All Aboard!

Last week we visited the National New York Central Railroad Museum (NYCRR) located in Elkhart, Indiana.  

The New York Central Railroad was at one time the second largest railroad in the United States being located in eleven states and two Canadian provinces with 11,000 route miles of track.

Elkhart is the home of the largest railroad freight classification yard east of the Mississippi, the Norfolk Southern Railway's Elkhart yard, which made it a natural location for the museum.

The museum's goal is to educate the public on the history of the vast New York Central System and its progression into the modern era.

Below is a picture of a General Motor's Electro-Motive Division (EMD) E8 Diesel-Electric Locomotive that is on display at the museum.  I will get into it more later on in the blog.

An EMD E8 Diesel-Electric Locomotive on display at the NYCRR Museum.

Below is a 1/12 scale working model of a L2A Mohawk steam engine which was built by Richard Stolzenfelds who was a locomotive engineer for the Santa Fe railroad.  He based the model off an actual New York Central (NYC) locomotive blueprints.  It is an amazing model which is very detailed.

A model of a L2A Mohawk steam engine.

Outside is the New York Central #3001, a L3A Mohawk steam engine which was purchased in 1940 to be used as a dual service steam locomotive to move both heavy freight and passenger cars.

There have been many rumors that this steam engine was to be rebuilt and used as a tourist attraction operating twelve months out of the year.  

Many train enthusiasts would love this to happen, but I think that politics and the high cost of rebuilding has put this idea to bed.

NYC #3001 L3A Mohawk Steam Engine.

The NYC #3001 is a very impressive steam engine to be next to with its massive wheels.  The Mohawk class of steam locomotive had four small wheels in front, eight driving or powered wheels in the middle, and two small wheels following the driving wheels (4-8-2) which were first used on Central's Mohawk Division in the state of New York.

Avery, Courtney, Tia, Chloe, Ethan, & Ian posing in front of NYC #3001's massive wheels.

The museum also houses an impressive O gauge model railroad layout that the kids really enjoyed.  Sooner or later all of the O gauge model trains in the museum are rotated onto it so that there are always different type of engines and cars on the track.

Control room for the O gauge model railroad tracks in the museum.

I'm not sure whether or not the crashed plane is a representation of a true event, but I thought it was a really neat detail of the model railroad track they had.

A model crashed bi-plane on the model railroad.

 After touring the inside of the museum, you can go outside and actually board a EMD E8 Diesel-Electric Locomotive that is on display.


Front view of the EMD E8 Diesel-Electric Locomotive on display at the museum.

The EMD E8 Diesel-Electric Locomotive has a diesel engine which runs the on-board generators that power the electric motors that actually drive the wheels.  Most people think it is the diesel engine that drives the wheels.  So in essence, it is an electric train that carries its own power plant.

  

Specification sheet for the EMD E8 Locomotive.

A view of the NYC #3001 through the windshield while inside the cab of the E8 locomotive.

View of NYC #3001.

Below is a picture of the inside cab where the engineer would drive the train engine. 

Engineer / Operator controls inside the cab of the E8 locomotive.

Here is one of the massive pistons that is in the two-stroke diesel V-12 engine for the E8 locomotive. 



One of the pistons out of the V-12 diesel engine in the EMD E8.

Below you can see the size of the piston (just above and to the right of Tia's head) compared to Ethan and Tia.  I had a picture with Misty next to the piston, which was a better comparison, but the expression on her face was less than flattering, so I had to crop the picture above.

Ethan & Tia next to the piston out of the V-12 diesel engine.

Also on display was a Pennsylvania Railroad K-4 Pacific steam engine made entirely out of 421,250 toothpicks built by Terry Woodling of Warsaw.


Toothpick Pennsylvania Railroad K-4 Pacific.

The model took seven years to build with its completion in 1991.

Side view of the Toothpick Pennsylvania Railroad K-4 Pacific.

The 1/6 scale model also has moving parts that include the brakes, side rods, wheels,  and windows.

Close up details for the Toothpick Pennsylvania Railroad K-4 Pacific.

The museum also has plenty of hands on displays such as the miniature tracks that you could stake down.

Ethan and Ian testing their hammering skills while Mother watches closely.

Throughout the entire museum there were train bells that could be rung such as this one that came off of NYC #3001.

Ethan ringing the bell off of the NYC #3001.

I guess the scenes of chasing someone across the roof of any of these trains was not possible since the below warning was stenciled on the wall at both ends of this caboose.

And the doctor said, "No more employees jumping on the bed!" or in this case, the roof.

Just one of the cabooses that was part of the rolling stock at the museum.

Ian, Tia, and Courtney inspecting one of the cabooses at the museum.

The interior is a little rough, but if you use your imagination, you can see that this would have been a good place to take a load off and relax after a hard days work on the railroad.

It would also make a great hunting camp with a little tender loving care and about $2,000.00.

The old caboose ain't what it used to be.

This is what you get when your three year old thinks he is going to go on a train ride, but then discovers that he is not going on a train ride because we missed the last available train for the day.

Avery's reaction after learning that we were not going to go on a train ride today.

All in all we had a very interesting time at the museum and for the most part, everyone enjoyed themselves, including Avery.  He soon got over his disappointment and is moving on with his life.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks blog and found something of interest.  If you are ever in Elkhart, IN and have a chance, make sure you visit the museum.  It is worth it.

Until the next time, may you and all you love be blessed and watched over by the Lord.

Thanks!

Don, Misty, & Kids.

Post It

I guess it is time for me to do another post so you will not forget about us and know we are still doing OK.  Some weeks we do very little of interest so it makes it hard to post about anything.  Other times I have plenty to write about, but just do not feel like doing it, for some reason or another.

Some days run smooth with me working out of the RV and Misty doing the kids schooling.  Then, other days run rough and it seems no matter what we try, nothing works out properly.

Yesterday Tia decided she was not going to do her reading, or any school work for that matter, and would just sit and cry.  All she wanted to do was either go outside or stay in and play with her Barbie.  It finally took Misty putting what little toys we have in the RV into a storage container and threatening to take them out and give to Goodwill or some other charity, for Tia to start to do her work.

The other day we were at Graber Farms, an organic farm, visiting and Tia found a kitten that she took quite a fancy to.   Needless to say, leaving the kitten behind crushed Tia so much that we had to  listen to her cry for approximately 25 minutes. 

Ian, Courtney, Avery, & Tia petting a kitten at Graber Farms.

Tia is not the only one who gives us fits, but she has taken her fair share here lately.

Another item that makes it hard to post at times is the Wi-Fi that is available.  The best scenario is using Wi-Fi at the park rather than my Verizon wireless card which only allows 10GB of data a month.  It is not uncommon for me to go over my data limit when I have to rely only upon my wireless card.  

The problem with most RV parks' Wi-Fi though is that there is not enough bandwidth and it gets really slow, especially in the evenings when everyone gets on the Internet.

Then there is the wireless card, that limits you on how much you can download.  Some people have unlimited accounts due to being grandfathered, but they still get you by throttling once you hit a certain point such as 5 or 10 GB.

But enough about the woes of posting while living in an RV.  These are just excuses that I have to justify why I do not post everyday or on a set schedule.

Today is another beautiful day that we are lucky to have.  The temperature of the air is cool, but the Sun is so warm.  As long as the Sun is shinning on you, you are not cold.

Looking out the front window of the RV on a beautiful day.

Last Saturday we went to the Nappanee Apple Festival in Nappanee, Indiana which claims to be one of the largest festivals in the state.

I can not vouch for the largest claim, but I can tell you that if you buy 2 corn dogs, two onion rings, and 2 Philly cheese subs the total is $34.00, which was more than I feel it was worth.  

Carmel apples were $4.00 while a large bag of cotton candy was $7.00, not to mention the $2.00 bottle of water.  It could be worse and I guess it still was not as expensive as some amusement parks, but when you are buying for eight, the expenses really add up quickly.

Misty, Chloe, Ethan, Ian, Avery, Courtney, Tia, & Adam the Apple.

Carrying on the tradition of visiting  places featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives, we visited our second dive, the South Side Soda Shop & Diner located in Goshen, Indiana, this past weekend.  

We were a little disappointed in the food and atmosphere which made us wonder if the quality was less than when Guy made his visit.   I guess the true test of a restaurant is whether or not you would eat there again, and in the case of this one, we probably would not.  Who knows, someone else may think it is the best place on Earth to eat.

Courtney, Ethan, Tia, Chloe, Don, & Misty (In reflection) at South Side Soda Shop.

A shot of South Side Soda Shop & Diner from Franklin Street.

There are still plenty of sites to see and things to visit upon our few remaining weekends in Indiana.  Such as Fall Festivals scheduled throughout Sept and Oct.

Another neat thing that happened this past week was us being asked to pose for a pool shot for the KOA campground we are staying at.  They wanted a good looking family for the photo, but since we were the only family around, they ended up asking us.  I'm kidding of course.

So here in about a month myself, Ethan, Courtney, Tia, Ian, & Avery will be on this KOA's website posing by the pool.  Misty was not in the shot due to being sick in bed and Chloe was taking a nap.  Once I get a link to the add, I will be sure to post it to the blog.

That's it for this time around, so may God bless you, your family and friends.

Thanks!
Don, Misty, & Kids.

Huggy Bear

Last month we had to put the RV in service to get some warranty work on items that either quit working or broke in one way or another.  No big deal as anyone who has ever owned a RV will know that a house on wheels has many components and sooner or later, they all need repaired or at least maintained.

For some repairs, like loose stitching on our dinette seats, there had to be an appointment made with the furniture manufacture in order to sew it back up.  So we had to stay close to minimize the miles waiting for the repairs along with waiting for a new DVD player for one of the bunk beds.

Busted stitching on our dinette seat.

Here lately we have been staying close to Decatur, IN, where Fleetwood has its service department, so that we can get anything and everything fixed on the coach while it is still under warranty.

So we are limited to how far we travel as we wait for parts to come in and such.  This past month we stayed at Huggy Bear Campground in Middle Point, OH which was about twenty eight miles from Decatur. 

It was a very nice campground with two pools and two fishing lakes, one of which you could swim in too.  We did not really visit a lot of area attractions other than Solomon Farms, an organic farmer's market in Fort Wayne, IN, and the Allen County Museum. I'm not really sure why, but we just did not have the drive this past month.  I think it has to do with us being tied to an area by events out of our control.

The lake we camped next to at Huggy Bear Campground.  Notice the full moon and its reflection.

We were parked on the second lake at Huggy Bear which is about three years old, so the fish where not that big, even though we still had fun and did catch some nice bluegill.

The other side of the lake we stayed on with a nice sunset.

Here is a closeup of the moon reflecting on the lake we were camping on.  We pretty much had our section of the lake to ourselves since there were never a lot of people fishing it.  During the weekends, the campground was pretty much full of campers, but would become a ghost town during the week.

Full moon reflecting on the lake.

Like I said earlier, there were no trophies in the lake, or at least none that we caught, but we had a lot of fun fishing.  Courtney ended up being the one who caught the most while Ian probably caught the largest bass.

Here is a bass I caught on one of our fishing days.  The RV was only about thirty yards from the edge of the water, so we would fish just about everyday.  I would have the poles lined up on a picnic table behind the RV and would grab one, go cast a few times, and if the fish were biting would fish for a while and if the fish did not bite, would put the poles up and find something else to do.

One of the bass I caught while fishing at Huggy Bear.

Ian did not catch a lot of fish but I would say his bass was the largest one caught.  As you can tell from the picture, he was a little bit scared to hold his catch.

Ian and his bass he caught.

Below is one of the bluegills we caught at the lake.  This one was one of the largest we caught with just a few that were bigger.  There were plenty of smaller ones too, and catching any size fish is always better than none at all.

One of the many bluegill we caught on the lake.

Courtney out fished us all in both bass and bluegill.  She just seems to have a natural knack for fishing and has that golden touch.  She also got pretty good at putting night crawlers on her hook by herself.  After a while they need to learn how to do it so that I'm not always having to do it for them.  With four to five kids fishing, if I have to bait all their hooks all the time, I do not get to fish at all.

They all still need to learn to take the fish off the hooks, but at least getting them to bait their own hooks is a start.

Courtney with one of her many fish caught.

I cannot remember if Tia caught any bass, but here is a shot with one of the bluegills she caught.  All of the kids, with the exception of Chloe, caught some type of fish to include Avery.  When Avery caught his first fish, he reeled it into the bank and upon first glance threw his pole down and ran away.  Later on he got over that fear and would get the fish on the bank.

Tia with a bluegill she caught.

I do not think Ethan was all too happy with Courtney catching more than him, but he will just have to deal with it and either get better or learn to accept it.  He also caught a good many fish and had a good time, which is what it is all about.

Ethan releasing one of his bass he caught.

Of course every fish we caught was released back into the lake to be caught again.  Luckily, even though we caught most of them on worms, only a few swallowed the hook which made us have to cut the line so they could be released without killing them.  So no fish that we caught were killed.

Huggy Bear Campground was fun and we had a good time, but now it is time to move to a new location, which I will blog about at  a later time.

God bless and may you and yours be safe.

Don, Misty, & Kids.

Allen County Museum

Today we visited the Allen County Museum in Lima Ohio.  The admission for the museum is a $5.00 suggested donation, so it is a cheap place to visit, and well worth it.

Allen County Museum

The museum has the Children's Discovery Center which has many things for the kids to do.  One neat thing is a telegraph that you can send a telegram across the room with.

The museum has a nice Shay locomotive which was built for use by the Lima Stone Company.  It was manufactured by the Lima Locomotive Works which also made the trains used by CASS Scenic Railroad State Park located in Cass, WV.  

Plaque on Shay Engine 10 at Allen County Museum

Side view of Shay Engine 10

If you are interested in reading more about Shay engines go to Lima Locomotive Works web site or the Shay Locomotives web site to see where all the surviving Shay engines are now.

The museum also had a children's garden with a center gazebo and different sections of interest to walk through and relax in.

Children's Garden at Allen County Museum.

The kids had a fun time playing with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs while we were at the museum in the garden.

Tia, Ian, Misty, Chloe, Avery, & Courtney playing.

Then it was time to sit in the Garden Classroom and learn a thing or two.

Avery, Courtney, Ian, & Tia sitting in the Garden Classroom.

Ethan was not with us during this trip due to staying at a friend's house overnight.  Upon returning home he stated that he expects us to take him to the museum, so I'm sure we will be making a trip back there.

The museum is not the biggest one we have ever been to, but it had a nice mix of displays from Civil War items, John Dillinger's escape from the Allen County jail, and trains to include the John H. Keller Railroad Archives which claims to be one of the largest repositories of railroad history in America.

It is a great place to spend a lazy Sunday evening with your family learning something new or old.

Chloe in the Children's Garden.

Oh, by-the-way, we are in Ohio now just outside of Indiana, waiting on parts for our RV to come in at Fleetwood.  We are getting ready to move again, probably somewhere in Indiana, but who knows for sure.

Until we blog again, God Bless!

Thanks!
Don, Misty, & Kids.

Audubon Zoo

While in New Orleans we also made a visit to the Audubon Zoo, which is located in historic Uptown New Orleans, and had a very pleasant time.

Actually this was one of the most enjoyable zoo visits I think we have ever had with all of the kids.  Normally either Avery is whining about wanting to be pushed in a stroller, or one of the other kids has some issue about something and is complaining the entire visit, or both.

This time Avery was more than happy to trot from one exhibit to another and the kids took turns pushing Chloe in the stroller, so Misty and I could enjoy the sights too.

Actually we forgot the strollers at the RV, but luckily had a tricycle in the Yukon that has a handle so it can be pushed like a stroller.  Worse case we could have rented one from the zoo, but having the tricycle saved us some dough.

In my opinion, any type of zoo worth its salt should have a snake exhibit where you can touch it.  All the kids got to touch the Boa Constrictor that the zoo volunteer was holding.  The snake had a name, but I can not remember it or exactly what specific type of boa it was.

Zoo volunteer with Boa Constrictor

 Another neat thing they got to touch was a cute little Hedge Hog.  

Hedge Hog on display.

 The zoo also had a petting zoo which the kids enjoyed very much. Most children love to pet any type of animal, especially deer, goats, sheep or any animal that has fur.

Ethan petting sheep at the zoo.

Avery, who is not sure what to do next.

Ian, having second thoughts about petting the goat with Tia watching closely.

 Another neat thing the kids got to see and touch was the Australian Blue Tongue Lizard or Skink.  

This lizard is very docile and easily caught by humans and predators alike.  Its main defense is sticking a very blue tongue out of a very pink mouth and hopefully, the contrast in colors will scare off the predator.  It will also make a loud hissing noise in conjunction with sticking out its tongue.

If it does bite I do not think it really breaks the skin, but will leave a bruise since it has pretty strong jaws.

The kids petting an Australian Blue Tongue Lizard (Skink).

 The zoo also had a couple of leucistic alligators on display which were found in the Louisiana swamps in 1987.  Unlike albino alligators, who lack the dark pigment called melanin and have pink eyes, the leucistic alligators are white due to having a white pigment and have blue eyes.  

One of the leucistic alligator on display.

Leucistic alligators have blue eyes unlike an albino alligator who's eyes are pink.

All in all we had a great time at the zoo, even though the temperature was hot and muggy.  They had a couple of misting stations that the kids took full advantage of.

Kids cooling off at misting station.

During the hike through the zoo, the kids had to wrestle one of the alligators that was laying along this trail.  The alligator was of the bronze species type, which is one of the easiest to wrestle with fewer causalities.  It ended up being a draw with the kids leaving the alligator to its business.

Kids wrestling a bronze alligator.

Here the kids decided to pose for a picture with an ancient sculpture in the Amazon section of the zoo or at least I think it was the Amazon.

Courtney, Ian, Tia, Avery, and Ethan posing for the camera.

 One of the last exhibits we viewed while at the zoo was of the primates.  The gorilla below just seemed to sit and watch us, watch him.  Every once and a while he would push the tire a little and just go back to watching us.  We sort of felt bad for him because he looked so bored.

Bored gorilla.

There were many other things we saw at the zoo, which did not make the blog for all sorts of reasons, but we had a very good time and the kids all learned something, which was the main goal of the visit.

As we tour America and see what all it has to offer, the main thing we want our children to know is that you never stop learning. You can always learn something new, even on something you think you know everything about.

Misty and I almost always learn something new or relearn something we knew or forgot on every trip we take with the kids.  As long as they pick up one piece of knowledge, we are happy.

Until next time, may God bless you and yours.

Thanks!
Don, Misty, & Kids.