookies.

it was a really fun way to spend our sunday, and i was glad we'd finally found the time to visit the barn.  we'd talked about it for ages, since we love visiting all of the disney-themed historical sites.  another bucket list item, check!