A Day Off!

Today was my first day off in the past two weeks. It was quite nice. As I mentioned previously, I worked last Sunday, for the dedication of the new Draper Temple. That was nice, but it was definitely better to not have to work at all.

My Dad has kept detailed records of every train ride I have ever been on since the day I was born. He has kept similar records of every ship I have sailed on and every airplane I have flown on. The train to me is the most interesting, so I was looking over that a little bit this evening. I am surprised, even having traveled on nearly 1,200 trains and tens of thousands of miles, how well I still remember almost every trip, even seemingly ordinary ones, I remember with detail that surprised me. In these records, the origin, destination, railroad, and date are all recorded. Occasionally other notes are added, such as when I have been the operator of the train, or when the train has been overnight. Because of this detail, one can easily figure out the mileage for every trip, and find out how many miles have been covered. I have been working on that a little whenever I have some free time. I still have about 400 more trips to go through before I will have totaled all of them. As I decided I was done working on this for today, I began looking at some of my earliest train rides. My very first trip was from Mineola to Roslyn, on the Long Island Railroad. It was not long, and it was to visit my great-grandfather, who was in the nursing home at the time. I do not remember anything about that trip, because I was five months old. That was a while ago! After that round trip, my next ride was with Karen, on a trip into Boston. She was nine months old, and I doubt she remembers that trip, but I actually do remember just a couple of things from that, even though I was only two. Rather than a detailed memory of the trip, I just have a few image-like memories from it. As I continued browsing the list, I found that there were several trips I went on with just my dad, which I do not remember. The next one I remember is again with Karen, about a year later. Again, I just have a few memories of that one, but more than the first. I did not remember where went, just that we rode the Orange Line, in Boston. As it turned out, we only went one stop, about a quarter of a mile. It was not a long trip. I really do not remember much besides getting on the Orange Line, with my Dad holding Karen, who was about a year and a half old then. I remember the trips when I was not alone with my Dad better. I am sure there are pictures of all the other trips I went on, which I do not remember, and I would like to see them now. There was one, when I was just over a year old, where we went to Oyster Bay, which still is a fun trip for the family. I do not remember that first one, but I would like to see the pictures now that I know it happened. I'll have to dig those out next time I go home.

On a bit of a different note, yesterday we had what was supposed to be our last Saturday Session for Holland America Line. It only ended up being a half day, which was a nice surprise. I was expecting it to go all day, like the others have. Since I had the rest of the afternoon to kill, I went to the Festival of Colors, at the Hare Krishna Temple, in Spanish Fork. It was a big religious celebration for them, and they invited everyone to come. It was quite interesting. I did not go in the temple, because I had turned purple from the dye they had floating everywhere in the air, but I would like to go back there sometime, when I am better dressed to visit a temple, and see the place. It is open to the public. I did not feel like jeans and a sweatshirt was appropriate attire for visiting a temple though, regardless of what temple it is. It was a nice, though crowded event though.