Oaks Park

Photo by Jasper, from the Ferris Wheel.

We love to go to Oaks Park for OHEN's annual Not Back To School Day!  What could be better than a whole park filled with homeschoolers enjoying amusement park rides to celebrate the start of the school year?  I always love to ride to the top of the Ferris wheel with Jasper, to look out over Portland and feel grateful that he's enjoying the last sunny, warm days of the year celebrating with friends and not inside  a classroom.

Usually I like to make it an annual thing, a special start of school year treat, but  this year we also went earlier for my husband's company picnic.  That gave us a chance to check out North American Railcar Operators Association members giving rides on their "speeders".  Speeders are little train cars that, despite their name, generally have a top speed around 30mph.  When they were invented, they were much faster than handcars! They were used by track maintenance crews, but stopped being made in the 80's when trucks with retractable flanged wheels were manufactured that could be used on track or road. Now, people collect the speeders, and get to use them when NARCOA organizes trips.  They negotiate track rentals with the railroads all over the US and Canada, so that members can discover North America by rail.  They often use sections of track that normally can only be seen from a freight train, and some track that is disused altogether.  Our ride took us near OMSI and back, and we got to watch our driver raise his speeder up on a pedestal and turn his speeder around to make the return journey facing forward!    

 Here's what both trips to Oaks Park, to ride the speeders with NARCOA and to ride the rides with homeschoolers, had in common:  a thrilling sense of freedom!  I'm so grateful to live in this amazing country where we are free to explore and free to homeschool.