Train Rides

     One of the perks we receive with our apartment is a pass on the Denver area light rail and bus system.  Our building is located next to the Lincoln station of the light rail. We have already ridden the train two days.

    Our first trip was short--to the Park Meadows station where we walked around the shopping mall.  Today, we rode to Union Station and did some exploring in downtown Denver.

    On the way, we passed this Burlington Northern Santa Fe hopper car that has been beautifully decorated by some tag artist.  While I don't condone tagging, or really appreciate that art form, I did like this drawing.

        In LowDo (Lower Downtown), we saw this interesting sign.  I'm not sure what it is advertising.

    We saw these buffalo along the 16th Street Mall.  Of course the buffalo is the mascot of the University of Colorado, our alma mater.

    Some of the old building in downtown Denver are really beautiful.

    We saw lots of pretty flower pots.

 

    And this is Union Station, a train station (real trains, both passenger and freight) and hub for bus and light rail travel.

    The Union Station interior is beautiful

    We haven't spent quality time exploring the city of Denver for years.  I lived here for most of my life before we were married and we spent years living around the area.  Before we went on the road full-time in our RV, we lived and worked here.  John served churches in the Denver area.  For several years, we volunteered at the Colorado Historical Museum.  What will we find to do during our summers here in the future? 

She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain

From Sequoia National Park we headed north, stopping for one night in Sacramento, then we were on to Klamath Falls, Oregon.  We had been in the KOA Kampground there before and knew it would be a good place to stay while we visited Train Mountain.  During our stay here in 2008, we ended up with serious problems with the front landing gear on our Montana 5^th wheel trailer.  A week or so later, we were in Morgan Hill, California, with a brand-new Montana.  We hoped  for a less eventful stay this time.

John had heard about Train Mountain and see videos on YouTube.  We had to go check out the miniature trains.  It is the longest  miniature hobbyist railroad in the world  The facility has 37 miles of track for the 7 ½” gauge trains.  These trains are mainly privately owned by people whose hobby is building and running and riding them. 

These containers are where many people store their trains.

Some trains are built and maintained by volunteers at Train Moutain.  Here are some of the stored engines.  The tarps protect the trains from rain and snow. 

We rode one of the trains.  Our operator was Dave who volunteers almost full-time at the park.  He told us a lot about the history of the place and how things works.

We enjoyed the scenery as we rode the train.

What a good visit!

Trains in Kingman

On one corner in Kingman we saw this really neat, old police car.

This is the engineer and fireman's view of the inside of the steam engine we saw there.

At the train museum in town, they had a really neat train layout.  We enjoyed watching the trains running on the tracks.

                                             

Moving on to Kingman

From Williams we moved on to another Route 66 town, Kingman.  This sign over the main street reminds of one in downtown Golden, Colorado.

Because Route 66/I-40 follows the same path as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, we saw another neat steam engine in Kingman.

The old downtown has a lot of neat old neon signs.

And many murals.

This one is on a water tank next to the train tracks.

We enjoyed two days of walking around downtown Kingman.

Huckleberry Days

What are huckleberries, you ask? Or at least, we did. They look and taste a lot like blueberries and they grow wild in the area around Whitefish, Montana. That wasn't far from where we were staying and we haven't been to a small town festival for quite a while, so we decided to take a look at the Huckleberry Days Art Festival on Saturday.

There were lots of artist's tents.

This pottery was probably inspired by huckleberries. I really like it.

This man turns incredible natural-edged bowls. We talked to him quite a while about how he finishes them. They have such a rich clear look.

Of course, there were clothes.

This woman not only wears an incredible costume, she makes great folk art figures.

There were activities for children, like this climbing pole.

We had good barbecue for lunch.

The festival was held in Depot Park in downtown Whitefish. This Great Northern diesel engine was on a track right behind the BBQ stand.

To finish our day's exercise we walked around the downtown area, where we saw this clock tower.

We also walked on the path by a creek that wanders through the town. It was very pretty.

We planned to buy a huckleberry pie on our way back the the RV park. But we weren't willing to pay $30 for one 8-inch pie, or even $5 a slice. A neighbor in the park told us sometimes the berries sell for $40 a pint so locals carefully protect the location where they find them growing wild. I guess the cost of the pie makes sense but we weren't willing to pay it.

Chasing the Train

This year we decided not to ride the Cumbres and Toltec RR. We have done that any number of times, including last year. Instead, we "chased" it from Chama to Cumbres Pass. If you aren't into trains, you might not know what I am talking about. We visited the station in Chama then followed the train on the first half of it's daily route, which just happens to parallel the highway. We were one of 4 vehicles doing that Thursday.

Before the train departed, we saw these two engines sitting in front of the shops. They must be there for repairs.

We walked along the track to choose a good place for photos.

Just after 10 am the train started to move.

About a half hour later, we took these photos.

We came to a crossing where we could get closer to the train.

Here is engine 494 pulling the train across the Lobato Trestle.

The scenery along the route is beautiful.

When the train reached the top of Cumbres Pass, it had to take on some more water.

There is always a pop car following the train, ready to put out any fires it might get started.

Years ago, when this was a working railroad track handling more than just tourists, this snow shed on the top of the pass protected engines during the worst snows of winter.

Trains are fun to watch as well as to ride.