First Time at 4-H Camp

 This is the first year for our kids in 4-H. My husband participated for many years as a kid, showing animals. I also participated, even though I was a townie and never showed animals. I have fun memories of doing tree leaf collections and baking cookies.

4-H is so much cooler now, with a whole variety of projects. Desert Boy is signed up for a lamb, shooting, legos, and computer coding. Desert Girl is a cloverbud (younger, non-competitive 4-H) and signed up for entomology and flowers.

Other possible 4-H categories include baking, sewing, crafts, model rocketry, outdoor cooking, photography, robotics, welding, woodworking, and more.

There are lots of 4-H meetings, but we've missed them all because we live so far away and currently don't have a local club. But we heard about 4-H camp, which was over the course of three days. We already had other activities planned for the first and third days, but we could attend Saturday, which was Family Day. We drove out to White River Valley and to the unmarked camp, which is on private property. 4-H camp has been held at the same spot for a long time, next to a hot spring. My husband used to go there. A metal building is a new addition and allows for a variety of activities out of the hot sun.

The first activity of the day: an obstacle course. First, get through the spider web.

After making a simulated campfire, run to the pond.

Two swimmers had to swim across and get some rubber duckies. Desert Boy volunteered to be one of the swimmers and did okay. He could really use a swim team, but we'll just have to improvise!

Then they tied themselves together and hobbled through the door. The team that Desert Boy and Desert Girl were on won, and later they got a free icee for their efforts.

Not long after it was lunch time, with some delicious hamburgers.

It was getting hot after lunch, so it was time for a water game. PVC pipes had holes in them, and the kids had to cover the holes with a goal of filling the pipe to the top.

Water kept spilling out of the pan, making it a cold task.

When that was done, it was time to swim! My husband and I looked at the hot spring, which was off limits. The water was quite hot.

First, a group photo.

Then into the pond! The water comes from the hot spring, so is quite pleasant.

The bathtub used to be a soaking place, but it needs a good cleaning.

We enjoyed our day a lot, and the kids begged to stay longer. We could have, as there was a fatal accident on the highway by a construction zone and we were delayed a couple hours. Drive safely!

The kids are already asking about 4-H camp for next summer, and it's tentatively planned for the second weekend in July. Hopefully they can make it and make even more great memories. And maybe next year, more local kids will participate, which will make it even more fun. :)

Nevada Northern Railway--Exploring the Yard and Enginehouse

Note: If you haven't already, you can check out Day 1 and Day 2 posts about the Nevada Northern Railway Winter Steam Shoot.

Sunday morning dawned with scattered clouds, so I got to the East Ely Depot early, about 6:30 a.m. I found the conductor sprinkling salt on the icy surface. We had been hoping for snow, but got freezing rain instead.

Nevertheless, it was turning into a beautiful morning, and I enjoyed wandering around the tracks. The caboose gave a nice burst of color.

The Baggage truck made a nice foreground for the East Ely Depot.

Then I went down to the freight barn. It's been renovated to hold parties.

The coaling tower and water tower caught some of the morning light.

I was surprised to see someone in the Scale House--but the person never moved. Not quite a live person in there!

Photographers were starting to gather in front of the Engine House, waiting for the steam engine to emerge. We still had time, so I kept wandering.

The RIP building, or Restoration in Progress building, is quite impressive. I had seen a photo of it with the windows reflecting a very pretty sunrise, but the clouds didn't quite cooperate this morning.

The end of the building reflects the motto "Safety First."

On the other side of the RIP building I found some of the shops and icy tracks.

There was also an old freight car.

And this cool gizmo--I'm not quite sure what it is.

Here's the Paint Shop.

And another view of the Engine House and Machine Shop complex.

I asked Dale if it was okay to take his photo. He's a frequent visitor to the railway, almost always on his trusty bike.

I wandered back over to the other photographers and we thought we still had more time, so I looked at this machine, which was used to replace old ties.

Yep, the doors are still closed. Why not look around the back?

I found the Wrecker Outfit Shed.

And a couple of old Army locomotives.

And quite a collection of junk. I mentioned before that the Nevada Northern Railway was shut down and just walked away from? It makes it so authentic, and it's on the National Historic Register because of it.

The track symmetry continued to fascinate me.

This is the entrance to the Machine Shop.

And then I saw the door was open! I hurried over to the photo line.

It was super cool watching the steam engine emerge.

It took off and we still had an hour until the train trip, so I decided to explore the Engine House. I went in the door the engine had just come out.

The diesel engines were sitting on the next track.

Back a ways was the Rotary Snow Plow. What a cool piece of equipment.

Then I entered a door marked Blacksmith Shop and I felt like I was in a candy store. It was beautiful! I didn't know what everything was that I was looking at, but I sure felt like I was back in time.

I also checked out this old caboose, which is on the repair list.

And this sign amused me.

I jumped down into the pit so I could get a different view.

It was such a fun exploration, and as part of the Winter Steam Shoot, I was allowed to explore on my own and take as much time as I wanted. It was a lot of fun.

Up next--another train trip in a different direction with some great lighting.

Nevada Northern Railway Winter Steam Shoot - Saturday

After a fun Friday afternoon and evening photographing trains at the Nevada Northern Railway, I was ready to head back Saturday morning for more train photography. I looked out the hotel window bright and early, hoping for a beautiful sunrise, but it was overcast, so I took my time. When I went over to the East Ely Station, I enjoyed a continental breakfast and then watched what was going on out in the yard. First thing as a morning meeting.

Then I wandered along the train tracks, and the good-natured engineer let me snap his photo.

All the photographers walked down the tracks a bit, and the steam engine came towards us, passing the ice house and the bunk house (where you can rent a room for the night).

We had a photo line established by the railroad crossing.

I have to admit, I was more interested in getting photos with people in them. Fortunately the conductor was the eyes for the engineer as the train backed up to do another pass-by.

I was also fascinated by the train wheels. They are slightly hypnotic as they chug along.

The conductor moved to the baggage car.

And I found that making some of the photos black and white made the grey day fade away.

Then it was time to load up for a train trip.

We were in the women's passenger car, with neat looking seats.

I hung out at the back with the conductor. We were actually backing down these tracks, so it was interesting hearing him on the radio with the engineer.

When we got to the tunnel, we all got off and got ready to take some photos.

Someone suggested climbing the hill on the other side of the highway, and I thought that was a great idea. It gave a little different view of the train.

The train almost seemed like a toy train! They moved the train back and forth many times so everyone could try and get the perfect shot.

I came down eventually and we moved the photo line up closer to the now-stationary train.

I took A LOT of photos from various angles.

Since the train wasn't moving, we were allowed on the tracks.

Then the engine produced some extra steam.

Mark Bassett, Executive Director of NNRY, was generous sharing his train knowledge, and a lot of fun to be around.

In a bit it was time to give instructions to the engineer and then we all got on board again for our next photo location.

We stopped at an embankment where we could get some different angles of the train. Again, the skies were really grey, so I liked making the photo black and white to emphasize the train more.

I had two specific kinds of shots I wanted to get during the weekend. One was a panning shot, but it didn't quite work out like I wanted. This ended up being my best attempt.

Since that didn't work out, I didn't mind scrambling up and down to try and get some shots from angles other photographers weren't getting.

I laid down to get this one below.

Then we moved to the Lackawanna crossing and had fun there.

 This was all before a delicious lunch we ate at the station. I had already taken nearly 1,000 photos and was a little overwhelmed. It was good to recharge our batteries (both camera and human!). There was still lots more fun to be had during the weekend.