Photos by Alaina

If there's one thing I've learned from living in Centre County for three years, it's that you just can't get enough Bellefonte.

If it's not the duck pond, it's the train station. And if it's not the train station, it's the old timey shops. And if it's not the old timey shops, it's the Dairy Queen.

Actually, it's probably just the Dairy Queen. Cookie dough and M&M blizzards are delicious.

So for this week's travel, I ventured back to Bellefonte.

For a ride on a train!

An old-timey train!

The general idea of this trip was to take an olde-fashioned train ride to Pleasant Gap and admire the fall foliage. Because the best way to admire foliage is by rail. Rail that could easily have said foliage fall onto it and cause a train to come off its track and run into a duck pond.

When we boarded the train it was almost completely full, so we were forced to sit in the staff car. The staff car was actually nicer than the regular train cars, so that was cool.

Our guide, whose voice came over some loudspeakers, said that he owned "half of this train." He and whoever owns the other half of the train make a living by moving people who want to say that they've ridden a train once in their life a very, very short distance and then reversing the train and bringing them back.

The train took us past some people's backyards and some old factories. It was quite the historic journey. But really, I was more interested by what was inside the train:

Pepsi and Pete: The Pepsi-Cola cops.

"You're under arrest... for being refreshing and delicious!"

"Guilty as charged, officer!"

YACKITY SHMACKITY DOO*

Don't you feel a whole lot safer on the train? Not when this guy who looks like Viktor Yushchenko is a passenger. How do I know someone won't try to poison me?

Who calls it refuse? Honestly. My grandma doesn't even call it refuse.

Speaking of which, some of the old train guys were offering Twizzlers to the kids. But when they offered them, they said, "Want a piece of licorice?" That's like me offering someone a Kleenex and saying, "Want a hand tissue?" Seriously.

When we got to Pleasant Gap, something terrifying happened: A HOBO ATTEMPTED TO BOARD THE TRAIN!

Yes, this dude was dressed up as a hobo. He elicited much laughter from the people on the train. The guide said that we would let him on but would turn him over to the police when we got back. Personally, I felt that the whole bit was an insult to real hobos everywhere. I'm going to personally write a strongly-worded letter on behalf of the united hobos of the world.

When we got back to Bellefonte, we learned that someone was selling books about the Bellefonte train. A selling point:

Really? "Signed" by the "author"? "Wow!" I'm so "excited" to buy this book!

On the way back home, we ran into some Imperial forces:

So, in conclusion, Bellefonte is pretty much the dorkiest place in the world.