Day 2 - The California Zephyr

Woke up in the midwest.

I forget how green the crops are, and how blue the sky is. After a nice breakfast we went back to the viewing car and watched downtown Chicago approach.

Had a few hours to kill in Union Station in Chicago before getting on the California Zephyr for the next leg of our trip. Mostly just camped out in the beautiful main lobby. Ellie napped, yay.

We just rode coach this time, and it was very comfortable (once we got all our junk situated, babies require a lot of stuff). Nearing the Iowa border we got a good view of some of the flooding. The water was literally right up to the tracks in some areas. If it wasn't for the submerged barns, houses, silos, and irrigation equipment in the middle you might have thought it was a very pretty lake.

Crossed the Mississippi into Iowa and arrived in Mount Pleasant only about 40 minutes late.

Pete downloaded the track from the GPS so we could see how far we've come so far. Cool.

Day 1 - The Capital Limited

And we're off! We started out at Union Station in DC. Departure time on the ticket was 4:05. Train left at 4:05 on the dot. We got settled in our tiny sleeper where Pete got the GPS going so we could track our trip.

Then it was off to the viewing car where we got a nice view of downtown Silver Spring on our way out of town.

The rail along the window was the perfect height for Ellie to hold on to, so she had a good time standing up by the window. She did pretty good, but it will be interesting to see if she's any better at this on the way home in two weeks.

Then it was time for a very pleasant (and tasty) dinner in the dining car, where Ellie quickly passed out.

Back to our sleeper car for the night. We played a few games of Yahtzee, watched an X-files episode, and headed to bed, Ellie in her carseat on the bottom bunk with Daddy and me in the top. She slept the entire night.

Google Tag

Another fun idea from Emily. How to play:

* Do a Google image search on the answer to each question
* Choose your favorite from the first page of the results
* Leave a comment here so I can come see what you came up with

{my age}


{where I'd like to travel}


{my favorite place}


{my favorite object}


{my favorite food}


{my favorite animal}


{my favorite color}


{where i was born}


{where i live}


{a past pet}


{a past love}


{my best friend's nickname}


{my screen name}


{my first name}


{my middle name}


{my last name}


{a bad habit}


{my first job}


{my grandma's name}


{my college degree}


{what i'm doing now}


You're it!

Big Baby, Little Baby

It's amazing what 8 months will do for a person.

I swore I would never forget those early foggy days, the days when I thought (very seriously) "Why would anyone ever do this again?" I've forgotten. Not even 8 months and I really can't remember what it was that made me so adamant about being done at one. Oh well, that's probably a good thing. Pain? Lack of sleep? It couldn't have been *that* bad. But it was. I just don't remember why.

Anyway, two of our closest friends had their baby, he's absolutely beautiful. And his parents, well lets just say *they* had *us* over for dinner. I won't post a comparison, but I did not look this together after just a few days.

July 4th

Had some friends over for a barbecue this afternoon. It was a very nice day, not too hot, a touch humid maybe, overcast. We sat outside on the porch for most of the afternoon.

Aunt S gave Ellie her watch to munch on. I'm sure it will dry out in a few days.

Then headed inside for ribs, baked beans, chicken salad, iced tea, and yummy lemon bars for desert.

Ellie looked adorable in her patriotic outfit and her sun hat.

Mr. R tried her hat on too, but he just looked silly.

Ellie was already in bed when the fireworks started going off so we skipped them this year, but we could hear them from the house. This is where I found my big, brave, protector Ilow.

In case you don't recognize it, she's under the crib.

The Gimp

The aim in any photo shoot is to, of course, take the perfect picture the first time. One that doesn't need any color corrections, exposure adjustments, cropping, none of that. I'm going to use the excuse that I don't yet know my camera for why my pictures haven't yet reached that ideal. Until I do figure out how to capture that perfect image, some kind of software is required. Increasingly, I'm finding that the GIMP is all I need. This is a free program, that's right free, that does most of what the more expensive (much more expensive) programs can do. And did I mention that it's free?

It's hard to do it right, and will take almost as much practice as capturing the correctly exposed image to begin with. In the long run it makes more sense to focus on the camera rather than the software. Which is why having something like GIMP makes so much sense. So, until I get this whole lighting, focus, depth thing figured out, I get to say things like "I love the gimp."

As a side note, "Pulp Fiction" is the first movie sound track I owned on CD, as opposed to the first movie sound track I owned on tape, which would be "Beaches." Over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder, anyone?