"Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life." That is a quote by Bertolt Brecht. He was a German poet and playright, and I have never even heard of him let alone read any of his stuff. He seems to have been very influential in Germany though, particularly pre-war Germany. I don't fear death. I have seen a lot of it over the past few years. My Dad died in 2012, followed by my wife in 2013. I held her in my arms for the last six hours of her life. My cousin died a few months later, followed quickly by my Grandmother. I have seen death, and mine won't bother me... particularly if I can get through it with a minimum of pain for both me and my daughters. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not looking forward to my own demise. Far from it. It's just that I know that everyone dies eventually, and that it is silly to fear the inevitable. The second part of the quote talks about the inadequate life. This worries me a little bit more since I hopefully still have a long time left in front of me. My life, to this point, has not been inadequate to me. I am raising two beautiful daughters. I have been married to a very beautiful wife who I loved dearly. I have had a career that I found stimulating and I have started and ran a successful business for eleven years. I have traveled, seen and done a lot of things. And I plan to do many more in the future, including starting a new business. What I do in the upcoming years is what I fear. What am I willing to give up to achieve my goals? Will I achieve my goals? Will my life be inadequate if I don't reach them? These are worries that will take a hold of my mind on occasion. If you asked me three years ago what my goals were, they would have been different. At that point, I was struggling to raise my daughters at a time when everything was crumbling around me. My goals were to fight through all of the negatives impacting my life, to keep my house, and to keep my daughters happy. I was home schooling the girls and another of my goals was to give them an exceptional education. Not to send them to a school to get it, but to teach them myself from home. For a long time, my wife's illness and her death made me feel inadequate. No matter what I did, I could not seem to help her. Eventually, she died (I do not want to get into it now). I do not blame myself for her death. I tried to the best of my abilities to help her to get sober. Unfortunately, she was battling more demons than just alcohol. Even if I had realized it, I think her problems were well beyond what I could have helped her with. Now that I think of it, we all are responsible for adding the meaning into our own lives. We are all responsible for our own fate. Right now, my life has meaning. It is not necessarily the same meaning I thought it would have when I was younger... or even the same meaning that I could have imagined just three years ago. I know what I am doing now, though. And it is a good feeling. I am sad that my wife isn't here to share it with me. For the meaning in my life would be the same whether she is alive or dead. Looking ahead, my fears are for my daughters and the choices they make as they grow older. No one can give meaning to anyone else's life. We can only hope to guide our children in a way that they can realize what will bring meaning to their lives and encourage them to reach for it. When my wife died, I think she was still searching for her meaning. She had helped to bring two beautiful little girls into this world, and yet she was still searching. Sad. In nineteen hours and five minutes, it will be exactly three years since my wife passed away. As I held her in my arms, I made my wife four promises. I am working hard to make sure all four of them are fulfilled. One has already been fulfilled. A second is close to fruition. The other two are life-long endeavors. I work at those diligently. I miss you Babe. "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,. But I have promises to keep,. And miles to go before I sleep - and miles to go before I sleep." Thinking of you Babe, but I think it is going to be a while before I'm knocking on heavens door, so be patient. In the end, life is what you make it. Make sure you make it adequate. Not so that it impresses other people. But so that it impresses you.
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Aw man, just when you thought you were going to see the last of these posts! HAHA, got ya. It's currently 4:00 am and I'm extremely tired- both of blogging and of my computer shutting my files down on me every time I try to add a photo into a post. I need sleep, I have plans tomorrow. I've felt pretty bad the entirety of the day, too, to make things all the more fun (and I use that word as sarcastically as I possibly can).
So, I'll leave this here and I PROMISE YOU that next week I will be done rambling and complaining and spamming you with photos from our vacation as it fades into the reaches of everyone's memory. It's only taken me an entire month to get this far- why quit now. Here, have a selfie to make up for the length of this post- circa today. IN FACT; have a throwback photo- the first selfie I ever put on Instagram (three years ago) alongside one of present day me. Oh boy, here we go. I've been WAITING to arrive at this part in our trip... Mainly because nothing disappointed me more. Date: 2nd day into our trip. Time: Dinnertime... one of the most crucial times for me, honestly, particularly when traveling. I had been surviving the full day off of various types of caffeine and a bag of Doritos, and I was more than ready for a decent meal. Thankfully (so we thought) there was a "5-star" steakhouse attached to the hotel we were staying at. You'll see what I put the quotation marks around "5-star" in a moment. Ah, take note of the look of absolute joy on my sister's face in the above photo, because rest-assured that it did NOT last when we reached the dining room. Since the restaurant was supposedly fancy and high-end, we both broke out our dresses and really put some effort into our appearances (not saying that we don't to begin with but- we really kicked it up a notch).
Little did we know, we were dressing for disappointment. Upon going downstairs and into the restaurant, we were greeted with a dim (and empty) dining room. Fear not; the restaurant was still open. Spying all the empty tables, we assumed it would be quick and easy, in and out. HA. Nope. We were put on a 30 minute waiting list and sent back into the hotel lobby to gawk at the over-priced and bare-boned menu. When we FINALLY were seated at our table, my sister and I had already been 'sitting pretty' for awhile and we were getting restless. My dad had warned us that it was a fancy restaurant and to keep our manners about us; but we couldn't help but persistently giggle as the adults around us messed up their orders and as the waiter persistently re-filled our water glasses to over-flowing. Let's get to the shitty part of this tale, shall we? The. Food. Enough said. OH MY GOD, it was horrible. My dad knew my sister and I were picky eaters, so for an appetizer he thought he'd play it safe and get us onion rings. Traditional, delicious- nothing could go wrong, right? WRONG! The alleged onion "rings" looked more like gigantic plastic bracelets that had been deep fried and were presented to us as an entire onion. My sister and I grudgingly tried the "rings", but shared expressions of horror and disgust when we bit into them. They were the actual worst. My sister looked like she was about to cry- and now you know why no more photos were taken that night. The meal in and of itself was horrible for everyone. The steaks were all grizzle and everything (including the mashed potatoes and pasta) tasted like it had been soaked in garlic for years on end. It was pungent and disgusting. To top everything off... the presentation of the plate was f*cking TERRIBLE. Right in the middle of the plate (in between the steak and lump of potatoes) was a full, un-chopped cooked carrot. The sight amused everyone at the table but the taste was anything but funny.... unless you consider funny to be almost dying from over-abundance of ginger and needing to choke down a glass of water (courtesy of the ever-looming waiter) in a hurry. The highlight of the night was my sister dumping an entire glass of water across our table after many warnings to not move. Thank you for highlighting the shittiest evening in SF, Ashleigh. Day 2, LET'S GO! Day 2 of our stay led us to the Embarcadero (or however you spell it- even Google is giving me a weird look for that one) and gave me some great picture opportunities. Let's start the day with a selfie and move on from there! Yup, this is what I decided to save for its own post! After resting in our hotel for about an hour upon returning from Chinatown, we decided to take a look at the SFMOMA, and honestly, I really enjoyed myself. I ended up getting in free along with my sister; and for what the place was... it was awesome. I couldn't photograph all the exhibits (I was too busy taking everything in), but I'll post what I have. "Art is the lie that enables us to see reality."Finally, at the very end of the week, I am back to finish off my series of blogs about our train trip. I know, I know... I'm extremely late and well-behind schedule, but don't worry. Just a few more posts and I'll return to my usual short-lived mantras about life, happiness, and rainbows. LET'S GET STARTED! I'll try to make these posts mostly picture-based; as I honestly didn't... well, have a lot to say about our hotel room. Ah, the first day waking up in SF after getting in EXTREMELY late on an empty stomach the night before. Don't let the happy smiles fool you- none of us were in a particularly good mood to start the day. We were less than enthused by our less-than breakfast of regrettable Starbucks sandwiches. The upside to our Starbucks meal was that Chinatown was LITERALLY right across the street- so that's where we went next. At this point in time, I was having no part in family photos. Sorry, guys.
"Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love." Bradley Whitford came up with that little gem. It was a little longer than that when I read it, but I shortened it so that I too, wouldn't be a windbag! So who is Bradley Whitford? He seems to be an actor from the show West Wing and some other TV shows. Nice quote Bradley! This is the best quote I have seen on hope in a long while. Usually people go on and on about how hope sustains them... or how they have abandoned hope... or how its a good breakfast but a poor dinner... blah, blah, blah! What they fail to notice is that hope without action is a waste. If you don't take the steps necessary to chase your hope, you will likely never achieve it. Think about it! If my hope was to win the lottery (it's not), I would never be able to win it, no matter how hard I hoped, if I never actually played the lottery.! That little bit of action was necessary! How can I win it if I do not even have a ticket! That is a very simple example. Let's try one a little more complex. I hope to find a home-based business to start in my spare time and eventually do full time as my way of making a living. Now, that hope would be ridiculous if I never take the time to research home-based businesses or try out different ideas to see what will work. You see, without taking any sort of action, all of our hopes are likely to be dashed, unless they just happen to come about by chance. Are you looking for world peace? Well then start in your own back yard! Be at peace and be peaceful with all of the people you meet. I for one did not join the military when I was younger, nor do I teach my children that they should be coerced into joining either. I hope that my daughters will be happy in life. To that end, I try to spend as much of my time with them as I can. I have taken responsibility for teaching them what I believe is important, and I try to help them to make logical decisions about their choices in life. I try to remember that "what I believe is right for them, may not be what they believe is right for themselves. Career choices are up to them. I do try to encourage them to follow their dreams though... and to take action towards them. In the end, I believe all of their hopes can be achieved, if they are willing to take the actions required for their hopes or dreams. An important factor there is that they actually know the costs necessary to achieve their goal. It is very tough to become a black belt if you don't practice. By practice I mean both going to class and working out at home as well. If you do that consistently, then I believe you can achieve a black belt (I told Maddie and now Ashleigh). I tell them this about other of their hopes and dreams as well. I try to point out what they will need to do to reach those goals. Then I leave it to them to decide if the goal is worth the effort. Take actions people. Examine your hopes. Think about what would be necessary to make them a reality, and then take action! Today I read a new book called ''Grasshopper on the road''. Grasshopper was walking down the road and he saw a bunny. A little bunny. It was eating a carrot. Grasshopper said to the bunny, ''where did you get that carrot?'' The bunny said ''it was laying here, so I just thought I would take a bite. I liked it. But really said the bunny who would leave a good carrot here? ''I do not know,'' said Grasshopper. ''I do not know either',' said the bunny. And Grasshopper walked down the road.
Below is a picture I drew of Mr. Grasshopper walking on the road/ Ashleigh (editor's note: Ashleigh wrote the story above based off of the stories she read in the book.) "Goodness is the only investment that never fails." That's a quote by Henry David Thoreau. I am always a little leery of a person that uses three names. It always rubs me the wrong way. I can't think of any reason why this would be. Other than John Wayne Gacy, I can't think of anyone in particular who was evil and used three names. Well, maybe Hillary Rodham Clinton might fit in that category too. At any rate, I don't really have anything bad to say about old Henry so I might as well get back to the quote.
I can see how it would be easy to think that being good would lead to good results, but this is not always the case. The problem is, that not everybody defines good in the same way. Also, sometimes good won't work... Take addiction, for instance. Addictions are very hard to beat, and although you may think you are doing good you could be doing the opposite without realizing it. My wife had addictive personality disorder. This was just a way of saying that she had many addictions going on simultaneously. While we were married, I only really knew of two of them... while some of the others were there, I just thought they were really odd behavior tied to the two or three things I knew about. The ones I knew about, I naturally tried to help her fight. I would sweep the house for bottles of booze, keep her away from social situations that would trigger bouts of drinking, and try not to say things that would trigger excessive dieting (she was an alcoholic and also fought anorexia). It ends up, the psychologists called me an enabler since I didn't kick her out of the house and tell her that her behavior was unacceptable. Well, for the last three years of her life, Sharon was not in our house. She lived on her own and she only had supervised visits with the children. Listening to the psychologists, you would think that Sharon would have gotten better. "She needed to hit bottom" a number of them said. One went so far as to say that she would not see Sharon anymore since she was not following her instructions. This little end came once Sharon fell off the wagon and had gotten drunk one night. Given Sharon's inability to stop drinking was the key reason we were seeing her, I found this social worker's reason for abandoning working with Sharon pathetic. The one positive thing I will say about working with that particular social worker was, she was the only one to ever diagnose Sharon accurately in my opinion. She is the one that diagnosed her with addictive personality disorder. Up until that point, we thought we were only fighting alcoholism and anorexia/binge eating. So what was really good and what was bad? In this instance I don't really know. I divorced Sharon to protect the girls, since her behavior was getting too erratic and really was dangerous for the baby. The psychologists said I needed to show her there was repercussions for her drinking. Three years after we first separated, Sharon drank herself to death. In those three years she was on her own, she never hit a bottom that couldn't fall deeper. After living through it all, I can say that Sharon needed more help than I could give her... or anyone for that matter. The doctors could not help her, I could not help her, the in-patient and out-patient programs could not help her. She needed to help herself. I feel bad that the last three years of her life was spent without me and her daughters by her side throughout it. To this day, my heart is with Sharon. She was my wife and I loved her deeply. She could not be around our children regularly, because of her drinking... And that hurt her tremendously. It hurt me too, and the girls. Ashleigh was never raised by Sharon. I brought her home from the hospital when she was four days old, and I raised her on my own. Ashleigh still remembers her Mom, but more as a friend who played with her. She was three when Sharon died. Maddie was eleven. The anniversary of Sharon's death comes up in four days. This time always makes me look back and think could I have done anything different that would have helped Sharon. My answer is no. I loved her with all of my heart. I tried to do what I thought was best. Later, I tried to do what the doctors said, even though I did not think it was best. Sometimes, the good can be the bad and the ugly as well. In the end, do what you believe is good, but like anything else, know that sometimes being good isn't going to be enough. I like to play with my red cardinal. She is one of my favorite toys. Her name is Rose. She helps me when I'm having a party for the rest of my family. And she watches me while I do my work.
Ashleigh The idea for this post came from a quote by Paulo Coelho. It's a long one, so I will break it out below. “Ester asked why people are sad. "That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.” To be honest, I thought about this one for a little while before I decided to write about it. I think what the old man says has a lot of wisdom in it. To start, I do think that we all really do try to follow a plan for our lives. Whether it is a plan we created, or whether it was suggested by others doesn't really matter. We all have something we are trying to accomplish. I have a friend who buys new cars constantly. Why? I don't know. I think he may be trying to buy happiness... or self respect. I think he equates his standing in his social group with what car he drives. He is young yet, so I am curious to see how this little drama works out. What I find more interesting, is how did this "plan" for his spare cash come about? What drives him to buy different cars constantly? Is he a prisoner of his own personal history? For me, memories keep me prisoner. As I get along with my day, I will see or hear something that brings back a memory. When they are happy memories, I usually just smile or laugh. Sometimes, I will share them with my daughter if she is nearby because she is very perceptive and can always pick out when I am amused by something, even if I don't think I am showing it on my face. Lately, I have been happy that I have been insanely busy. The last week in July and the first week in August are typically a tough time for me. Sharon was in a coma for the last two weeks of July and then died on August 1, 2013. It will be the third anniversary of her death on Monday. Today was her birthday. She had just turned 38 when she died. For most of the people on the planet, these days are meaningless. I too, try to make them meaningless since my wife is now dead. I try not to think about these days, as anything special, and I try not to "feel" anything on these days. I fail miserably on those points, however. I seem to be a prisoner of my own personal memories. Each year, I try to chip away at the chains those days have on my soul, but I am barely successful.
Although I wonder if others have trouble coping with their pasts (whether at certain times of the year, or always), I know deep down that many do. I also wonder what dreams were put to the wayside because these people were/are prisoners of their pasts. I also wonder if I can answer honestly what dreams of my own have I put on a shelf due to my own mental wardens holding me prisoner in a prison that I created for myself. We all have dreams we have put to the side over the years. Personally, I wonder how many I have put to the side, not because they were not good ideas or were not worthy, but because of a wall I put up around my own beliefs... or because of my own past mistakes. Today, I was a prisoner to my dead wife's birthday. I stayed busy all day, trying to dig myself out of my prison. I almost made it. My tunnel seems to have collapsed, though, so here I am writing this post. For me, there is always tomorrow to start digging myself out again. Don't be a prisoner to your past folks. Follow your dreams, and if you don't currently have any... then make some! In the end, people regret what they don't do or try to do. Make some dreams... or even a bucket list. And then chase them I like to play with my balloon. My balloon is pink and medium sized. It has a point on the top. Daddy and I play with it a lot. We tap it to each other in the air. We play for 8 minutes.
Ashleigh I like playing with my sister. When she is talking to her friends i come in the room. One night i was playing hide-and-go-seek with her I looked every where But! I did not look in Daddy's bath room I said i know you are in there. She came out. She said'' that is not the way you play hide-and-go-seek''. I said I know. But, I still had fun.
Ashleigh One day owl was swimming and he saw a shiny thing in the water. when he got down into the water he opened his eyes and water got into them. Owl went to the store and he saw some eye googles and he bought them. When he went back to see what that was in the water. He got so excited that he forgot to hold his breath and he swam back to the surface sputtering!
Ashleigh (editor's note: This was a story written by Ashleigh. After reading the book, her assignment was to write a short story of her own, similar to the ones she had read i the book.) This is going to be the last post dedicated to the train trip. Not the entire vacation; don't worry- I have plenty left to say about my 3 day stay in San Francisco. This is just going to close out the last bit of the trip that was on the train. I don't have much commentary here, so get ready for some gorgeous photos as we come out of the Sierras and into the outskirts of California. Some of my funny memories from this part of the trip include my dad getting frustrated with our car attendant and being mooned by rafters on the water. Not much to say other than the country was beautiful the whole way across.... and I had no idea how much open terrain there was. Next week, I'll tie up the vacation with a few posts about San Francisco.
"A person's actions will tell you everything you need to know about them... Pay attention!" This is a great quote. And, unfortunately, I have no clue who originally said it. Even so, I believe it is good advice.
I'll give you a couple of examples. Have you ever met someone who would say one thing and then do another? I had a friend who would only say nice things about people in front of their face, but as soon as they were not there, would actively plot against them to cause them grief. When I first saw this in action, I thought that it was only a one off, that something must have happened that I didn't know about and that he must have gotten angry and was just venting. It was not always overt. Sometimes, he would say this stuff to only one person at a time... trying to get them to turn against the other person. Many times, he would lie or use a half truth to get another person angry at his target. But always, he would slowly lead the brunt of a group of friends to turn against the other person. I saw this in action, and I thought that as long as I was cognizant of what he was doing, it would be alright. And that surely the others could see it to. I was wrong. When I brought this up to a couple of the guys, not only could they not see it, but they disagreed with me wholeheartedly... until they were the target of his wrath. Then they began to see what was happening. At one point, he turned his wrath towards me. I knew what was happening, and decided to avoid him. It didn't matter. He would find things to do with the people I usually hung out with to isolate me. Some of the people he would invite to events he didn't even like. He just invited them along to isolate me from members of the group. Luckily, I hung out with a lot of different people, so it did't bother me too much. I was out of college by then and had numerous friends who only vaguely knew of each other. Still, it was a nuisance when I did want to hang with some of my local friends. Well, things got back to normal soon enough, but I never forgot that action, and kept my distance from him as much as I could. I did not trust him. I do not know about you, but I find it hard to remain friends with someone I don't trust. Finally, I saw a situation where his actions could be brought out into the open in front of the whole group. He had set up to go see one of the other guy's girlfriends while we were all hanging out. He didn't know that I overheard him talking on his phone and that I recognized the girl's voice. He feigned a headache, and we left the bar to drive him home since he did not drive his own car to the club. After driving him home (I was driving that night), I drove around the block and waited up a side street with the guy whose girlfriend he was going to see. This guy never could see anything bad in his "friend" and didn't even realize that the other guy really hated him and looked down on him. At any rate, I told the guy that the "kid with the headache was going to leave from his house and go see HIS girlfriend. Naturally, he didn't believe me. "CL" would never do THAT! Well, sure enough, five minutes go by and "CL"'s car came down the other street. He must of saw us when I turned my lights on, because he shot off down the road at an accelerated rate and turned in the opposite direction from my friend's girls house. It didn't matter. I knew where he was going. I told my friend that he was likely going to the liquor store to pick up some beer and that all we had to do was go wait in front of his girlfriend's house. He was skeptical, but we did it. About ten minutes after we got there, "CL" came walking up the street. He was almost next to us before he noticed my car. We were sitting with the windows open and he turned to us and said, "oh, and don't think I didn't see you down that side street, I did!" And he walked away. My friend was stunned, But he believed me. I then told him everything else I had observed and something clicked in his head. He said, "you know, now that you mention it, I have seen him do some different things to towards others"... and he told me what he observed. He had never put two and two together and figured out the whole story. Not only that, he never even realized that he had been targeted that way too. Once word got out about what happened, none of the regular members of the group would hang out with him any longer. That was effectively the end of that group of friends. We all went our separate ways soon after that. I did notice that some guys who were mutual friends of me and "CL" stopped talking to me soon after that. One actually said, he had heard that I had said something nasty about him. I asked him if he believed that, and he said he did, so I ended that friendship right there. I had never said anything even similar to what he said he had heard I said. "CL" was actively trying to protect his position among of friends. At that point, I didn't care. These people and I were friends because I had met them through him anyway. I didn't want to associate with him, and so I did not care if these people did not want to associate with me. I bring this up tonight since one guy contacted me a year or two ago when he saw my name pop up on Facebook. We started chatting every once in a while, but he lived in North Carolina, and I lived in New Hampshire, so we always knew it would just be causal conversations. He brought up that "CL" had visited him last year, when he had been in the area on business trip. He had always been tight with "CL" and he did not know why we all stopped hanging out together (at least I am quite certain he did not know the real reason anyway). At this point in my life, it doesn't matter anyway. After so many years, I do not want to get into a he said/she said kind of situation. I am glad that this guy contacted me over Facebook, and that he leaves whatever happened between me and "CL" between us. In the end, a person's actions do tell you everything you need to know about them... if you pay attention. What you do with that information is up to you. At age fifty, I find it is best to avoid people whose actions are not up to my standards. I have had enough heartbreak in my life. There is no need to invite strife into my life by allowing those with reprehensible actions to enter into my circle of friends. You learn a lot after fifty years. Hopefully, some of you younger readers can learn a life lesson from this story. Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. But I find that the sooner you can make that move, the better. I'm going to take a break from pictures for a moment to just do a bit of an appreciation/bonding post. Over the course of the trip, I did a lot of bonding with my dad, since we were rooming together. We had many hilarious conversations; particularly at night when there were no sights to be seen. While the scenery was gorgeous, some of my best memories on the trip were made in moments and conversations with my dad. So, here is a special post just for you, dad.
Thank you for the late night conversations. Thank you for the unforgettable jokes and comedy routines in the viewing car. Thank you for the butter-fueled childish humor at every meal possible. Thank you for the edible late-night ammunition (if you know what I mean, musket balls, wink wink, nudge nudge) Thank you for all the excitement and good vibes of the entire trip. Thank you for putting up with my poor attitude. Thank you for not being too bothered by my constant showering. Thank you for the non-stop commentary on the people and sights around us. Thank you for teaching me to appreciate nature, and the little things around me. Thank you for not buying a train souvenir blanket. God, that would've been embarrassing. Thank you for putting up with my annoying ass for 3 days while sharing a room with me. Thank you for allowing me to experience the trip of a lifetime. Thank you for everything. I am in no way even close to being finished with mountain photos. I guess I'm not too good at shortening things up... oh well. It's worth all the extra posts. I had missed quite a few anyway, and I have so many to share! The entire experience was too great to not photograph and explain in detail. I'll be entirely honest with you- I have no clue at what point in these photos that the mountains go from being the Rockies to the Sierra Nevadas. I just know that both ranges were beautiful. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is where the Sierras begin.
My sister and I sadly got bored of scenery fast... to give you an idea of that, I'm going to begin this post NOT with scenery but with a handful of selfies we took together. Then, I'll break for a moment to talk about an interesting character I met on the train and finish off with some good scenery. BUCKLE UP! Yeah.... there was a LOT of dining car stupidity. To be honest, I think she and I spent more time on our iPods and iPads than anything else during the trip. Fear not, however- there was no wifi for the last portion of the trip; so we were forced to intake the beauty around us. Speaking of which; I'll show you some more right now. Wondering why you're suddenly seeing a mascot head and not mountains? Well, this was an interesting highlight of my trip, to be honest. You never know who you're going to meet on these trips, and I met an advanced engineer who designs mascot heads and travels to conventions for a living. I didn't ask how he managed to make money doing this, but the mascot head itself was gorgeous and very complex on the inside. Over 640 parts went into it and on top of explaining how the mechanics of it worked, the guy also had some great stories from his times at different conventions and shows. I listened to him for 3-4 hours as the train rolled through the mountains, taking more photos along the way.
We were allowed off the train for the first time in Denver. Even though we had about 30 minutes to get off and walk about; we were very time-conscious and only got off for about 5 minutes. In that time-frame, I snapped this over-head photo of the train station. At this point, we were in a different schedule than most of the trains that make that route due to our four hour delay. This gave us great lighting and a gorgeous view that some people may never have experienced. Admittedly, I didn't take AS many photos in the Rockies because I was too busy absorbing the beauty for myself and listening to the facts about the trip. My dad, however, took many photos... and honestly; as we traveled through the Rockies he was one of the happiest versions of himself that I've ever seen. It was great. It was like watching a child on Christmas.
Since I don't have much more to say, I'll end this post with a few photos I snapped in the dining car. These were taken after my dad and I finished pulling a joke on my grandma... I won't go into embarrassing detail, but it involved butter and was a running joke and highlight of the trip for me. Dad will understand. |
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