Recovery Update....

Daddy's cast came off.  He's now wearing a brace.  His wound looks really gross -- you can see where the stitches were.  He's now doing physical therapy.  That said, I can now jump on him!!  Overall, the recovery is going well.  He can now push me on the swings as well!

The Last of the Trains

More trains!  The museum also had an old streetcar running.  I didn't feel like riding on it -- it made too much noise and had uncomfortable wooden seats.  But Mommy hopped on board and took to the rails for a short run!

The car was quite nice otherwise.  I liked the red color!

I watched with Grandpa as mommy waved.  Daddy missed Mommy waving, like usual...

I then went and looked at the toy trains!  They were fun as well!!

The other thing I thought was kinda neat was these old train logos.  Old passenger cars from the Soo Line and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railroad caught my eye.  They were bright, shiny and nicely restored!

I figure that daddy and I will be going here regularly; there is a shopping center a few miles down the road that we can drop mommy off at and I can come play with Choo Choos!

Diesel Power!

Moving on, the Illinois Railway Museum also had a huge collection of diesel engines.  I was quite impressed by several of them, like this Union Pacific X-18!

We wandered around a bit more and came across this beautiful old Burlington Northern engine.  The shiny green paint on it had recently been restored; it gleamed like nothing else!  But it was huge -- this 3000 horse power monster was kind of scary up close!

There was also this old Chicago and Northwestern engine.  It needed a bit of cleaning, but was quite neat!

And also the Zephyr -- the shiny engine was really attractive!

Old Steam Engines...

In addition to the MN&S engine, they also had lots and lots of steam engines on display.  Many of them were quite old and while they had once been big monsters on the rail, they were just shells of their former selves...  This old Burlington engine had clearly seen better days!

...as had this old guy...

It's amazing just how big these monsters were.  They were bigger and longer then the modern diesel engines -- which are huge!  Here's mommy giving a sense of size -- and I know she's not big, the engine is huge!

Really huge.  In fact, the main wheels are like half again the size of Mommy!

They are kinda scary these old steam monsters!  

The MN&S!

We started wandering around the various trains that the Illinois Railway Museum had on display.  They had this lovely Santa Fe diesel engine.  But wait!  What's that behind it!  It says "Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern" on its side!

Can it be?

Yes, it is!  It's an old Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern DT 6-6-2000 engine!  And here's Grandpa standing in front of it!

..and Daddy too!

Now, this is significant 'cos when daddy was my size, he used to watch this very engine switch cars in his home town of Northfield!  (The railway owned 5 of these engines back in the 1970s when he was growing up; there was a big switching yard down the road he used to watch the trains at.  How lucky!)

Scary.  Sometimes I'm more like Daddy than I want to admit!

Trains!

When grandpa comes, we always do something really cool.  This trip we went and looked at trains at the Illinois Train Museum!  It was really neat, as they have lots and lots of trains to see, ranging from old steamers to some sleek, modern ones!

The first train I got to see was the Nebraska Zephyr.  It was the Minneapolis Zephyr originally, but once they replaced the Minneapolis train with a newer one, it was relegated to running to Nebraska.  I kinda think, "Nebraska?  What's in Nebraska?"  Daddy says "Warren Buffett, and not much else."  Who's this Warren Buffett?

One of the cool things was giving a "Spencer" perspective of the train!

This is me and grandpa with the train -- it is amazing just how big it really is!

I'm not even as big as the wheels.  They don't look that big when you're watching them drive by!

I even got to ride on it.  I sat at the back of the train so I could watch out the window!  That lasted a while, until the conductor had to come and drive it!  I really liked the view, it was quite panoramic.

Me, Grandpa and Daddy (complete with his club!) lounged on the Zephyr for a one hour ride!  It was really cool...

...which makes me think, why can't the CTA run trains this nice?

Onto August!

Wow!  I'm only a month and a bit from catching up...  At this point in time, Daddy is running around with a cast on his surgically repaired hand.  I know, I asked the doctor to give him a good meathook and an eyepatch to make him look cool, but no, just a cast. Talk about un-cool!

Otherwise, things are going great -- I'm off to the parks on a regular basis, like, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and even Sunday.  I'm playing almost daily with James who lives 3 doors down.  He's almost 4, and I think he's really cool and I love chasing him around!  I'm looking forward to learning how to ride a bike like he does, but Daddy said that will have to wait until next summer...

Well, onto August!