Crossing the Double Diamonds
I took the boys down to Rochelle, IL again on Sunday. They fell asleep on the way down. When we got to Railroad Park there was a Union Pacific stack train going through the diamonds, so we had to wait before we could cross the tracks. After a Burlington Northern went through on the south side of the park Isaac woke up. He and I got to watch a UP auto train go through before Nathan joined us in the land of the living. We got out of the van and went down to the little locomotive that sits at the entrance to the park so they could play for a while. Watched some more trains and then went up to the picnic shelter. We always walk right through the shelter on our way down to the hobo fire pit, which is where I shot this picture. Nathan met another little boy about his age with a Thomas shirt, so they played for a while until the boys decided to go back to the locomotive to play together. Isaac and I and the boy's grandpa then headed back to the other end of the park.
I had finally decided that we should head back home, so I announced we'd stay for one more train. We heard a whistle off in the distance almost immediately. Pretty soon we heard another whistle that sounded like it was coming from the other direction. We figured there were two UP's coming at the same time, until we heard a third whistle on the BNSF line. What started out as a "we'll leave after the next train" turned into "we'll leave after the next three trains." Sure enough, the BNSF came blasting through, followed immediately by two UP's! We thought it was a great way to end our afternoon and got the boys buckled in, only to hear another whistle behind us. I quickly got in, turned the van around so we were facing the BNSF line, and we enjoyed one more train heading west toward the Mississippi! All in all, a very cool way to end the afternoon!
Originally posted at The Dad's Group.
posted by Bob @ 2:50 AM
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