Today, we spent our first full day in Hamburg, which began at the Miniatur Wunderland, a museum that houses the largest model railroad exhibit in the world, with almost 7.5 miles of railroads, with very true-to-life representations of Hamburg, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, Switzerland, Austria, and Scandinavia, among others. The precision and detail that went into over six years of building this exhibit were very obvious, as even the tiny model people looked like they were interacting with each other, even in a large stadium that was represented. The changes from day to night and from spring, summer, winter, to autumn were stunningly well executed and made the exhibits even more fun to watch. It was even more amusing as we went about the rest of our day, and we started noticing all these things that the model railway system had on display for the Hamburg exhibit!

We brought little Bart around and pulled him out whenever we saw something that was particularly interesting, like the changes from day to night, or when we saw the model air planes taking off (into “real” clouds!). Ed would have really enjoyed this museum, and he usually never enjoyed museums. Like our dad and me, Ed loved miniature things, as he collected a number of miniature Japanese food, Disney, and Smurf figurines. If he were with us today, I know he would have been ecstatic… maybe not as ecstatic as the day he got to touch Shania Twain’s hand, but pretty darn close.

Happy Thankgiving, Ed. I miss you, especially when I am seeing things that I know you would have loved to see for yourself.