Wednesday morning: We hit rain in Socorro so we turned left and landed in Alamagordo. We stopped by the Alamagordo Toy Train Museum. They have a beautiful red caboose sitting at their entrance. Better yet, just down the road, Micki spotted an old caboose sitting in the field of a salvage yard. I didn't have wheels but was sitting on dollies that looked as old as the caboose. As a kid I was always bringing home lost pets, now I wish I could take home all of the old abandoned cabeese along the way.

I'll try and post photos later.

My train tour book didn't have much to say about the Museum in El Paso, TX, so I almost didn't stop. Glad I did. Met up with Prince who works at the museum and he turned out to be a Prince of a man when it comes to train information. Prince explained to me that Texas is divided into historic zones and his team in El Paso travels west Texas and part of New Mexico helping towns do living history expositions featuring trains. Prince suggested I come along with them this year, which I plan on doing. Their first event is in March.

The El Paso museum has also requested I assist with setting up a storytelling venue using "The Caboose Club" similar to the one in Sacramento, CA.

I hope the next edition of the Train book gives better coverage to the El Paso museum. It is a beautiful facility and their staff is dedicated to family entertainment and education.

Prince loaded me up with lots of Texas train information that I hadn't found through other sources. With new data in hand, we headed east and landed somewhere near the intersection of I-10 & I-20 last night.

Prior to stopping we attempted to get a late night glimpse of one of Prince's suggested stops. We pulled off the freeway and into the twilight zone. The exit dumped us in a black hole. It was so dark and dusty that our headlights were of little use. We followed a railroad track about a quarter of a mile and ended up in the parking lot of of what looked like one of those big cement factories, but the sign proclaimed "Talcum Factory." It seems hard to believe one could get lost in an open area right off the freeway, but the obis was so dark and dusty that we couldn't regain our bearings. After circling and making some wrong turns we finally got back on the freeway and decided to bookmark that one for another day.

(Side thought) Camping when my kids were growing frequently consisted of me taking them into the wilderness with sleeping bags (sometimes a tent) and foraging for frogs, fish and anything we could find to eat. I was convinced that learning to live off the land would be character building. (Must have worked, because they all turned out to be characters) After two nights on the road with the travel trailer I was upset that Internet service was lousy and cell phone reception unpredictable and then I flashed back to the days of having bears and mountain lions come into our campsites. My kids don't recall any outing with me that didn't end up with them coming close to being offered up as a human sacrifices to the God that oversees the naive and green-horn campers. Even with those reflections I would still appreciate better Internet service.

Charles Karault made it look so easy.