Aliens have abducted my wife!

1. Today, at lunch, she removed her sunglasses and asked me to look at her eyes. It was then that I noticed they were no longer brown, but they were hazel instead. This was confirmed by two waitresses. I might put this off to bad memory on my part, but we have a framed poem hanging in our bedroom, that I wrote to her when we were dating which is all about her brown eyes.

2. She requested that I cut off ALL water to our tomato plants, "to force greater productivity". The woman I married would have been concerned about their comfort and feelings ahead of productivity.

Who is this woman and what has she done with my wife???

Mish mash

For the record, I had a dream last night that the car # for the baggage car we looked at Saturday is #46.

Saturday night while showering I found a lump on my left forearm. I'm pretty sure it's just fat that couldn't find room anywhere else, but I made an appt. (Of course the first available appt was Wed at 10:20 the precise time I have a dentist appt., the second was within that hour)

The joys of paint stripping

This has been my career in the railroad (volunteer restoration) biz for the last several sessions. So far I'm just stripping the blue painted beams and the 4 or 5 coats of paint beneath that. At that, it's only about half the car since someone else did half. I took a stab at the alligatored ceiling. Merde! The heat gun didn't seem to faze it, sanding was not very successful either.

The morning was spent checking out an old baggage car that has been converted into a small house. We were trying to establish it's origins to particularly see if it was tied to the North Western Pacific RR.

After 3 hours of test sanding in likely ID locations, we finally found what appears to be the letters "E" in gold leaf. It's last years may have been as a Maintenance car.


The car appears to be made of redwood from what we're seen so far, but those could be repairs.

Caboose progress report .005

I didn't get any really interesting pictures this last Saturday working on the caboose. But early in the day day I got pulled off (kicking and screaming you can be sure) the paint stripping detail, and helped with a slight "adjustment" of the suspension on the trucks. I don't know all the proper terms (one reason I'm stripping paint).

Painting the board beneath the hydraulic jack was my very first job, so I'm a little protective of it. Basically, the leaf springs sit on this board, in the iron seats. The board SHOULD be able to rock side to side, but wouldn't, so first we tried gently spreading an iron strap apart. This worked on one truck, but not this one. We also exchanged the pinned strap just to the right since the first one didn't hold the board at the right height, but the replacement was thicker, thus necessitating further adjustments to the board width.

So then we had to call in one of the "Skil" players for final adjustments. He desecrated my paint job!

The last picture is with most of the pieces in place in happier times when the board was fully painted (even if you can't see it)

I believe another board goes on top of the springs, and the center pin is mounted on that, and one end of the caboose sits on that!

Lily at 100.8 F

Lenora came in and collapsed about 20 minutes ago. We gave her water. I'm guessing that Lily will take off if I approach her with water, (she's going thru her "I'm Feral dammit!" stage) but I should try just in case.

Lily, the Hit Cat

When out at the coast, Lily channels Bill Murray from "Caddyshack", "come on out Mister Gopher, it's just me, your friend Lily!"


Rare Gopher cam view

Lily's normal routine is to get up between 4:30 and 5:30 am and try to get us up also. Mornings after she has spent all day hunting, she lays in until after 8, seemingly lifeless.

Walkin' with the Mammoths

We are headed for the rock in the lower middle of the picture. The theory is that smooth areas on otherwise coarse rock were caused by mammoths rubbing to scratch an itch or leave scent or both. The green area to it's left is thought to have been a wallow.




The ocean was not this close I don't imagine, but a nice bonus for us. (especially since we are not suited to scratch OUR backs on these rocks.)

This is north of Bodega Bay, in Goat Rock Beach park. (California)

Walkie pics!

I liked the light here, in hindsight I wish I had shot a little bit more to the left.

62 miles of track are being rehabbed in preparation for the return of freight service in October.

The crews are moving thru our area at the moment replacing ties.