Live steam meet

This was perhaps the high point of the convention for me.  I have never been at a live steam meet and this one was in Sacramento and HUGE.  They had locomotives and rolling stock from around the country running on their 7 1/2" rail system.  Several different scales - but all pulled trains you could sit on and ride along a 6300 foot mainline.  Amazing.

Many of the locos had created all the valves and controls to scale in the loco cabs.  The engineer sits on top of the tender and shovels in cold (small shovel) and adds water from the tender like the real thing.  It was amazing what these folks have built.  I got cheeky and asked the president of the club what a locomotive might cost, and he smiled and said "a second mortgage".  Not gonna happen for me but what a joy to see. 

Next day we drove to the ocean to get out of traffic and flew to Denver the next day.  A wonderful trip.