It's been a good day, a no-dancing day worth recording, so that when I'm 84 years old, I can bring the feeling back and smile.

I woke up happy, as usual, from a pleasant dream that I can't remember since, again as usual, I didn't write about it soon enough. Another lost plot-line. It was about 7:15 AM and I was hungry, since supper had been an apple and almond butter. (It was raining and I didn't want to pop the top to cook.)

After a quick trip to the bath-house (at a distance of about a tenth of a mile), I un-made my bed to get room to cook. That's one aspect of living in this nice white box: good habits are required! I made a big breakfast: scrambled eggs with red onion, green & red bell pepper and spinach, with a slice of Health-Nut bread and a cup of hot green tea. Ahhh.

As I cooked and ate, I listened to a pod-cast of Bob Edwards' Weekend, where he interviewed Daniel Shorr, now 91 years old. It's a great interview with a very interesting man. The biggest surprise was finding that he'd sung on stage with Frank Zappa! When Zappa asked him what he wanted to sing, he said "Maybe some Gerswin, maybe from Porgy and Bess" and I was hoping for Summertime, but it was "It Ain't Necessarily So". Wonder if I can find a recording of that??

It had rained all night, so I turned on my weather radio to help me plan the day's activity. They predicted showers in the morning but clearing in the afternoon, so I decided to go ahead with my 2 PM railroad ride.

I washed dishes (up at the laundry room) and put the camper back into travel mode, then drove up to the Main Office. There I checked email and chatted with the folks in charge about propane, but decided not to fill up yet. And then I did some unplanned shopping at their little store, since they had everything at half price! I got a tarp that will let me leave more stuff outside when it rains overnight (giving me more living space inside the camper), and plain yellow mustard, and a stand-up battery-operated lantern (which will make late-night outdoor computer work more comfy), and duct tape, and pretzels, and a really thin (i.e. fast drying) beach towel.

Then I made leisurely use of the best (i.e. warmest and cleanest) shower room, even taking time to dry my hair.

The half-hour drive to the Upper Hudson Railroad Station in North Creek was pretty and uneventful. I got there in time to make a sandwich to carry on board (smoked turkey and provolone with tomato and spinach, and peppers on the side). As I started to board I noticed that there was an open car at the end of the train. I walked back out to ask the guys who seemed to be in charge if I could ride there and they said "Sure, if you can stay warm enough". So I went back to the camper for gloves and a wind-breaker to add to my double-layered sweaters. The brakeman noticed my VW and asked me about it, so we spent some minutes chatting about RV issues. I brought the conversation back to trains by telling him that I had my MacBook with me to try to record the sounds of the train. It turns out that he's a Mac user too, and he wished me luck - then offered to ask the engineer if I could sit up front with him when we reached the "turn-around", since there would be really good train sounds happening that I'd miss otherwise. Of course, I said YES!

The ride was downhill from North Creek to Riverside, along the Hudson River. Really beautiful, especially from the open car. It was a bit distracting to run GarageBand on the Mac and take photos too, but I got pretty good at it, and even found time to eat half of my sandwich!

When we got to Riverside, I climbed into the locomotive and settled into the extra seat. Al, the Senior Engineer, was an interesting guy. This is his third career, giving me hope for my third! John was right: the sounds in the locomotive itself were much different from the ones from open car sounds. I hope my recordings come out and that I can find a way to post them.

Here's how it worked. When we reached Riverside, the conductor off-loaded the passengers, who had the 30 minutes to get a snack, visit shops and read up on local history. Then Al pulled the train onto a side-track where John the brakeman uncoupled the locomotive. Next Al moved the locomotive to the other end of the train, using the main track to pass the passenger cars. Pretty cool: this engine is happy to run "forward" or "backward", so no fancy moves were needed. It does make the return trip a little tricky, since Al is now sitting at the wrong end of the locomotive, but that's part of John's job: to help him "see" on the return trip.

The uphill trip back to North Creek was noisier, since the engine had to work so much harder, so it was difficult to hear Tom the conductor continue to tell us about local history and tradition. More folks rode on the open car since the sun had come out and, perhaps, because they now realized it was there :-)

When we got back to the station, one of the women walking back to her car pointed out a rainbow - a nice ending to a ncie day. I hung around while Al and John put the locomotive away so that I could get a photo of them, and give them my web address. They were nice guys who sure made my trip more special. As I drove away, I noticed another rainbow over the river... but by the time I pulled over and got my camera out, it was gone.

It was after 4 PM and getting cold, so I headed on back to the campground. For storage, I have five big boxes: two of clothes, two of paper stuff and one of odds-and-ends. I pulled these out of the camper and covered them with my new tarp, so I had a roomier and more comfortable spot for the night, which was important since it was too cold to walk down to the outdoor cafe and do web-work, as I'd done most nights that I was at that park.

Then I did some repair work on the seal around my front door. "Automotive Goop" and duct tape... hopefully that'll do it! And I took a few photos of this deserted campground, and of myself (the arm's length self-portrait).

For supper I warmed up leftover ground-beef-and-tomatoes and served it with fresh mozzarella cheese - what a great new find that is! As I cooked, I listened to the train sounds - pretty nice, but it's going to take some work to figure out how to save and upload to my website. I also downloaded the 100+ photos. I'm getting better at taking lots of photos and then throwing 70% of them away. Altogether, I think I got a good record of the trip.

For company with dinner, I opened iTunes and listened to some of my four-star songs. I play the 5-stars way too often and as a result am getting tired of them! Some of what I heard: Charlie Daniels doing The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Desperado by the Eagles, Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, My Funny Valentine by Miles Davis, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane, Four Strong Winds by Neil Diamond, One-Trick Pony by Paul Simon, Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin, The Scorpion Departs but Never Returns by Phil Ochs...

I set up the table inside the camper so I that I could read while I ate. I'm about 150 pages into Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Not surprisingly, it's even better than the movies - and the movies were pretty great - so I'm glad it's almost 1000 pages long. To extend my reading time, I enjoyed some hot tea ("Sweet Dreams") and honey.

Then I decided it was, indeed, just too cold to walk all the way to the web-access point (nearly half a mile) so... I decided to write this! Now it's 9:30 PM and getting really cold, so I'm going to make my bed, bundle up for a last walk to the bathhouse (but will defer dish washing to tomorrow), and then plug in my heating pad and get in some more reading before I fall asleep.

PS: There's a little bridge between here and the bathhouse. As I was crossing it, I suddenly realized that the night is clear, so I turned off my flashlight and yes: there they were, the dense stars that I'd hoped to see more often on this trip. Why am I missing them? Well, it's either overcast, or the trees are thick, or I'm too busy or tired to remember to look. Luckily, I was wrapped up well enough (with Aileen's grey blanket on top) that I could stand there awhile and appreciate it. I couldn't identify many constellations... but that was fine.