3rd – Stop and Smell the Flowers

Misc:, Walkabout,

Your busy, you have pressing issues, does it really help for you to take a few minutes and stop, even if just momentarily, to look, see and appreciate that which is around you?

Does stopping to see and feel your surrounding calm the restless and bothered soul? Does it mean that you should take a moment and be grateful? To take a moment and relax. Take time for yourself- if even for just for those few moments.

Everyone already knows the expression “stop and smell the roses” is not simply about flowers, but rather about how to fill your life with a deeper appreciation of the world around us. It reminds you to slow down and notice the little things that make life worthwhile. Despite a busy life, it is important to know how to be present in the moment; otherwise those moments will pass you by.

Be present in the moment with the people around you. It’s easier now to multi-task with modern technology, but it often lessens the experience of “being in the moment.” Take the everyday experiences more memorable by sharing them with someone.

By paying more attention to the moment, you experience more about the world around you. Burnout happens because you are constantly reacting to stimuli.  When you unconsciously take a moment, it lessens the reactivity of the mind. Those brief moments reshape your thoughts which will often enable you to have a better sense of how to achieve your goals in daily life.

So, take that deep breath and look around you. While there are things that you wish could be better, be grateful for the things that you have, and the beauty of living. You only have one life to live, and it is yours.

Not sure what this is but I found it to be pretty and interesting.

This certainly looks different when get up “real” close 🙂
Not sure what these are but worth a look.
Pretty Purple
Looks like it has eyes: Who is looking at whom?
It may be just a yellow flower, but when was the last time you took time to “really” look at and appreciate the simple life of a flower?

1st a Fly Day

Fly Days, Walkabout, , ,

Sept 6 -Today we started our “Walk About” in the air checking out the shore line erosion caused by wave action and bluff erosion cause by rain & wind. Thought these sample photos might give you an appreciation of the issue. Also included a view  of the Harbor Shores Jack Nicklaus Golf Course -Benton Harbor, MI and surrounding beach areas.

Cardiac hill climb – If i got down the stairs I would need a helicopter to get back up!
A sample of the bluff erosion North of St. Joseph, MI. 
Shore line pilings and rip/ rap do help minimize shore line erosion, especially of the bluffs. But at a cost!
When the bluffs start to go, they go quickly!
Summer mostly over. Here we see Jean Klock Beach which  boarders the Harbor Shores Jack Nicklaus Golf Course in Benton Harbor, MI
The greens of Harbor Shores–Jack Nicklaus Golf Course -Benton Harbor, MI
Today Silver Beach Parking is not at a premium.
Just about to enter the downwind approach to runway 28 at Benton Harbor Regional Airport. Below is main street in down town Benton Harbor, MI.  

 

Looked for Thomas but could not find him at the Hesston Steam Museum

Miscellaneous Ramblings, Walkabout,

The Hesston Steam Museum is an outdoor museum operated by the Laporte County Historical Steam Society in Hesston Indiana.  It started out on 22 acres but has expanded and now occupies 155 acres.

The grounds includes a fully functional steam driven saw mill, the first electrical plant from the courthouse in LaPorte County, IN,  a Browning steam powered crane and several older steam locomotives.

Its railroad has four different gauge railroad tracks (7 ½”, 14”, 24” and 36”) for the various sized locomotives along with numerous other pieces of steam powered and vintage farm equipment.

If you think you might enjoy stepping back in time for an afternoon, I encourage you to check out the Hesston Steam Museum. I think you’ll like it!

Trains of ALL sizes
67 Ton Shay
Engine No. 2
Into the woods…
Challenger Engine
Checking the coal bunker
A little more modern

Looked for Thomas but could not find him

Misc:, Walkabout

Sept 2, 2019

For the longest time I had been thinking of going to the Hesston Steam Museum in Indiana but never got around to it. Well this labor-day weekend was different in that a friend of mine knew I had never been, called me up and scheduled a day for us to go for a look-see.

Now the Hesston Steam Museum is an outdoor museum operated by the Laporte County Historical Steam Society in Hesston , Indiana. It started out on 22 acres and now occupies 155 acres.

Some of the interesting items to see in working operation includes a steam powered sawmill, the first electric plant powered by steam to provide electric power (60 KW DC current) to the LaPorte County, IN courthouse, a Browning locomotive steam crane, and added several first steam locomotives.

Hesston now has four different gauge railroad tracks beginning with 7 ½” “real small” scale tracks & engines, 14” Miniature Railroad with 1/4 scale locomotives, and a 24” & 36” narrow gauge rails handling full size locomotives like the 1929, 67-ton Shay logging locomotive. As a side note to the trains, their rides are way longer than I would have imagined!! They go through the woods, over bridges, and through fields. It makes you feel like you are on a real train ride!

If this were not enough to go and see, they also have numerous other pieces of steam traction engines, sometimes referred to as a steam tractor, vintage farm equipment and a fully functional rustic blacksmith shop.

Add in Doc’s Soda Fountain, the market building, and concession stands, and you pretty much had everything you could want.  And yep, I’ll be going back there again!

Trains of ALL sizes – small, medium and large 🙂 
Love the cow catcher
A little more modern
Every Body Rides
Just the right size for kids
Checking the coal bunker
Challenger Engine
Modern engine
steaming around the bend
Into the woods…
Engine No. 2
67 Ton Shay
1940’s Engine from europe
Just the right size for budding engineers
This engine is in the barn
Flying Dutchman Switch Engine
Active switch engine
Loved these smaller rail cars
Hand propelled rail cars
Working Blacksmith Shop
Mini-trains in the barn
Kid Train

 

 

Faces of the Nation

Misc:, Miscellaneous Ramblings, Walkabout, ,

Sept 1: Faces of the Nations

A pow wow is a social gathering held by many different Native American communities. A modern pow wow is a specific type of event for Native American people to meet and dance, sing, socialize, and honor their cultures.

Pow wows may be private or public. There is generally a dancing competition, with many different types of traditional dances, music and regalia, often with significant prize money awarded. Pow wows vary in length from a one-day event, to major pow wows called for a special occasion which can be up to one weeklong.

You may have missed it but the 33rd Annual Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow was held over the Labor Day Weekend at the Rodgers Lake Campus in Dowagiac, Michigan.

This event is considered a traditional pow wow. The Band’s long-running Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow during Labor Day weekend is a contest pow wow, where dancers compete before judges in different categories. A traditional pow wow is a lower-key event focused on bringing the community together.

The 10th Annual Oshke Kno Kewéwen Traditional Pow Wow was also held at the Rodgers Lake Campus on May 25-26.
Oshke-Kno-Kewéwen in the Potawatomi language refers to a new eagle staff, which is much like a national flag. The Pokagon Band veterans constructed two eagle staffs, which hold dozens of eagle feathers, each representing a tribal family. This pow wow honors the staffs and the hundreds of Pokagon veterans and past tribal leaders represented on it.

Part family reunion, part traditional ceremony, the Oshke Kno Kewewen Traditional Pow Wow is a time for native people to celebrate their identity and to visit and share with their friends in the greater community and for traditional drum groups to sing their songs, for tribal dancers to perform their steps, and for craftsmen and women to display their handiwork.

There was no entry fee and it was open to the general public. If you have never been to the “Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow” put the Labor Day event on your “list of things to do” I think you will find it very enjoyable and educational. Here are a few Faces of the Nations.

Here are the Faces of the Nation:

Saint Joseph River- Niles Drift Dive

Scuba, Water-Related, , , ,

Aug 30: Diving the Saint Joseph River – Niles, MI

The specific reason for today’s dive in the St. Joseph river was to determine if there were enough items/ trash to support the need for a 2019 Ecology Dive.

We explored the right side for the river as it flows downstream from the upper Bond street park and boat launch down to and under the Grant and West Main street bridges all the way down to the kayak launch behind the Wonderland theater.

Today the visibility averaged 3 feet in most areas of the river. There were a number of fallen trees and debris in many places near shore and out to deeper water that were definite snag, impalement, and entanglement hazards.

The current in many areas was manageable, especially if using a river stick, BUT in several areas approaching the bridges and bends in the river the current was very fast, and you had little control of your movement or path.

We have determined that the river conditions are hazardous for the inexperienced river diver and there is no way we can mitigate these risks and feel comfortable with inviting divers to dive this section of river at this time.

Based on these safety issues the Michigan U/W Divers club is NOT going to have the planned September 2019 Ecology Dive in Niles this year.

With that said, If you need a cell phone just dive the St. Joseph River in Niles. Recovered 4 in today’s drift dive. Almost 5 except the fisherman on the docks went in the water to get his after he dropped it.

 

Upper Bond street park and boat launch
Kayak Launch Point & Walk way behind the Wonderland Theater – Riverview Park, Niles, MI
A few of the small finds during the drift dive includes 4 cell phones.
Todays Divers – fast water experienced!

Eden Springs Park & Trains

Misc:, Miscellaneous Ramblings, Walkabout, ,

I was wandering about getting things done on a typical Saturday when I drove past a sign saying “train rides today” at the old Eden Springs Park. Since I had been meaning to drop by to see what remained of the old park for years, that sign was the trigger that said today was the day to stop.  My not having the gift of gab or oratory expertise,I take stock in the old saying that pictures are worth the provable thousand words so I will let them speak for me.

In 1908, the House of David opened Eden Springs that over the years had a zoo, amphitheater, beer garden, hotel, restaurant, bowling alley, and a mile-long miniature railroad that wound its way around the park, through a corridor of trees, and across two train trestles that span the valley where the amphitheater once stood.

It was closed down in the 70s and became an overgrown patch of woods with crumbling buildings, and though there’s not much more to see now, a lot of progress has been made since the train started running again in 2011.

The land was cleared of brush, one of the depots was renovated and painted, and of course the remaining mini steam engines have been fixed up to run on about a quarter mile of restored track.

In the depo there are binders of photographs that show the park in its heydays and provides you a reference of “What it was” as you tour the grounds.

Eden Springs Engine Shop & House

Path to the trains
Cabins along the path
Eden Springs Park Terminal
Train House – Barn
Station House -Train Boarding Area
Ticket Booth – $3.00 Train Rides
My “Ticket to Ride”
The long iron trail
Train station coming up
Kids at the park
Hodges Hand Cart
He raced the train an won  (they need a big one for “adults” in my opinion)
Never too young to walk the rails
View of the park in the long ago
Park view today
Terrased wall
Wooden Walkway- not available to walk across though.
On the misc paths – looking toward the terminal and train barn.

And here are a few train pictures not normally available to see!

Engine No.7
Engine No. 614
Engine No. 444
Engine controls for No. 00