Swans and More Model Trains

 

I took the day off of work in case I needed to recover from the Brazilian drum extravaganza on Saturday, and Travalon and I set off to see swans. It was very cold this morning, and I wore an outfit that a neighbor said frightened him. Maybe it is kind of weird.

We went to Cherokee Marsh, Tenney Park, and Governor Nelson State Park, and we did see swans at each place. We didn't have time to check out Picnic Point, another place we have seen them in the past, before Travalon had to leave for work. Here are some photos.

In these next few photos, you can see a male merganser with his bright red bill.

And here is the island that doesn't seem to have a name.

This is a family of two adult swans and two juveniles that are gray.

After Travalon left for work, I did a lot of cleaning and felt tired and out of breath... but my FitBit said I had only had two active minutes. What? So since it had warmed up to the high 20's F, I went outside and took a long walk going as fast as I could... and only got two more active minutes. Since I only got seven minutes yesterday, that is eleven for the week so far, and I'm supposed to get 150. Saturday I got 144, so if it were averaged into this week, I'd be fine, but how is my lived experience so different than what FitBit tells me? The walk is especially shocking - how could it be so little active time? It's based on heart rates, and there are some days I just can't get my heart rate up no matter what I do, and others where it's high without me doing anything, just from caffeine or dread or something. Hopefully I get enough this week...

Here are more photos from the model train expo. These are the ones Travalon took.

The next few photos are of a scene with a lot of detail, like the four Beatles walking in the crosswalk on the cover of Abbey Road.

For some reason Jesus was huge in this little world - like literally, he looks about seven feet tall.

And here is the A-Team! Remember them?

And an abominable snowman by the side of a house.

This looks like fields of radishes and cotton.

And here we have a group of hippies.

There were even a couple of trains you could ride, but we didn't. Here is one of them.

Check out the skating rink!

And the Mobile station!

And circus giraffes poking their heads out of a train car.

This is a photo I took and forgot to post yesterday, of a dinosaur snacking on a Prussian soldier.

This set had a whole backstory about how the Prussians were fighting someone else and blew a hole in the time-space continuum so dinosaurs came out and attacked them, and how the museum got some very "well-preserved" dinosaur skeletons during the skirmish, and even today German universities teach about this event as the Wurst Case Scenario.

Here is a video with a lot going on.

Travalon made a number of other videos too. Maybe tomorrow I will try to collect them all, make a big video, and throw it onto YouTube.

Famous Hat