Scattered Thoughts . . .

While we were in Dayton with our two oldest grandchildren back in June, we visited Young's Dairy in Yellow Springs.  Most of this long Amtrak journey had been a learning experience of science, technology, history and zoos but we wanted to fit in some recreation too so we put aside an afternoon to visit Young's Dairy. This farm has grown significantly since I had lived in Dayton but it still has the same general vibe...  you know it is a farm but there are quite a few things to do.  Of course, it is a dairy so there is homemade ice cream too.   You'd think that the ice cream would have hit the spot on a day that was in the triple digits with humidity close to 100% but, by the time we were ready for some ice cream, we were completely drenched in sweat.  Sitting in the air conditioned creamery while completely soaked with clothes sticking to us was quite uncomfortable!  By this time, the sky had opened up with heavy rain and a passing thunderstorm so sitt...

W e came across this table shown below at the Walther's booth at the Amherst train show last weekend.  Walther's was showing these scenic diorama "islands" with Kato N scale track.  It took me hours of research to finally find this product and I only stumbled upon it by accident while looking for something else!   There was no information on this table indicating what we were looking at so I had to resort to my own research.  What made the searching difficult was the fact that I had no idea who made this product nor did I have a product name.  I eventually stumbled upon this product on Kato's website. These laser cut track bases are made specifically for Kato N scale track.  It is a cool idea but I don't care for Kato track because they use European tie spacing nor do I care for the color of their track.  I don't particularly care for the rail height on Kato track either.  I definitely prefer the tighter US tie spacing and I prefer more reali...