The last day of vacation...

Here we are at Omaha. We're still over 2 hours behind - but there is one last train leaving Chicago for home after we get there, so we should be OK. I hope.

We're stopped at the famous hometown of the fictional Radar O'Rielly.

This is not the engine pulling our train, we have 2 modern diesels pulling us. This was a tribute to the Burlington Northern in one of the small towns we went through.

Well, we're almost home. Finally. We got our tickets switched to the last train, boarded it and headed home. But we did get a nice view of the tallest building in the US...

Mile High

The bright spot in the middle is our next stop, Denver. We hope to get out and stand on solid ground for a bit.

Here we are at Denver. We actually got a chance to stand on solid ground (although it didn't feel that way). I think it was Denver -- the guys on the train said it was Denver, and the lights at the nearby stadium said Colorado Rockies -- so it must have been Denver.

Right?

News from the (rail)road

We're on the California Zephyr, getting ready to enter Colorado -- and I'm using my phone as a modem so I can type like a normal person, instead of texting everything. When we get home (and to a high speed connection) I'll post some of the big pictures I've taken in one big wrap up post. But for now, I think I'll give my phone a rest and log out.

Homeward bound

Today is the day we head for home. As we're driving through the desert into town, I take a picture of the snow topped mountains near Tahoe. A week later this view would be obscured by the smoke from the wildfires that were burning at the time.

Nevada tourist attraction #1 SlotWorld. Most of these places are wall to wall machines -- it saves casino owners money, no dealers to pay, and fewer chances for cheating. They did have table games going on at The Nugget (craps, blackjack, roulette), but most of it was just machines. And we didn't visit a one of them...

Nevada tourist attraction #2 SlutWorld. Yes, there are still legalized brothels in Nevada, but you have to go outside Carson City to find them. The Moonlight Bunny Ranch is featured on the HBO series Cathouse.

OK, I really don't want to know what items you would find in a yard sale at a whore house...

This is a large lake between Carson City and Reno. If you look carefully, you can see grass growing out in the middle of it.

The Famous Reno sign -- it's a lot more interesting at night, but we had a train to catch...

Here we are at the Reno Amtrak station waiting for our train.

Here's our train pulling in.

Playtime

There's not a lot that Decatur does right, but our childrens museum is first rate (as is our zoo). This one is OK, nothing more (but Alex had fun).

The museum is in the old Civic Auditorium, just down the street from all the old state buildings (the old courthouse, mint, etc.)

They still use the stage, but mainly for childrens productions -- they didn't have any going on while we were there though.

Yes, they had circus mirrors -- Laura and I look as if we're trying out for "Little People, Big World".

Alex is a fiend for train tables -- he has a lot of this kind of stuff at home, but I guess it has to be old, broke, dirty, and nailed to a table to be really interesting.

They had the blower experiment (put a ball above a blower, and it will stay floating just above it in the airstream) -- but the balloons they had were to light and went all the way up to the ceiling.

Laurahontas? Sacagalaura? Stands with her glasses crooked?

Horsing around

Bob and Rosa still have horses -- 7 if I counted right. Fortunately, Alex is comfortable around horses, thanks to his weekly riding at STARR. This would be Alex with Lightning and Princess -- the only two horses not related to each other (hence them being in the same pen, if you catch my meaning..)

Virginia City

Wednesday...

Virginia City's main street. Don't see the Cartwrights anywhere though...

Virginia City, here we are! This is where the TV show Bonanza took place -- or was supposed to. In reality, most of the town is set on the side of a mountain, on a fairly steep angle. We took a little train ride on the V&T railroad and nearly collapsed after the climb back up from the train station. I didn't remember it being that steep last time...

We've got pictures of kids doing this same thing in Georgia on the way to Disney World. What can you say, it's a requirement for tourist centers.

Just another view of main street.

St. Mary's of the Mountain -- Sharon's cousin Miguel was married here.

The view from the front, looking back to the north Rose window.

We decided to see the sights, and take a trial ride on a train.

And here we are on the train...

This is the hill we climbed back up from the train station...

And this is the angle the hill was at (as well as the rest of the town).

After a day of tourist sight seeing, we went back and enjoyed this sun set.

If it's Tuesday, it must be Tahoe...

This is the backyard of the ranch.

We each took a turn on the horse -- the animal chosen for this duty was a horse named SnowCap. Here's Laura...

Alex...

Sharon...

Yours Truly... (in case you can't tell, I'm much more comfortable on the steel variety of horse)

The King isn't dead, he's visiting a small horse ranch in north-western Nevada...

Bob and Rosa decided to show us around, so we went up to Reno (and picked up our train tickets home), then went across to California, down to Tahoe (with a short side trip to Squaw Valley) then looped back to Carson city. They're extending the freeway through the mountains from Carson City to Reno -- it's taking a while...

This, of course, is Lake Tahoe...

Another nice view of the lake (that black spot at the top is the sun -- oh the wonderful oddities of digital cameras).

More Tahoe

We stopped by the Tahoe Biltmore for a pitstop and to stretch our legs. Bob and Rosa used to work here (in the good old days)...

Friendly skies

This is the plane we flew on for the first part of our trip. This is also the first plane Alex has ever been on.

They had a dinosaur in the airport at Chicago. Why? who knows, but the kids liked it.

This is the plane that took us from Chicago to Phoenix -- we saw "The Astronaut Farmer" while on the plane. It was nice, because we never got the chance to see it at the theaters, and it ate up a couple hours worth of flight time.

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Here We Go!

Here we are, pulling in at O'Hare International airport.

Next Trip

We'll be taking another big trip in the next day or 7. We will be visiting my wife's aunt and uncle out in Carson City Nevada. We'll be flying out Monday morning, spending a couple of days, then taking the California Zephyr train back home. I'll be posting here while we're gone -- Verizon wireless has full service in Carson City -- although I don't know what I can expect on the train trip home -- we'll see.