Good morning. The same breakfast as every day.
I think it's time to clean parts of the layout. I noticed the building roofs and train cars have a layer of dust on them. I clean the track fairly often, but I have neglected the scenery.
Tomorrow will be the first time in six months we will go to church. We also will go to our favorite restaurant for the first time in months. Both will have people spread out, but it will be nice to get a small taste of normalcy.
While this time is unprecedented for us, I am reminded of my parents' youth.
My father and mother were both born before 1920. Their early life was difficult, but nothing prepared them for their teenage years in the depression. During our pandemic time, we are living mostly normal but isolated lives. My parents' lives were not normal, as they often had very little to eat, their parents had no money, and the future looked bleak.
Finally, my father joined the army. His enlistment was nearly up when December 7th hit. He spent another four years traveling from army camp to army camp in the U.S. and the UK before landing in France. He spent the next year in mud and snow and fighting.
Basically, my parents lived through 15 years of horrible times, with much of it looking forward to a dark future.
When this pandemic gets me upset at my situation, it does me good to think of what my parents and millions of others went through back then. In spite of illness and masks and and toilet paper shortages, we are in a thousand times better situation than our parents or grandparents lived through. Enough of my ramblings.
One of the national parks I've never visited is Theodore Roosevelt Nat. Park in North Dakota. Since my wife doesn't really like traveling anymore, I think I will try to get there by myself. It's a little over a day's drive, so it will probably take several days. I want to do some hiking there, and I'd like to see why Roosevelt picked that place to set up his ranch. He loved it there, and I'm glad the U.S. preserved it.
It seems like the diner and some the other forum sites have been a little quiet lately. Hopefully posters who have taken a break will rejoin us. This forum has been a special retreat for me during the lockdown.
My computer updated last week, and it will no longer save any passwords, on any browser. I finally decided to do what should have been done a long while ago -- I installed a password manager. Now I only need one password for the manager. It encrypts all other passwords and automatically connects me with the sites I use. It even makes its own passwords out of strings of characters with no patterns. It also syncs with any other device, so my days of password problems are hopefully over. I just hope I don't forget the one password I need. There is no way to get it back if I don't remember it.
My little town has five RR crossings in about 1½ miles. We finally made the crossings into a quiet zone. I think I am probably the only one here who misses the sounds of the train horns. Since the coal trains have decreased, we are getting only 25 or 30 trains each day. Ten years ago we were getting over 80 per day, all blowing the horns at all the crossings all hours of the day.
I've typed quite a bit today. I hope no one minds.
Have a good day, everyone.