A Train Trip to Hanford

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.....

My husband loves ice cream. His birthday is coming up so I had the bright idea of loading up the family and a teenage stowaway and taking the much talked about train trip to Hanford to experience the 'best ice cream in the world' at Superior Dairy. Some of the kids had never been on an Amtrak train so we thought it would be a fun experience. We really did think that. Really...

There was just one little snag in our plans: our train to Hanford was over an hour late. It kind of put a wrench in our day. We had pre-purchased round trip tickets - the plan was to leave Fresno at 11:35 for Hanford, have lunch and some ice cream, and then catch the 2:42pm train back from Hanford to Fresno. Plenty of time (we thought) to walk to Superior Dairy from the depot, eat in a leisurely manner, walk back to the depot and head home. Well, that was how it was supposed to be.....but with the train from Fresno being so late we had to rush through our day in order to be back to our train for a 2:42pm departure.

Here's how the day played out: We arrived in Hanford at 1pm, and started walking toward Superior Dairy. On the way we stopped at Burger King for a bathroom break. We decided it would save time to grab a quick burger there. We then power-walked to Superior Dairy from BK, and got our ice cream. The place was so crowded they didn't think they could serve us in time if we sat down to order ice cream from the menu so we got the world's thickest milkshakes to go, hurried back to the depot with 10-minutes to spare, and ate our shakes with a spoon because they would not go up a straw no matter how long we stood in the sun waiting for the train to arrive. We got back on the train heading north, and enjoyed the ride home, enjoying the remainder of our shakes. We were back in Fresno by 3:30pm.

Here's our day in pictures...............

The 3 boys bought snacks, ate them, and then sat there waiting for the train.

Here they are after only 30 minutes. Have you ever spent time with 3 bored boys in a train station? This is what they looked like after we reined them in.

Fresno, 12:15pm, no train in sight...

And just-like-that our train arrives, we hop on board and off we go! We arrive in Hanford in under 40 minutes.

We got off the train and followed other ice cream seekers toward our destination. Look, I see it.....Superior Dairy. Just a few short blocks from the train station.

After waiting in the busy parlor, we got our shakes and hurried back to the depot with about 10 minutes to spare.

Here we are, eating our milkshakes at the train station so we don't miss our ride back home.

Everyone keeps looking for our train to come....

Safely on board, my husband eats his ice cream.

Even though it didn't quite go as planned, I'm glad we did it. Check that off our local bucket list.

And away we go!