Today Travalon and I were having a pokey morning when we thought we heard the train horn from the south, so we rushed out to the crossing and saw... nothing. So we headed down toward the Rochelle Railroad Park, stopping in Rockford at the Beef-a-roo for lunch and delicious pistachio shakes. We drove along Highway 20 with a good view of the nuclear power plant to the west, then we got to the Railroad Park and found it crowded with people celebrating a birthday, who may not have cared that much about trains. I quickly ascertained that the guys who were alone and seemed slightly on the autism spectrum were the ones who knew a lot about trains. We talked to one guy, and he was surprisingly friendly. Travalon took videos of the trains that passed by, so I will make those into a movie, throw it onto YouTube, and post the link here. Meanwhile, here are some photos of the amazing graffiti on these trains.
Let's take a break to admire my new opal ring in the sunlight:
This is an engine halfway along a very long train:
The rest of these photos were taken by Travalon on his phone. This is me (wearing the official T-shirt) with an approaching train:
Then we checked out a couple of nearby towns, Creston and Malta, to see where we could watch Big Boy come next month, since Rochelle will be nuts. Travalon heard over thirty thousand people showed up last time it was in town. We saw another train in Malta, then we went back to Rochelle and saw a couple more trains. By then it had cooled down, and it rained a bit so we were in the shelter for the first one and then took a walk around and saw the second one coming from a long way off.
Then we drove back to Rockford and had dinner at the Hope and Anchor British Pub in Loves Park. Travalon ordered the chips and curry, and it was so good that I ate half, and then for our dinner we both got the shrimp-stuffed cod, but I could only eat half of mine. It came with potatoes that I barely touched and mushy peas, and I also had a delicious cherry limeade infused drink. That made me very happy on the way back home, when we took Highway 51 north. There was some road construction in Stoughton, and we got lost trying to find the detour, but then we found this beautifully lit house.
It is very late now, so it must be time for some DuoLingo bragging.
That's a lot of time spent learning languages, but one of the music club owners has been doing it even longer and learning even more languages, so I'm not the only crazy one out there.
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