General Discussion

Fully understood, Quentin! I certainly wouldn't mind spending some time at the Mickey D's with the two of you and check this out for myself--with plenty of trains to use as examples, of course!

With Pat now having a bike of her own, we might come to Muncie prepared to ride next time!

Glad to hear that Jean is doing so well after cataract surgery.

Carl, that would be great....Keep us informed and perhaps this time we can all have a lunch together.

You will find plenty of miles available on our Trail.  Plus 30 now.  Noted they even had the "depot"....{Trail Head}, open this last weekend.  It is normally "staffed" 5 days a week.  That is:  Cardinal Greenway Trail.  I'm sure you can pull it up on the 'net if you care to take a look at info, etc.

Not likely to happen this summer, unfortunately, Quentin.

Looks like you folks got a soaking overnight! Interestingly, this system hasn't hit us yet, but is due to shortly--from the south!

....We'll look forward to when you can make the trip Carl.

And yes, exactly 1 inch in my rain gauge.  Sun is just now trying to break thru after a dark overcast and light rain, morning.

Anyone here heading to the Illinois Rail Museum for Diesel Days 2009?  I think (knock on wood) I talked Misty into going and taking Aedan (of course, that depends on when he arrives) and she sounded enthusiastic about going!  I'm guessing about 2 and a half weeks to go now...better go check the signal board.

Wow! This place is nice! I hope you guy's don't mind me stopping in now, and then.

I haven't been doing all that well. Last night I had horrid chills, and was running a temp of 102.9*. Doc. says I'll make it.

 

Well, on the way home from the doctor dad took me the back way and we met a NS unit grain train.

 

Here NS D9-40CW, and NS SD70M (Ican't make out the # when typing this) come hauling past just outside of Attica.

 

You must have had the chills, Justin--even your writing is blue! Hope you're feeling better now.

Not sure whether they'd hold the CZ as a matter of course, but I have heard of some trains waiting for connections. Two suggestions:

Call "Julie" at Amtrak to check on the progress of your train before you go down to the depot and wait (and wait, and wait...). This won't change things as far as the connection, but it might be reassuring to your family.

Once you board, tell your conductor that you have a connection to make, and check his response. If the timing is going to be close (i.e., a few minutes), he may be able to get them to hold the CZ for you.

Patricia and I have been quite busy, making use of the computer to edit a book that her brother has written. It honestly took me the whole evening to catch up with what Pat had gone through, and at this rate it will be well over a week before we're completely done. Still, if you're into science-fiction and space travel, you might be able to find it on Lulu once we're done with it (I can provide more details, if desired, once the editing is done--it's available on Lulu now, but our edits will be worth the wait!).

Thanks Carl. I will look into that. Mom say's we normally do call "Julie" when we get to the station. We will tell the conductor we have to catch the CZ. I never thought that. I assume that if the train is running 5 hour's late the CZ will not be held up just for us.

I'm doing much better now Carl. Thanks for asking. I was chilling quite badly in fact. I had 2 thick blanket's and a heting pad on high on me. I feel much better now. I'm just typing in these letter's because I was tinkering around and found out how to change font types and color. I already know how to bold.

Have a good day, and weekend everyone!

Wow--today is my grandson's first birthday, and my own baby daughter receives her Master's degree in viola performance.

More to the point for us, though, it's Matt Kohnen's eighth birthday! It's been a pleasure to watch this young guy handle himself at busy spots like Deshler, and to see how the older guys respect him and look after him--he's definitely one of the gang, yet one in a million. Happy birthday, Matt! Hope the weather cooperates over your way, and don't eat too much cake!

Yes Carl, I almost forgot, to Matt! I'll shoot Joe an E-mail, and tell him.

A Really quite hot Indiana summer day here. humid and a cloudless 80*. Oh well, humidaty isn't too bad at the moment and there is a nice cool breeze blowing throught the garage into the house. It is really relaxing.

Matt has a new bike, I'm told--so that means they all have bikes. I'm looking forward to having a fivesome on the Prairie Path between here and Glen Ellyn or Wheaton when they all can head our way.

I also wished my grandson a happy first birthday over the phone. Couldn't understand his reply, but my daughter assures me that he was thanking me for thinking of him. It was enthusiastic enough!

We were close to 80 degrees today, too, and I'll have to take advantage of the lack of rain to tackle our lawn again. With all of the rain we're getting, there's less opportunity for mowing, and more need.

Matt's quite the young man - I think he knows the trains at Deshler better than many of the adults!  With any luck I'll see them again this summer - assuming I can include Deshler in my trip to the eastern midwest.

Happy Birthday, Matt!  I'll save some fries!

How far into the eastern Midwest do you plan on going, Larry? According to Mookie, she's in the True Midwest, which puts Chicago pretty far east. (I've pointed out to her that Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin were once considered the Northwest Territories, but I don't think that convinced her of anything.)

I was able to convey Pat's and my birthday greetings to Matt by phone a few hours ago.

More good news from my younger daughter--she captured two writing awards at her school, one for a paper in musicology and one in music theory (and she's been a performance major!). Also, it appears that we'll be having two family reunions in two days during August, while she and her husband are here from California. The one for Pat's side of the family was the reason they're coming when they are; my family is going to have one the following day, about 40 miles distant. Not sure yet whether my aunt and cousins will be there, but my mother and sisters (and some of my daughters' cousins) will be.

I grew up believing that Michigan was considered part of the midwest.  Out of deference to Madam La Mook, I'll refer to it as the eastern midwest.

As it stands, US23 will probably be close to the limit - venturing a little further west to hit Owosso (chief reason for the trip) and Deshler (for a day or three of camping at a certain diamond), plus some friends in the old stomping grounds.  There's a reunion for the class following ours in August, but that's to far from the big event in Owosso, so I'll be skipping it.  That's unfortunate, 'cause I knew a lot of those kids pretty well.

And I do remember from my Michigan History and Government that Michigan was part of the "Northwest Territory."  In fact, I'm pretty sure that all of the states that made up said territory had their townships laid out exactly the same way - 6 miles square, and referred to based on a baseline and a meridian.  My old hometown was township 2 north, range 7 east, IIRC.  That shows up in deeds all the time.

How could I forget the big events in Owosso?

And quite often a county consisted of about 16 of those townships. The township I grew up in was a little bigger than 6x6, due to water formations, but those dimensions applied to many others in the county. It's the same here in Illinois--our county is roughly square, and I think there are 16 townships in it. We're two from the top on the eastern edge. I could look up the township and range back in Michigan, but I have no idea of how that works here in Illinois. I do know that rural addresses (those not within the limits of any municipality) are based on Chicago's baseline--our section is 19W and 0N.