A Pretty Box full of Cotton

He loves to sit in things

The mighty Illinois

The Illinois River on a rough and choppy fall day, 

Starved Rock state park area

Flood stage.

Under water yet again....

Starved Rock State Park is closed today, 

for obvious reasons. 

This is the parking lot for the visitors center.

 

and this is the entrance to the picnic areas the next day (Sunday, Nov. 1). 

The water is a little higher than yesterday, but the river crested over night and is now going down.

This time around wasn't nearly as bad as last year.

Distractions

I've had a little problem writing lately. 

There seems to be a Willow on my desk.....

Mule drawn barge on the I&M canal

This is an actual size replica of the barges that were used to ship goods along the I&M canal- although this one was modified to carry passengers instead of freight. 

Normally there is a mule pulling the barge from the trail beside the canal with a tow rope, but by the time we arrived, he was taking a break and they were using a motor.  

 

turning into the dock

 

Being shored up

here's a link to the history of the Illinois & Michigan shipping canals:

http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/i&m/main.htm

Blazing Maple

Fall is upon us at last.

The days are shorter, the nights are cold and we've had our first hard frost already. 

The trees are showing their colors. 

We had a quick bout of sleet yesterday, reminding us that the snow will be flying soon.

It's time to put the garden to bed and get ready for another long cold winter.

Train of the Goddesses

The Nebraska Zephyr

Every summer we take a little road trip to the Illinois Railway Museum in a little town called Union, in northern Illinois, to ride old trains.
With the purchase of a family pass, we have our choice of old electric trolleys and diesel passenger trains, and if we hit the right weekend, we can ride one of the steam trains.
Each train is accompanied by volunteers who have donated time and money into restoring these wonderful pieces of history. With each ride, we hear a well rehearsed, and lovingly told history of that particular train.
Then after a few rides, we tour the "barns" where the restoration process is continuing on hundreds of other rail cars and engines. It is exciting to get so close to these giants.
Oh, and to hear them run! To feel the power of that massive diesel when it throttles up and begins to move, and then feel the ground beneath you feet give and vibrate as it rolls slowly past you!
(sorry, got carried away there)
And then our favorite train pulls up to the restored depot (it's everyone else' favorite too, as it can be really hard to get on it at times).
The Nebraska Zephyr, one of a set of twin trainsets built in 1936, and is known as "Train of the Goddesses". Her twin, "Train of the Gods" is presently sitting idle overseas.
She is made of stainless steel, air conditioned and beautiful. She even had a cameo in the 1992 movie "A league of their own", a short part filmed at the museum.
Each of her cars are named after a goddess:
Venus, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, & Juno (there were others, but have been retired)
The last car, Juno, the observation car, is our favorite, along with everyone else. It has large windows and swivel seats, and the end of it comes to a point and is all windows.
Cere is the dining car and for a price, you can reserve a seat and have dinner on the go.
We just might do that someday.
Our last trip to the museum, the Zephyr had had an accident, and was sitting in the barn while several of her articulated cars were off being repaired. Heather had to give her a hug to make her feel better :)

Awwwww!

She is up an running again.