Still Riding that train...

The train ride is about 30 minutes to the "end of the line",

The train line originally went to a quarry. It was abandoned in the 20's because of flooding...

When it gets to the end of the line -- they unhook the Locomotive, and it goes onto the second parallel track...ending up at the back of the train _which is now the front)...

Lilly and Warren watched the Locomotive.  During this time, the kids had the run of the train!

The conductor came by and gave us some additional history.

They went back to take a better look at the caboose. 

Those seats were high up. 

For a little extra money, we could have had these seats!

Having benches that face each other was such a civilized way to travel, wasn't it?

Train Pillow Souvenir

The week before our day trip to North Freedom, Lilly and I were shopping at the Goodwill store...and she found the PERFECT gift to give to Warren on that special day.

IT'S A TRAIN PILLOW!! What are the chances, eh? I've never seen one like this...

It looked so real, Warren was thrilled with it.

I figured it would be the perfect momento of this day.

 

Wherever Warren went, the train pillow followed...

Riding on a train is SO DIFFERENT from riding in a car, or on a plane.

You are free to move around -- there are no seatbelts...

Our conductor even encouraged us to hang our heads out the window.

The kids were DELIGHTED to do that.

Hey -- IT WAS A LOT OF FUN!!

The Schuyler Sisters Take a Train Ride

You didn't really think I could go a whole week without talking about Hamilton, did you??

Last week, the kids spent the night on Wednesday night so we could get an early start on our DAY TRIP to North Freedom, Wisconsin.

I'm a big believer in letting children pick out their own clothes whenever possible. Of course, part of my job is PROVIDING THEM WITH multiple and various good choices...lol...

At this moment in time, that means there is a new "Hamilton" shirt showing up in Lilly's room every week or so...

Lilly was delighted to find this new shirt, all stacked and folded on her shelf...

She ended up wearing it on our Train Day Trip.

I sent for this shirt before our Outing Club luncheon about the Schuyler Sisters...but it didn't come in time. No worries... There will be MANY OPPORTUNITIES for Lilly to wear this shirt!!
At the beginning of this little video, Lilly asks me if I can "edit"...because she knows so many of the Hamilton songs now, she has to think for a minute before she starts singing a particular song.

I assured her that I could, indeed, "edit". But we all know I was lying....

North Freedom Train Museum

I'm telling you - North Freedom has some TRAIN GAME, people.  It was a beautiful summer day -- but the weather was perfect.  Sunny and breezy...

this big, long red building is THE MUSEUM.

Warren especially loves "black trains" -- and this one looked exactly like Grandpa's American Flyer!!

Inside the Museum, they do it right...it starts with some displays.

And then -- you can GO UP THE STEPS...and the kids can look in the windows to see inside the train cars.

Warren and Lilly climbed up to see every single car.

In some cars, there were mannequins, doing jobs, or being passengers...

This is an actual SNOWPLOW...from a 1925 train!!

Inside this passenger car -- look at the velvet upholstery....wooden arms...linen headliners!!

Lilly and Warren LOVED seeing all this vintage train equipment.

Of course, I had to take a close up picture of the linens...

John and the kids in front of this giant black train.  It is a terrible picture, but you can't wipe the smile off their faces...It was like they were living inside a snowglobe of his American Flyer world.

Happy 4th of July!!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!

I have many friends who are very discouraged about the state of our nation. But I am not.

Discouraged, that is.  Maybe because I've been listening to HAMILTON non-stop for the last three months, eh?  I cannot help but marvel at how completely amazing it is that America even exists!!

 How does a ragtag volunteer army in need of a shower
Somehow defeat a global superpower?

How do we emerge victorious from the quagmire?
Leave the battlefield waving Betsy Ross’ flag higher?

Really -- it's a good question!! That America won the Revolutionary War was a miracle. Washington's Army was never funded, trained, or supplied...they had resorted to eating their horses (another Hamilton lyric)...

When the smoke cleared -- there was no model for the Founding Fathers to even pattern a government after.  Should they have a King?  A President?  Who decides?  How will that work?  The Constitution was a mess...the country was divided...nobody wanted to pay taxes to a central government...

Well -- you get my drift.  The fact that there even IS a United States of America is a miracle without precedent.

And if you think the Revolutionary War was a tough time for this country -- fast forward to the Civil War.  Can you imagine?  Brother fighting brother...North against South...Over 600,000 men were killed in that conflict.  How does a nation survive that??

But we did.  Survive, that is.

We've survived a lot.  Take the industrial revlolution, for example.

I'm reading the wonderful Doris Kearns Goodwin book about President Theodore Roosevelt --  "The Bully Pulpit".  He only became President because McKinley was assassinated.  At that time, the industrial revolution was in full swing -- and the large trusts and monopolies were running the country.  The way things were going, one man would have owned all the railroads (Vanderbilt), another guy would be our sole banker (Mellon), another man would have owned all the steel mills (Carnegie)...Rockefeller was busy driving all his oil competitors and refineries out of business because he got a secret rebate from Vanderbilt on his railroad fees...

IT WAS A MESS...

Holy Cow...Every industry was moving towards rich men buying up or killing off their competition, making obscene profits at the expense of their starving, disposable workers.  In the mining industry -- children went into the mines when they were 4 years old....and the workers had to live in company houses, being paid in script.  The Beef Trust formed alliances that drove the small businesses out, then, with no competition, they raised prices and forced their workers to 14 hour days in filthy, unhealthy conditions.

Yet, shockingly...America survived.

Hey -- I lived through the 60's, people.  I remember the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy.  Our cities were burning...Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago...

But...once again....after a very dark time...we survived.

Last weekend, I watched a show about Richard Nixon and Watergate??  REMEMBER THAT WHOLE IMPEACHMENT THING??  Oh, yes...that was a very bad time for our country.  We had a President who thought he was above the law.  He actually hired people to perform illegal acts (hundreds of them, apparently) -- and paid millions of dollars out of a secret fund.  WHA??

Here's my point.  America is bigger than we are...and she's stronger than you think.  The very fact that we are free to disagree so completely with one another proves it.

I feel very, very lucky to live in this wonderful, flawed country of ours.  We don't always get it right...

But we do survive...

************

P.S.  Speaking of Betsy Ross -- I think it's just wrong to buy an American Flag that is "made in China."

The other day, I drove to Regalia, a business in Rock Island, Illinois   to buy a few new American flags.  They sell beautiful, quality flags (of all sizes) that are MADE IN AMERICA...and the quality is excellent.   

The Splendid Sampler™ QUILT REVEAL..!

WELCOME TO THE UNVEILING of Linda P's TWO Splendid Sampler quilts!!  F-I-N-A-L-L-Y

This is a rare TMBC picture of Linda P. with her twin daughters, Kim and Whitney.  

Whitney, Kim, and Linda...or is it Kim, Whitney and Linda...?? (don't feel bad, Facebook can't tell them apart either!)

A quick recap: In February 2016, my TMBC crew began sewing the weekly blocks from the internet quilting sensation, The Splendid Sampler™.  Sandy and Linda P. made EVERY SINGLE BLOCK...(there were at least two blocks each week).

Linda did two versions of each block...always planning on making two quilts.  One for Kim (who lives in Texas), and one for Whitney (who lives in Illinois).

Each finished block was quilted individually -- because Linda's plan was to finish the quilts using a Quilt As You Go (QAYG)  method.

Linda decided to use the "embroidered" blocks as cornerstones.

One quilt is done with blue backing fabric (which ends up being the strips between the blocks.)

As you can see, Linda got very accomplished with her hand-embroidery...

We got our first look at both finished quilts at the Iron Range Luncheon

BUT, I wasn't able to share these pictures until after Linda presented the quilts to her daughters!!  And that just happened last weekend.  Linda and Don are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this year -- and the whole family got together, and rented a couple of cottages on a lake.  

They were also celebrating Kim and Whitney's birthday!!

This is the best picture I have of the two quilts, together.  (Kim got the white strips, and Whitney got the quilt with the blue backing/strips).

Kim posted this picture on Facebook!!

GREAT JOB, LINDA. I know her girls were thrilled with their finished quilts. It was an honor to be a witness to this project...
*************
MMWI:  240.4.

Mid-Continent Railway Museum, North Freedom, Wisconsin

First of all -- KUDOS TO GRANDMA for even finding out about this place!! The Mid-Continent Railway Museum is in North Freedom, Wisconsin.

From their website: Take a memorable, seven-mile, 55-minute round-trip train ride on a former branch line of the Chicago and North Western Railway nestled in a valley between the Baraboo Hills in rural Sauk County. Passengers ride in restored steel coaches built a century ago. An authentically-attired conductor will call “all aboard!” before the train leaves from an historic wooden depot, built in 1894. 

Oh, yes. THIS IS GONNA HAPPEN. Looking at Google Maps, it's a 3 hour car ride from our house to North Freedom, Wisconsin. Hummm...that could be on the edge of a doable day trip. But, if Grandpa goes along to drive -- we'll be fine, right? The kids will sleep in the car...WE CAN DO IT..!!

A week before the event, I went to the Mid-Continent website to show the kids where we were going, and what we would do. Neither one of them has much of a concept of a THREE HOUR CAR RIDE...ugh...but the videos of the train ride looked terrific. And Warren is SO CRAZY about trains...oh, yeah...this is gonna be great...

They spent the night on Wednesday. When I woke them up at 7:00 AM Thursday morning, they were both excited about our day trip adventure. Warren put on his new "train" shirt...(a gift from Lilly, who found it last week at the Goodwill store).

We stopped for breakfast in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

Warren made a robot out of the Scrabble tiles.

John kept trying to help him make words...Lilly and I just shook our heads...

WE know how to play Bananagrams...Warren usually makes trains with his letters...we thought robots was a big step up...

The drive up there went fast, almost without a hitch... 

The old-fashioned train depot was perfect.  Like a step back in time...

There were lots of trains on display for the kids to climb on...

They had a nice pavillion, with some simple snacks, soda and bottled water...

A big yard to run around and play in...with this thing...

SO CUTE, EH?

Our little conductor was completely thrilled...with all of it...

They had a snack, ran around, climbed on some trains, had their picture taken...

And then we heard the whistle blow...

THIS is the passenger train car we are about to board!!