Nebraska Discoveries 10: Snow Geese

14. March 2010 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 10: Snow Geese · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

For the past 2-3 weeks, it’s been slowly warming here. I wish I had blogged a little more about the extreme bitter cold we experienced here, and the record-after-record-after-record snowfall we had here in the Omaha area since December. I’ll be updating our “Vollmer Weather Curse” post soon with this past winter’s craziness and I promise more details then.

With the ever-so-subtle signs of spring coming, we’re noticing the skies (“skies?” there’s only one sky!) absolutely full of snow geese. Thousands of them flying in their trademark “V” formation…as far as the eye could see across the sky. The first couple times the boys and I have seen them, they were clearly flying north.

I haven’t taken any pictures of the geese migrating (I know, Maryann’s going to murder me!), but I found this blog post that summarizes my first impressions of the geese in the sky, along with a picture of what I’ve been seeing. Note that the post was about the same time of year, just 3 years prior.


At first, I assumed that these were Canada geese. After all, they were loud and prolific, right? But driving down Platteview Rd., which is the way I usually drive from my house to our church and our local shopping center (Shadow Lake Town Center), I saw one of the formations put themselves down on a rural field. Again, since I don’t take pictures while traveling 55 m.p.h. down the road, I’ll just steal this picture here, which pretty accurately captures what I saw:


Wait a sec — those aren’t Canada geese! What are those?

So I went home and consulted my handy-dandy Peterson’s Field Guide…


…and discovered that they’re actually snow geese. Here’s a close up picture (which I again stole from someone else…):

So I read a bit more about snow geese and that was all well and good. Yep, there are a lot of them. Yep, they migrate up the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys in the late winter/early spring towards their summer breeding grounds in extreme northern Canada. Yep, the state of Nebraska has a special extension to their hunting season from February 6 – April 18 of this year expressly to help with the populations of these geese as they continue to grow.

Last week I noticed something strange. I saw more and more “V” formations NOT flying north. I saw some moving west south of our neighborhood. I’m guessing that movement is related to their following the Platte River. We live about 1 1/2 miles north of the Platte River, just before it dumps into the Missouri. I was okay with that explanation.

But what about a couple of “V” formations flying in huge circles? Big circles…like 1/2 mile radius circles. I was driving Timmy to preschool when we saw that happening, so I mentioned it to Mrs. Brown, Timmy’s preschool teacher. She said that snow goose flocks were very territorial and the circling flocks were probably looking for a place to put down near a water source, and were being chased off by other flocks already in place. At the time, the snow hadn’t completely melted, so many food sources were still under snow pack, particularly in the corn and soybean fields.

I do wish I was more a Johnny-on-the-spot with getting pictures of video of these formations. I just got a new iPhone 3GS last week and it has a video capability, so maybe I’ll get lucky that way.

How John Deere Brought My Sons Closer Together….

30. October 2009 · Comments Off on How John Deere Brought My Sons Closer Together…. · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I’ve quite a queue of potential blog posts in my mind…mainly things that have been happening in our lives, and every once in a while something happens about which I think “That would be a fun/funny/silly/insightful blog post.” I think I’ll be improving in the next week or so, as the boys’ soccer seasons wrap up for the fall, and I have my week of 12-hour shifts at my new AF Reserve job behind me.

So here’s one of our lives’ vignettes from this fall…

Lately my sons haven’t been getting along so well. Jacob is in this smug phase, where he feels his lot in life is to constantly correct his little brother about everything!

Timmy: “Mommy, may I have shredded wheat for breakfast?”

Jacob: “Timmy, we don’t have shredded wheat! We have frosted shredded wheat!”

Timmy: “That’s a lie!”

Jacob: “Fine…don’t believe me…go check the pantry yourself…you’ll then see that I’m right. I’m always right!”

I’d love nothing more than to ignore these little jabs, but it’s also happening at school too so I want to continue to work this one out of his system. That’s for another blog…for another day when I can look back on this and laugh…

Anyway, even though my boys aren’t the friendliest towards each other these days, there is something that bonds them like nothing else: tales of death, maiming and destruction! Moms of boys, I’m sure you understand completely! They’re all giggles, truly enjoying each other’s company! It’s hilarious, even though there’s a part of me that wishes they’d be happy with each other over butterflies and puppies instead of how they can kill flies slowly and pour salt over slugs (which Timmy recently learned about).

So here’s a photo gallery from our day at the Nebraska State Fair back over Labor Day weekend. I’ve been wanting to share this and tell the story of how seeing these caution labels on the John Deere equipment was our boys’ favorite part of the State Fair. They begged me to take pictures of their favorite labels, then wanted me to print out the pictures. I talked them out of printing the pictures, thankfully. I didn’t want to have to explain that one at school…

So here are my boys in front of one of the HUGE pieces of John Deere equipment at the farm equipment “museum” at the fair:

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

The boys scoured every square foot of this equipment that they could, as if on a scavenger hunt for caution labels such as these. They’d run around frantically, and one of them found one, you’d hear “I FOUND ONE! OVER HERE!” You’d have thought they found the Holy Grail, they were so excited!

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

I call this one “Mr. Twisty”:

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

Coming soon — Major Mom’s first forays into true “Mom’s Taxi”-hood. Balancing school, soccer, scouts, and piano lessons!

Stupid Mulberries

06. July 2009 · 6 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

As most people know, Nebraska is more or less rolling prarielands, with very very few trees.

The part of Nebraska we’re in has more terrain to it, and it also has some nice wooded areas. Particularly along the Platte and Missouri Rivers. We live about 5 miles north of the Platte, and I guess about 5 miles west of the Missouri, too. Cool.

Anyhoo, we are fortunate to have 3 very tall trees in our backyard. Most of the houses in our neighborhood have a couple tall trees, in fact. We have two honey locust trees on the right, in this picture. The leftmost tree is a white mulberry (I think).

From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries
From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries

We have had many issues with the two locust trees, most recently a night of thunderstorms had us waking up to this large branch dangling:

From 2009 07 04 LocustBranchWindDamage

Yesterday I trimmed the bottom of the branch, to get the leaves off the ground, and we’ll call our property manager to take care of the rest of it this week.

But this post is about what a pain in the rear the mulberry tree has been. We moved into this house on August 1st of last year. I guess we were at the tail end of the mulberry dropping season, there was a little bit of mess, but not a ton. When we got back from our vacation last weekend, our back patio was pock-marked in mulberry stains:

From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries

We love our backyard. The kids have a cool swingset, they have a flat place to play soccer, Star Wars, fetch with Howie, etc. But lately it’s been a pain because they’re tracking in the mulberry ooze, bringing the deep purple juice all through the house, all over the carpets. Dave has been powerwashing our patio every couple days. Here’s the bottom of my running shoe:

From 2009 06 30 StupidMulberries

So now the kids have strict orders to remove their shoes the second they come inside. Usually not a difficult thing, but Saturday night Jacob ran in looking for one of his Nerf guns and didn’t remove his shoes first: a fresh mulberry on the bottom of his shoe left perfect little circular prints all over our family room, stairs and living room as Jacob was searching for his toy.

As for Howie, we have to make him sit as soon as he comes inside, and then take a wet paper towel to wipe his paws. I shampooed the carpets last week, which Howie really enjoyed — really, he seems to like the smell of the Rug Doctor shampoo.

There’s very little else we can do — we’ll just have to keep our grill covered, our patio furniture covered and tend to avoid that part of the backyard until mid-August. Boo.

Nebraska Discoveries 8: Spring….FINALLY! Eastern Nebraska Birding 101

03. May 2009 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 8: Spring….FINALLY! Eastern Nebraska Birding 101 · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Today was a gloriously beautiful day!  I can’t believe I was able to enjoy just about all day outside…I mowed the lawn for the first time this season, worked more on my garden, and planted a couple of containers with annual flowers purchased yesterday from Timmy’s child care center’s fund raiser.  I enlisted Timmy and a couple of neighbor children this evening to “dig for earthworms” in our future-hop-plant plot, thereby loosening the soil for me.  They found some 30 earthworms that I had them deposit in my compost pile…which needs a lot of help this early in the season….

…and I’m still outside and it’s so wonderful I’m going to take a picture with my uber-cool built-in-webcam:
From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder

Ta Da!

Can you see the bird feeders in tbe background? Maybe you can, then again, maybe not…

When we moved into the house in early August of last year, one of my first acts was to hang a birdfeeder on the tree in the backyard.

No action. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. The only birds around seemed to be giant blackbirds and they didn’t eat the black sunflower seeds I offered…

The week I came back from the desert, I saw some small brown birds around in the neighborhood…and that reminded me to re-invigorate my birding efforts.  I went nuts installing feeders all over my yard.  Can you count 6 of them here?  Look REAL closely:

From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder

I remember from North Carolina that inspiring birds to come to your feeder as opposed to someone else’s takes some time and effort.  I had a perfect backyard in North Carolina, with a hedge of wax myrtle about 20 feet behind my house to provide nesting and hiding spots.  It wasn’t until the spring following our arrival — I hung our first feeder right away there, too — that I saw anything worth talking about.

Same as this time…we moved about the same time of year (latter half of July), so it’s now spring and my bird feeders are coming alive with activity.

Of course, being in a new part of the United States means a new group of birds to learn about. In North Carolina I was greeted with house finches, goldfinches, Carolina chickadees, Carolina wren, tufted titmice, myrtle warblers, cardinals and eventually, hummingbirds.

I’ve been once again sleuthing to learn about eastern Nebraska suburban birds. In mid-April all I was seeing were grackles, European starlings, and robins. Since robins don’t really partake of bird seed (they’re mainly carnivores, eating worms instead), and the grackles and starlings were too big, my feeders remained quiet.

Until this week.  I started to see some brown birds feeding routinely, and I saw a downy woodpecker off and on.  I stood inside at my kitchen window with my Canon Digital Elph camera set on 12x zoom and attempted to photograph the bird action so far as best I could….

From 2009 04 16 BirdsInYard
From 2009 04 16 BirdsInYard
From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder
From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder
From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder
From 2009 04 29 BirdOnFeeder

The birds are as follows: downy woodpecker, robin, house sparrow, American pipit or female house sparrow, another house sparrow and common grackle.  Thanks to Maryann for helping me identify the sparrows — definitely a new species for me to identify!

I think I also am seeing a black-and-white warbler hanging out along the tree trunks, especially the rotted out trunk that’s been infested with termites.

The sparrows are definitely telling their friends about this place…there are more and more every day…

This morning I saw my first goldfinch, but didn’t get a chance to photograph any yet.  Maybe in the morning.  I’ve also seen a couple of cardinals, they sit VERY high up in my backyard trees…but when they sing they’re LOUD!

For now, I’m listening to the songs of a pair of robins who sit perched in my tall trees…a regular thing here now and I’ve loving it!

21 Degrees in 2 Hours…

27. December 2008 · Comments Off on 21 Degrees in 2 Hours… · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

…More Nebraska weather fun. A cold front came through and plummeted our temperature from 53F at 9pm to 32F at 11pm.

It got up to 60F today! No jackets! We can see our lawn again! Perhaps today should have been the day to take down the Christmas lights, while we could have stood on the roof without ice on it. Who knows when it’ll be warm enough again…

…snow forecast tomorrow and tomorrow night again…highs in the 20s….

Snow…the Lack of It!

21. November 2008 · Comments Off on Snow…the Lack of It! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

So…now that Dave and I have left the Raleigh, NC area, they’re getting snow! Again!

Meanwhile, we’re still high and dry here in Omaha…but hey, it got down to 10 F this morning!

Those who are closer friends with the Vollmers have heard the stories of the freak weather we bring to every location we’ve lived in since we got married in August 1995. For those who don’t know, here’s the summary:

1.) Ft. Polk, Leesville, and DeRidder, LA. Ice storm, January 1997.

This was pretty daunting. Louisiana flora and fauna didn’t take to this very well, neither did the 101st Airborne soldiers who were in the field doing training during this ice storm. I remember sliding sideways in my car down the hill towards the base weather station.

2.) Seoul, S. Korea. Monsoon flooding, August 1998. (<– See 5th paragraph of this link) We had a Korean citizen working in our weather unit. Mr. Ko. He told us that folklore said that every 11 years, the annual Korea Monsoon is worse than usual. And every 11th of those 11 years, it’s even worse. And 1998 was predicted to be that 121st year. All of us Americans who’d heard this were like, “Yeah, right, whatever…” Well, the folklore was right. It was the worst flooding in everyone’s memory, bridges that bisected Seoul were flooded out, the military was on the verge of deploying thousands of people into the fields for a major exercise and those plans were disrupted. The building Dave and I lived in flooded on the ground floor, and our Saturn flooded a little, too. But we didn’t have it nearly as badly as some of those stationed closer to the DMZ, whose quonset huts filled to the brim! 3.) Beavercreek (Dayton), OH. Xenia Tornado Redux, September 20, 2000.

Most weather weenies know the story of the April 3, 1974 F5 tornado that plowed through Xenia, Ohio. They still debate to this day whether that was the strongest tornado ever measured.

The September 2000 tornado originated very close to our house, and moved AWAY from our house, following a very similar path to the 1974 one. I had asked for a bicycle for my birthday (which was the day after the tornado). We lived near a nice bike trail network, and Xenia was closed to non-resident motor vehicle traffic for about a week. But Dave and I were able to ride our new bikes all over the town and see the damages up close and personal. It was very eerie to see where the tornado had crossed our local bike trail…

4.) Melbourne, FL. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne, August-October 2004.

By this point in our lives, Dave and I knew that strange weather happens when we live somewhere and I feel it contributed to our decision to NOT to buy a house on the barrier islands. Yes, it’s very superstitious, but I’m grateful every day of the wise choice we made when we bought our first house in Florida 5 miles INLAND.

We moved to Florida in spring 2002. As the hurricane seasons of 2002 and 2003 wound down, we started looking at just how long it had been since a hurricane hit the Florida east coast south of Jacksonbille and north of where Hurricane Andrew had hit in 1992. Nearly 100 years, if I remember correctly! As every year since Andrew had passed, Florida was holding its breath for the next “biggie”.

Those storms absolutely decimated houses all over East Central Florida, but our home was spared, except for damaged screens and a blown air conditioner fuse.

5.) Apex (Raleigh), NC. The Apex Chlorine Fire (not really weather), October 2006 and NC’s Worst Drought in over 100 Years, Summer 2007.

We heard the initial explosions from the chlorine storage containers at about 10:30pm, and we saw the glow in the sky from our front porch. It was a pleasant evening, I remember, so we had opened up all the windows in our house, which made it easier to hear the explosions and the emergency vehicles…one after another.

We wasted no time packing the boys, the dog and some provisions and then made haste to Dave’s NC State office near downtown Raleigh. After that, we took a breath, and made follow on arrangements in a hotel in North Raleigh. It was warm the night we evacuated, so the boys were in short pajamas, and I remember having to buy warmer PJs at Walmart for the following night…one of the season’s first cold fronts had passed.

I forfeited part of our reimbursement from the evacuation expenses because I refuse to sign a gag order. I had a 4-year-old and an 18-month old! Who knows if something will come along later that might be related to this?

As for the drought, I’m glad it’s now over. All it took was Dave and me moving out of the area…I’m glad we could help.

6.) Bellevue (Omaha), NE. ??????????? I’m wondering if we’ve shut down the snow here…

If It’s Going to be THIS Cold…

08. November 2008 · Comments Off on If It’s Going to be THIS Cold… · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

It’s friggin’ cold here. Highs in the 30s, lows in the 20s…winds 15-20 knots, gusting into the 30s.

It’s been like this since Thursday. It’s going to be like this for a while.

Okay okay okay…I’m a wuss.

I grew up on the coast. When you live near water, cold temperature spells are pretty short-lived. Even in the coldest part of winter, your below-freezing spells are only 48 hours or so.

I went to college in central Pennsylvania, and that was my first time in my memory spending a long time in cold weather. And I didn’t hear the end of it about what a wuss I was from the native Pennsylvanians and New Englanders who were used to blizzard conditions and weeks-at-a-time of overcast skies.

And in the 14 years since college, only 3 1/2 of those years were spent in cold climates: Seoul, Korea and Dayton, Ohio. The rest of the time was in the sunny South.

Until now. So here we are in Nebraska. Cold.

Long range forecasts are telling of the true arrival of winter. I brought in my plants, noticed all those little black bugs that crawled through my window screens are no longer and it’s time to bring in the porch furniture. Organized the hats, scarves, mittens, gloves, balaclavas and snow pants in our makeshift “mudroom”.

So we’re ready for the snow. If it’s going ot be this cold, at least make it fun with some snow.

PS: I love Calvin and Hobbes, especially the snow-related cartoons. I found this site which has a bunch (but not all) of the snow-series.

Nebraska Discoveries 7: Nebraska Popcorn & A Bright Spot in a Gray Day

22. October 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Today has been gray and rainy all day. Ugh.

Dave is in Michigan for a Google Earth conference. I’m jealous. I love Google Earth and would LOVE to learn how to write code for overlaying data!

So it’s just the boys and me tonight, so we had a laid-back afternoon/evening. We built Legos, ate macaroni and cheese for dinner, popped some popcorn, watched some Return of the Jedi, and had a video teleconference with FotoMom and her son Joey!

I have to share the popcorn experience with you. I picked up an ear of popcorn at the Arbor Day Farm.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

So this is it. About $2 from the souvenir shop.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

I like these instructions! So you can’t sue the company if your microwave explodes?

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

So here’s the popping bag.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

And here’s the popping bag with the ear of corn it in, per the instructions.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

The instructions say to fold down the bag THREE TIMES, which is what I do here.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

The shots of the corn in the microwave popping didn’t come out, but this is the product when it’s done. For starters, I popped this about a minute longer than your standard Pop Secret or Orville Redenbacher’s and it DIDN’T BURN! The first kernels popping sends the cob bouncing in the bag in the oven, which the boys thought was really funny.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

A closeup of the cob — several kernels popped and remained on the cob. Cool!

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

The finished product. The one cob gave us about 1 1/2 commercial bags worth of popped corn. Since this is about as pure as it gets, we had to season it ourselves. All I did in this case was drizzle 2 Tbsp. of melted salted butter on top. Perfection!

So the boys and I sat down and devoured this popcorn while watching the first part of Return of the Jedi. Then Maryann chimed in on AIM and we chatted for a few minutes. After all this time, I never got around to installing our web cam on our desktop computer…it’s a laptop webcam and Dave took the laptop with the software with him to Michigan. So we discussed letting our boys see each other and talk on the AIM webcam:

From 2008 10 21 VideoTeleconWithMaryannJoey

Joey and Timmy are showing each other their toy lightsabers. Joey’s is green (on the main screen) and Timmy’s is blue (on the inset screen). The laptop camera is on the left side of the picture, clipped to the left hand of my running trophy, which you can read about me winning here.

The boys had a blast with this — I put the camera far enough away on the desk that both boys could easily be in Joey’s field of view and they had the best time exchanging stories and telling each other how much they miss each other (awwwww….).

In a rare moment, I was able to get the webcam working in about 10 minutes…that’s the time it took to install the software and configure the video/audio on the webcam. Usually something goes awry when I’m installing new hardware, but tonight we were lucky — I figured I’d be jinxed for sure with 3 little boys’ happiness riding on whether the software installed correctly!

Working Girl

24. September 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

At least for this week…

…and part of next week…

…and a teensy part of the following week.

After a 2 1/2 month hiatus, Monday was my first day of doing any reserve work. My first workday since we moved to Nebraska. I’m working every day this week here in the local area, telecommuting with my Reserve Unit I’m still assigned to in South Carolina.

So I’m sitting in an unoccupied office right downstairs from Dave’s cubicle.

Yes, I have an office…he has a cubicle.

No, not even. He has a desk in a large area. No walls. He’s okay without them…

Anyway, while it’s great to be back doing good stuff for the Air Force, this is Timmy’s indoctrination into a full-time child care center. We’re using one of Offutt Air Force Base’s child development centers, which is a top notch center…the military’s child care center standards are stricter than any of the 50 states, so you know it’s good! We will be able to use the center full time when I take my trip to the desert in January.

In North Carolina, Dave took time off to watch the kids or else one of my friends would watch the boys while I worked. When I worked in Norfolk, my Mom would watch one or both of the boys. Definitely one of the things I miss about living in the east.

Dave dropped off Timmy on Monday and when we picked him up 9 1/2 hours later, he wasted no time telling us what a great time he had. He was even okay with going back again Tuesday.

WOW!

So I got a bit cocky and figured I could drop off Timmy today. I walked him to his classroom (the Purple Room) and he went right over to the circle area where a teacher was reading a story. I said goodbye and walked right out. But then I forgot to leave Timmy’s backpack with his change of clothes. Without thinking I walked right back into the room — Timmy saw me and proclaimed that I can’t leave without him. And he ran over to my leg and made quite the scene.

Thankfully, the teachers were good about peeling him off me and diverting him so I could sneak out.

When I picked him up today, he again seemed okay. He showed me more artwork and talked about some friends he made.

As for Jacob, he’s enrolled in a before/after school care program run by his school. So he goes to school early each morning, and we pick him up at the school once we get home. Jake enjoys going to Kid’s Time with his classmates.

On top of the full time work this week and the full time child care, we still have soccer this week, and I’m still trying to keep the kids fed. Monday was absolutely nuts — I feel like all of my interaction with my boys on Monday was drill sergeant style:

“WAKE UP! TIME TO GET DRESSED!”

“BREAKFAST! WE’RE LEAVING IN SEVEN MINUTES!”

“YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO GET ON YOUR SHOES AND GET IN THE CAR!”

“JACOB, READ ME THESE TWO BOOKS FOR HOMEWORK!”

“YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO WOLF DOWN YOUR PIZZA BEFORE WE LEAVE FOR SOCCER!”

“BATHTIME! BRUSH YOUR TEETH! PAJAMAS! GOOD NIGHT!”

I was exhausted beyond recognition last night — I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow and didn’t feel a thing until my alarm clock went off this morning.

Tonight wasn’t quite like that — no soccer, for starters. I was able to make a nice baked chicken dinner for the family. I did some light house cleaning and caught up on bills. And wrote this blog.

PS: Late next week Dave goes solo — he has both kids and he’s still working, while I hop on a plane and fly to SC for 4 more days of work. I’m playing major catch-up on the workdays, I shouldn’t be required to work again until December after this stint…

Nebraska Discoveries 6: Our Weekend in North Platte

23. September 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 6: Our Weekend in North Platte · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

This past weekend we rented a camper from the Air Force base and drove it 280 miles west of here to the town of North Platte, Nebraska. They were holding their annual “Railfest”, this big Union Pacific Railroad/Town of North Platte celebration weekend. The UP sponsors everything, lots of fun for everyone. There’s a festival at the town park, plus lots of train-related activites throughout the rest of the town.

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

We visited several historic UP locomotives, visited the 8 story Golden Spike observation tower, and got to ride in a little mini-train.

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

For Sunday morning, I made arrangements for tickets for a bus tour of Bailey Yard, the UP’s classification yard. That was one of the most incredible experiences for any railfan, and even *I* found it impressive. Dave writes more about it here.

We drove home right after the tour, taking our times by driving east on U.S. 30 from North Platte to Grand Island (about 115 miles). This way we could parallel the UP tracks and saw at least 20 trains!

As for the camping, once Dave and I got over the initial shock of (a) requiring about 40 gallons of gas to get the camper from Omaha to North Platte and (b) everything you have to do to set up the camper at the RV campsite (water, power, leveling, starting up the fridge), we figured we’d have a relaxing weekend on our hands. I made a nice chicken and rice dinner with our dutch oven, then we toasted marshmallows and made Smores with the campfire.

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

But at 1am Friday night, we were awakened by an alarm bell: the propane detector was telling us “no more propane”, although we hadn’t used any since dinnertime. Actually, a circuit board went bad in the 3-way power converter unit (which is what seamlessly transfers power from battery to AC for the onboard fridge, water pump and lighting)…so overnight the power switched from AC to battery and the battery died.

Dave and I did about an hour’s worth of troubleshooting, between 1-2 am Friday night…and gave up and went back to sleep angry. By Saturday, we just told ourselves we have a big hardened tent. Then we went on and enjoyed the rest of our weekend.

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