Well i finally made it home, thanks for the well wishes. Feeling pretty weak from being in bed most of the 2 weeks and short of breath still, but my blood thinner is slowly eating away at the clot in my lungs. I just have to take it easy for a while yet so probably no train pics from me for a few more weeks. At least here at home I have good TV and the internet. LOL Also thanks for the feature over in the chatroom. Its good to be back.

Got home early this morning, went to bed in my bed, and got some great sleep. These past 3 weeks were one of the highlights of my life, I've seen so much. I saw the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the Badlands, Yellowstone National Park, The Tetons, the Columbia River Gorge, Crater Lake, the Pacific ocean, the Redwoods. Stayed in California for a week. I got to visit an Great aunt while out there that I've never met and that my dad hasn't seen in 40 years. Disneyland was loads of fun. BTW, got to love Taco John's, that's some good stuff. My sister got sick so we didn't see as much on the way back but it was still pretty cool. Nevada was so desolate. The desert climate was really something to experience. We came through Denver at night, what a site to see lit up at night. Yesterday into early this morning we made our way from eastern Colorado all the way back home to northwestern Indiana, pulled into our driveway and the vacation was officially over. I thought I'd be depressed with the vacation being over and coming home but found I was glad to be home. Things are getting back to normal today. Had a tornado hit town a few weeks ago while away, gonna check it out tomorrow and see if there is any good evidence still outside of the clean up, and of course I'll get back to taking pictures of trains.

I'm 30 years old, and you know, I have never been on a real vacation. Well finally due to certain circumstances I'll be going away for 3 weeks with my dad and sister. We are heading out west taking a northern route, gonna check out Mt. Rushmore, the badlands, Yellowstone, and whatever else we might have time for during the first week. We'll be in California during the 2nd week visiting a great aunt and then going to Disneyland. The third week we'll be making our way back east taking a southern route to check out places like Las Vegas (not to gamble, but just so we can say we've been there), the grand canyon, etc. I don't know how many trains I'll catch along the way but I'm pretty sure I'll have a lot of scenic shots. Luckily I'll have a laptop to upload pictures too every night, so expect pics everyday. Really though, given how this year has been for me personally with the congestive heart failure, clots, a clotting disorder, and going blind in my left eye its going to be great to get away for a while and have some fun.

What is it with people and trains? Today I saw someone walking down the tracks behind a train that was stopped and thought nothing of it other than he shouldn't be there. So I get back into town a few minutes later and the train that was stopped comes by and wouldn't you know it, they had an extra passenger. That idiot was hanging on to the last car of the train and with the MOW work going on there was plenty of people to see this person. So they had to have the train stop to yell at him if he was still hanging on or to let the crew know it was safe to proceed. I only wish I would have gotten a picture of that.

Also I just come across another case of a car vs train here at this [link] Its so sad that people are in such a hurry that they are willing to risk there lives to beat a train especially when its a short train. This train was the Wolverine 353 out of Detroit and headed to Chicago. So in a way it hits close to home since that train comes through my neck of the woods on a daily basis. I just know that eventually I'm going to be a witness to a train vs car event and just the thought of that makes me squirm.

I decided to take pictures regarding other aspects of railroads. In this case bridges, and abandoned/out of service railroads. Let me tell that I had a blast, and it was nice to stray away from locomotives for a while. It also helped that so much was left behind when they quit using this line (over 20 years ago). Today I tackled the old NYC Egyptian Line aka the Danville Secondary Subdivision. Next time I do this I think I'll tackle the old monon up in Hammond, IN. There are a lot of relics on that line. So I hope you all enjoy today's batch of photos.