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Well, here we are once again trying to play catch up. I don't know where the time goes, but I check the current letters, and we are a month behind again. The worst part of it is that we check our photos and here are a bunch of photos that we haven't processed yet. On an unrelated note, what do you do with all of your photos? We have tried to put them on CD's and we loose them or can't open them up or whatever. But now here we sit with over 14,000 photos in iphoto. What do you do with them???
I am open to suggestions on this one... |
| Anyway, back to the story... On the last weekend of the kids spring break (now here we go - I had to go and check the calendar and no information, so I am off to ask Terra. She of course can give me a date, but this brings up another unrelated story - When we were first married, my father asked both Terra and myself to write down how we met. Terra did, and I read it, and found many errors with it, so I was going to write the correct version, well I never got around to doing it, and now when I read Terra's version I can't figure out what was wrong with it. She changed history all because I neglected to put the correct version down in print. SO, let this be a lesson to you, he who writes history no matter how flawed, changes history...) March 23rd we headed down to Phoenix to ride on Jeff & Lorna's trains. This was one of those trips where we tried to accomplish many things in the same outing, and ended up being late to all of them, but I digress. |  |
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I know we have written about this before, and so this may be a repeat, but the photos are newer than the last round. The trains are located at MLS (Maricopa Live Steamers) park in north Phoenix. This is a place that is leased to the club for very cheap (due to it being in a flood plain). On this site there are miles and miles of track. The track is Aluminum and lays atop of 2x4's cut and stood on end. Then some ballast rock is dumped between the boards to keep them from moving. |
| I don't know the exact length of the track but it is probably over 18 miles. These people are who belong to this club are all male, and most retired (surprise, surprise). This is their hobby. They go and work for hours and hours on the track, the scenery, the trains, the cars, the containers to put the trains in, etc. This is what they do for fun. |  |
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And truth be told it is a lot of fun. This is one of those things where you work on it all week to play with it on the weekend. Kind of like owning a Harley motorcycle (except you ride them all week so you can work on them during the weekend). Of course, this being the hobby for most of these people, the fun is in the working on it. |
| At least, I find that when I am building something I enjoy the journey as much or more than the finished product. That is true with wood working and tinkering in general. When you are finished with your project then you either drive it or look at it, or use it in some sort of fashion, but the fun is building or fixing it. |  |
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From this photo, my poor hat is getting really broken in. It has been such a good hat, and I really like it, but is seems like it is starting to get tired. Meaning that it no longer stands up on its own. I guess that is because when I am not wearing it, it is crumpled up somewhere. Oh well, it still works and I still wear it. |
| In the back ground here you can see a crane and just to the left of the crane a steeple. This is the Phoenix, AZ temple that is currently under construction. It is literally located right across the street from the MLS park. From different tracks, you can get a better view of the temple, but we didn't get any photos of it closer up. |  |
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Another addition to the park since my last visit (last year) was a tunnel. They now have some old concrete culverts that they have located and ran tracks through them. The tunnel is about 30-40 feet long and it is neat to drive through. Everyone knows that a train set is not complete with out a working tunnel. We even put some tunnels in the boys room for the train to go through into the closet. We would like to thank Jeff & Lorna for taking time out of their schedule and wasting a Saturday to drag us around in circles all across the park. We rally had a good time, and if you were wondering, yes Landen really enjoyed riding the trains... |
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