Scattered Thoughts . . .

I n order to catch our train for our departure from Ohio and back to Manhattan, we had to set an alarm for 1:30am so we could get up, check out of our hotel and meet our driver to get us to the train station.  After a very busy, hot, and humid day with a lot of walking, this allowed us only about three hours of sleep before waking up and heading to the train station but our sleeper car beds would be waiting for us on the train.   After shaking the cobwebs out from our short nighttime naps, we made our way down to the hotel lobby just before 2am... The hotel lobby at this hotel is quite memorable with a towering ceiling (see photo below) and its immense size.  I had been here a few times about 40 years ago while traveling with the Air Force and this towering, expansive lobby is something I have always remembered very vividly and very fondly.  Back then, however, this towering lobby had a grand piano in it and this lobby led into a towering bar in the next room....

I 've been feeling worse today than yesterday so I assume I overdid it yesterday.  Some of the ear infection pain has returned and I just feel kind of lousy.  Today was just the second day of antibiotics so I know this will take some time even though I seemed to feel great yesterday for some reason.  Plus, the antibiotics will do nothing for the COVID symptoms that I'm still feeling.  I'd really like to get beyond this ear infection pain though. So, while sitting on my butt today, I managed to put some paint on the couple of buildings I built yesterday for the garden railroad.  They are looking a bit more appropriate now. I applied a Barn Red stain on the little train station and painted the windows and doors white.  It is looking much better now even though I still need to install corrugated roofing panels and some trim... You can see the coal storage silos behind the station in this photo below... I applied a brown stain to the upper structure of the silo...

I don't know if I've mentioned it here in this blog, if so, I'll be repeating myself a bit.  Sheila and I had COVID again.  We both tested negative but at this point we're absolutely certain we've had COVID yet again.  I was at the doctor yesterday and they agree that we've had COVID again. When I got up out of bed yesterday, I was exhausted because I couldn't sleep the previous night due to significant pain.  The entire left side of my head was in unbearable pain.  The pain was radiating from my left ear and affected the entire left hemisphere of my head. I was so dizzy that it was making me extremely nauseated.  I took some Meclizine for the dizziness and some of my usual anti-nausea medication.  Then I took about 1000mg of Tylenol.  I was already loaded up on Aleve but that didn't seem to be touching this pain.  After calling the doctor to make an appointment, I even used a warm compress on my ear.  The combination of everything made...

O n one of our mornings while in Manhattan with Kenzie and Lukey, we went to breakfast across the street from Grand Central Terminal at a place called Pershing Square.  This is perhaps our favorite breakfast spot and, as usual, we had an exceptional breakfast on this morning too.  Even Lukey and Kenzie were impressed with both the food and the service and that is saying something since we were there for perhaps the most informal meal of the day, breakfast.  After breakfast, we walked across 42nd Street and into Grand Central Terminal so I could show the kids one of my favorite train stations.  The kids enjoy visiting train stations so this was a good place for a short tour.   In the photo below, we are walking across 42nd Street to one of the entrances to Grand Central Terminal.  This is probably my favorite entrance because it leads directly into Vanderbilt Hall and then directly into the center of the Main Concourse.   Below, we are heading...

A few evenings ago, we visited the Waterbury train station with Lukey and Kenzie.  It was a day when I was not feeling all that well so I kept things simple in the hopes of an uneventful quick trip downtown.  I didn't bring a heavy camera bag.  I put some emergency medications in my pockets, I grabbed one camera body with one lens, and I grabbed a scanner so we could listen to the chatter on the radio as the Amtrak train approached and departed the station. Both Lukey and Kenzie were happy to be at the train station waiting for the train.  I think we all preferred to be getting on the train to head out-of-town but watching the train arrive and depart would be enough to create some smiling faces and some nice photos... The Amtrak Vermonter from Penn Station in Manhattan was running a little late this night so we had some down time.  There is a park across the street from the train station so the kids wanted to go over to the swings while we waited for the delaye...

Since Sheila's latest bout with cancer, I've been doing all I can to keep her happy and keep her mind off the cancer as best as I can. She had already received a few gifts to lift her spirits throughout treatment but she also expressed that she would like to visit Manhattan for Christmas. Needless to say, we headed down to Manhattan earlier this week to spend some time there while the city is decorated for Christmas.  As usual, we traveled on Amtrak so we didn't need to worry about staying awake while driving nor did we need to worry about where to park the car once we arrived in Manhattan. Amtrak has proven to be a mostly trouble-free way to travel for us. I'll write more about our journey on Amtrak soon.  I picked out an historic hotel and we reserved a good-sized suite by Manhattan standards. The location of this hotel was perfect for our plans... mid-town Manhattan, near all the animated storefront windows decorated for Christmas, near the Empire State Building ...