Summer Jams

Here in Michigan, and I'm assuming in other places as well, we're having a very peculiar winter. Usually, by this time of the year, I would have to wear a balaclava under my helmet just to ride my bike. However, this year, our winter has been both too cold to ride at one time, and so warm that I hardly needed a jacket this past weekend. We seem to have settled between the 30-40 F range for the most part, which is still unseasonably warm. For the first time in my life, I felt a type of winter melancholy creep in the moment the trees became bare despite the mildness and my usual ability to enjoy Michigan's wide range of weather.

Monroe, MI

Early in January, I went to a model train swap meet with a high school friend and a few of his modeling buddies.  We rode in a pristine 2001 Ford Excursion with 260,000 miles on it all the way to Monroe, MI and proceeded to spend a few hours at the place poking around.  I'm new to modeling trains but seeing as trains were one of the first interests I had in life, I felt more than ready to start.  At the moment, there's too much for me to make sense of except for the fact that good stuff is readily accessible.  Apparently, Hot wheels made 1:87 scale (HO) cars.  I thought my favorite scale was S scale (1:64) because it matched with the hundreds of Hot wheels I already have, but it doesn't seem very common at all.

Favorite Steam Locomotives

I've loved trains, especially steam locomotives, since even before I got into cars.  The strange thing about this is that while my car hobby exploded into an almost all-encompassing obsession that nearly takes over my life, I haven't learned nearly as much about trains in the meantime.  This could be in part by the fact that cars are much easier for me to relate to: I see them daily, ride or drive them daily, and classic or otherwise significant cars aren't all that rare.  I can safely bet that on an average day here in Michigan, it's more likely that I see a car I love than it is to see even a regular freight train on the tracks down my street.

Allegheny #1601, one of the batch of the heaviest, most powerful steam locomotives ever built on display at The Henry Ford

Image from www.rgusrail.com/