Chapter 255: I Hear the Train a Comin'

I bought Bob another fixer-upper truck for his birthday so he can make a bit of money for his car habit. We had to cover the truck seat because the original was torn up so we put the seat on his car lift so save wear and tear on our backs. We've found the lift is great for these kind of projects.

The finished product. 

I met my mother at the Royal Shanghai for lunch. Other than I've survived several years of eating here, I probably wouldn't have set foot in the place. My mother always calls the health department before every visit to see if there have been any infractions and they always come up clean. As a last minute idea, I texted Carissa to see if she wanted to join us and surprise my mother with her first great-grandchild. She was thrilled as she figured she'd never see Reagan so it was great to see her with Reagan. Somehow we didn't forget to take the four-generation photo before we scattered to the four winds.  Reagan had just been crying uncharacteristically hard as if in pain and wasn't very thrilled with this whole operation. As it turns out, Reagan had just sprouted her bottom right incisor. No wonder she was screaming. 

Our neighbor, Ted, passed away and his kids are having a huge estate sale. Since I had a few large items I wanted to get rid of to free up some space, I poached the business from the neighbor's garage sale signs and put some of the larger stuff out. After a day of doing things within eyeshot of the driveway, I walked away with $47 and a pile of stuff at the street with a "FREE" sign on it. It took a couple of days, but the whole pile disappeared. Yay! 

 Saturday we went to LeMay's "America's Car Museum" with both Jaguars. We didn't show them this year, but he did judge this year. Here's our XKE in a long row of other XKEs. This is only about 1/3 of the row of XKEs.

Here's a bit more of the line with the Tacoma Dome in the background. 

I was tallying score sheets so at my lunch break I ran up to the cafe' for lunch and took a gratuitous picture of the museum. You can't see it, but the view of the Tacoma tide flats from the picture window at the end of the building is spectacular.  

Chris and Carissa joined us so Reagan could go to her very first car show. Check out her little cowgirl boots! 

Grampa's trying to get Reagan to imprint on Jaguars. She couldn't sit in the seat by herself because Grampa determined that the leather was too hot for her to sit on.

Here Grampa lets Reagan sit on the back deck of the car. Don't worry, we won't make her ride there like we did our cat or Mitt Romney made his dog ride on the roof of his car.  

Between the show and the awards banquet we went to downtown Tacoma for dinner. Afterwards we saw the Washington State Museum was free, we made a quick walk through. I thought the oxen were kinda cool. 

Go West, young man!  Well actually, maybe you'd better stay in the city with that shark shirt...

      I hear the train a comin'

It's rolling round the bend

   And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when.

"Folsom Prison Blues"

Ok, that's a bit dramatic, I have seen the sunshine recently but the song fit our next activity.

Sunday we cashed in our Groupon coupon for the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad based in Elbe, Washington. Since we've been on several trains around the US, I felt qualified to say this wasn't the best one because we were in the woods a lot, but the endpoint, a train museum in Mineral was good. Mineral was the site of a huge logging camp and timber processor. 

Although it's hard to see in this photo, the mechanicals of this train were dripping with all manner of slime. water, oil, grease, and who knows what else.

At the train depot is the Elbe Church, built in 1903 by German immigrants to the area. Over the door it says "Ev Luth KIRCHE" German for Evangelistic Luthern Church. However, what actually caught my eye was the "KIRCHE" in capital letters over the door. It reminded me of the way Payton says "church".

At the logging camp museum we could only see the tippy top of Mt. Rainier. It doesn't look as monsterous from Mineral as it does from Eatonville or further out. 

 Mt. Rainier from the return trip on the train. I could see fish in the rivers as we crossed the bridges.

 On the way home, Mt. Rainier became full-sized again.

Tonight is the largest supermoon this year. With all the smoke in the air from the forest fires, it was really orange tonight.

This defies explanation...or justification... Thankfully I got this off of Facebook and did not witness this sight in person.