Another 4-mile walk finds some interesting things along the way.

 Since the cold returns tomorrow and today was the high end of the roller coaster, I set out at noon to see what I could find along the way on one of my discovery missions. One of the things that I was going to be looking for was the red bud tree that was seen from the bus last week. Almost instantly, I began to notice that tree limbs had been butchered one after another. The complaints are well documented as the utility cuts the branches that are under the power lines. The red bud was a casualty.

The seed balls from several Sycamore trees were smashed under the tires that had driven over them between the street and the sidewalk. One tree trunk came up to within 5 feet of the wires and the other side of the trunk towered to some 40-45 feet. From an landscape point of view. It looked awful. So sad. I do understand the need to do the process but that is a whole separate point of view. I just can't understand why the city planted the trees there in the first place. So many of these were city plants. I guess that some one in the department that does that just never thought that the trees would ever grow that high. 

Next. The Atchison,Topeka and Santa Fe tracks, historic in their own right, now part of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, yielded to the city for trains running from the yards that put together double stacked Inter modal trains. Running not far from my house, the trains once blew their whistles. The city went to a no horn crossings that were served by crossing gates.  For years I loved listening to the sound of the trains coming to and fro, Depending on the wind, as a train approached or diminished in distance after passing, I could judge by the sound of the horn if it was approaching one of the two crossings that I live between. Recently, however, I had noted a strange difference in sounds giving the assumption that the trains were always going the same way. Today, I discovered  why that had changed. Atop the two signal poles is a remote controlled whistle operated from the trains traveling in either direction. That is  fixed horns that never move like a locomotive. Mystery solved. 

Years ago I listened to an vinyl album named,"One Stormy Night". It was an amazing recording of sounds of train horns mixed with amazing orchestration of music scores. It was an amazing album in which to listen while reading a good novel, or to study by. As a kid, when our family traveled to my great aunts for a few day, her front porch was the first place that I headed for. She lived on a street--Railroad Street---in fact. Amazingly, that AT&SF train track was the same one some 300 miles north of where I live now. It was a busy two-track line with sidings. My paternal grandfather's farm butted up to an old Missouri & Pacific line. My dad bought a lot in town that had the same train tracks into town that had passed by my grandfathers farm. Dad later sold the lot for one on a hill side where our new house was built. 

Here I am still fascinated with trains and don't mind riding them even today. Now that gas is expensive again, it is likely to rise even more. Selling my car nearly two years ago in favor of the trains and buses here has not been one problem outside of the normal weather delays in ice storms for the light rails. The big diesels run with no problems.In fact, it's been a good move to have sold it when I did.

Across the street was a station selling at $4.05 for unleaded regular. But see the $5.29 in green? That's diesel that delivers your groceries to the stores and why you are paying higher prices for food stuff and the like. It's a double whammy! I can remember the gas wars of the mid 60's when diesel went for $0.04 a gallon and regular gas was selling for $0.17 a gallon. Dad had a rule that I could take the car on Friday nights and go out with my friends. The rule was to bring the car back with equal or more gas than what you found it. My friends would kick in a buck each and I never had a problem with dad about not having left the car short on fuel. $4.00 would fill the car us in those days. The gas wars on the Ohio Michigan border were fairly regular as in Detroit, the Imperial gallon was more than the US gallon in volume so to counter that, the gas wars equaled the playing field.

The remote control horns on either side on the flashing signals solved the mystery as to why the sound never moved in location like it once did when the trains sounded the horns on the locomotive engine.

Most all the sycamore trees seen today all had branches loaded with buds ready to pop open. Next week we are forecast to have mid 70's and lows in the mid 50's for at least a week to 10-day run. That will bring them out as green for sure.