After day 1′s crappy weather, the sun on day 2 was quite pleasant. I won’t lie though, in the mountains it was pretty damn cold. My hands were seriously like cold icicles from holding the camera and taking pictures. I had a date with the alpine slide and a crazy zip line down the mountain, before heading to the summit for photos…

I also visited the train station at White River Junction for a few photos, before heading to some antiques place my dad was interested in seeing. There is a museum at the station, the New England Transportation Museum, but I knew it would be closed. They did have a restored engine outside that I was able to see. There was also a scenic train ride, but it didn’t really fit into our schedule.

Best part of the day? Vermont cheese samples everywhere. Cheese, om nom nom.

I’ve been on a little map kick recently – I signed up for Panoramio, so a bunch of the station panoramas from the site now show up in Google Earth. I also made a map on Google of all the locations photographed for the panorama project. Harlem Line stations from the Tuesday Tour have the blue placemarks, and other locations I’ve photographed have the pink placemarks.

And just for kicks, here are two panoramas of the sunset over Interstate-84 around Port Jervis. I took these on the way home from Steamtown in Scranton a few weeks ago.

Yesterday was a pretty great day. On the platform in White Plains at around 5:45, the sun was shining. And all the riders that had formerly been hidden in waiting rooms and other dark places, came out to enjoy the sunlight. I was seriously amazed at how many people were out and about. Of course I had to take pictures.

I also passed out a bunch of cards. At times this was really hard for me. I’m not exactly sure what people think I am like based on what I say in this blog, but I can be incredibly shy at times. When you ride on the train you have a routine. I take the same train, and generally sit in the same seat. And you cross paths with other folks that also have routines. When I see these people often, it isn’t too hard to just go up to them and have a chat. But just going up completely cold, to a person I’ve never seen before, and handing them a card. Well it is a little hard. I was deathly afraid someone was going to totally reject me. I will admit I got a lot of funny looks. But there were also people that really enjoyed it. I even encountered the guy who runs the site TrainJotting and gave him a card. This is only the second time that I’ve been recognized by someone because of my blog. Too funny.

As for this morning, it was a little bit chilly, but it is supposed to be another good day. I haven’t seen any St. Patrick’s drunks yet, but I expect to see that tonight. I did, however, see the guy I refer to as Johnny. He was standing in front of the White Plains station and kept asking people walking in and out whether they wanted to see a baby hawk. He kept pointing. “It’s right there, look!” He pointed to the area over the door where the pigeons enjoy roosting. I only saw pigeons, no hawks. I figured he was joking, because after that he said, “There is a leprechaun up there too! And he was this tall,” as he motions to show that the aforementioned leprechaun was about a foot in height. I got Johnny to produce this amateur sketch:

If you happen to see the leprechaun, please let me know.