Random Travels – Page 3 – Jim and April's Roadtrips

A road trip to look for a lost train! At least to me!!

August 15, 2017 Jim Pearson Comments 0 Comment

August 15, 2017 – This morning about 10am CSXT 323 leading, with the L&N Herald on it, passed my house in Richland, Ky headed south toward Calvert City Loadout. I didn’t have time to give chase so I figured I give it enough time to get there and start its way around the loop.

So I headed down about 1pm, following the Paducah and Louisville line which the train takes to Calvert City, Ky. I checked Princeton Yard to make sure it wasn’t there and it wasn’t so I headed on down to the loadout.

When I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find this empty BNSF train getting ready to depart toward Paducah, Ky. There was another train in the loop and so I figured the CSX train had already started around and decided to head down to the Paducah and Louisville Yard and get some shots of the BNSF train there, as it would take awhile for CSXT 323 get get back around the loop where I wanted to shoot it.

Well, I got the shots at Paducah I wanted, plus a few others that I’ll share over the next few days, and headed back to Calvert City, as I figured I had given the train there enough time for the engine to move around the loop where I could photograph it.

Well, I arrived back and a train was right where I figured it would be, but it wasn’t CSX, but a loaded P&L coal train from Warrior Coal in Madisonville! So, now I’m still trying to figure out where they put the CSX train as I checked all the accessible sidings between Princeton and Calvert City. So, I’m guessing they put it into the siding at Dawson Springs, Ky as I didn’t stop there and check of course. You can’t see the head end of a train in the siding there anyway as it’s about 1/2 mile from any crossing and around a curve.

Some days just don’t go as planned! LOL Still got a few nice shots and stopped for some great BBQ on the way home! Maybe I’ll get lucky and catch it tomorrow on its way back north!

A “Be still my heart moment,” with Elaina

May 29, 2017 Jim Pearson Comments 2 comments

Today’s roadtrip was a very short one… to church! Of course we do this every week on Sunday and we almost always take some of the little ones with us, unless they’re tied up in their busy schedules! LOL

In this frame grab from the video of today’s service, Elaina (center) heads up the aisle after Children’s Moments.

I run the video camera equipment at First Christian Church in Madisonville, Ky and today was a busy morning as we had a lot going on with a congregational meeting afterwards, but I’m getting a little off topic here.

The audiovisual/sound platform is at the rear of the sanctuary and has several steps leading up to where the camera and sound gear are setup. I was doing my thing after the Children’s Moments, where I position the video camera for choir’s anthem, when I feel this tugging on my pants! I pivot around and look down to find Elaina looking up at me with her lips puckered and eyes wide open waiting for a kiss! Of course I obliged and then she throws in a hug for good measure before turning and bounding off to her Worship and Wonder class. Talk about making my day!

For most of my nieces/nephews and great nieces and nephews I was off on roadtrips traveling the world with the Air Force while they were growing up. I’d get to see them when I came home on leave (vacation), but it’s not the same thing.

Now most of them have kids of their own and I’m loving the fact that I’m here as they’re growing up and doing things that I unfortunately missed out on with their parents and grandparents. I know they all get tired of me taking their pictures sometimes, but thankfully they put up with it. I try to make sure to balance between the shooting of photos and participating. I didn’t get a shot of today’s moment with Elaina, but it is embedded in my memory for all time!

Moments like this make life wonderful! I look forward to many more with all the “littles” in my life these days!

A Final Roadtrip

May 10, 2017 Jim Pearson Comments 4 comments

Davie and I on a cruise to the Bahamas with family.

Losing a family member to sudden death is probably one of the hardest things that one will experience in life. While my sister April and Davie’s twin brother Dannye, have seen our dad, mom, and another brother make this trip before, it’s a little easier for us, but still hard. For all his nieces and nephews, great and great-great nieces and nephews, it’s been a lot harder as he’s been like a second father to all of them.

A little over a week ago we laid Davie to rest, or to many of his kids, Uncle Davie, next to his mom, dad and brother who made this trip before him.

Davie loved life, there’s no doubt about that at all. He was also probably one of the most christian men I’ve ever known in my life. A role model I’ve tried to follow over the years. No, he didn’t attend church on a regular basis and I honestly can’t ever recall him saying a prayer out loud, but instead he lived his faith in love and service to his family, friends and in some cases those he didn’t even know that well. That was my brother Davie.

As with any loss of a family member we all have had our “what ifs” that we must deal with, but I know my brother and he’d be the first to say, don’t even think of going there! When it’s time, it’s time and only the Lord knows. The saving grace in all this is that he didn’t suffer as his dad, mom, and brother did for several years before they passed. I personally think that would have been much harder.

All the family made it to Davie’s Celebration of Life service, even his nephew Brad and family, who are currently serving in the Air Force and stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, were able to take part thanks to today’s modern technology by using Facebook’s video chat feature and our nephew Kenneth who kept the camera rolling through some difficult moments for himself.

Davie’s service was just what the name implied, a celebration of his life and I know he was there in spirit enjoying every minute of it. All the little ones running around, yes running around, and playing, along with family and friends telling funny stories about him and celebrating the life he led. I can see Davie through the lives of his nieces and nephews. I know from the bottom of my heart that he loved us all and is proud of all of them!

Davie, like his dad, older brother, and myself, served his country and the military service and honors given him at the graveside were moving to say the least. I’m sure he’s humbled at it all, because again, I know my brother.

I’ll miss him here on earth, but I rejoice in knowing that we’ll be together someday down the road! Till I take that trip myself, I’ll try to carry on the love that he had for his family and friends.

Coordinating Toddler Schedules

March 24, 2017 April Pearson Comments 3 comments

As you can see from the new countdown plugin, we have several trips planned. I will be researching for most of them over the next few months and will be posting highlights from what I find from time to time. One trip that we are trying to put together is still up in the air because of scheduling problems.

My oldest daughter, Chrystal, is currently living in Chicago. She is a favorite with all our Littles and they miss her very much since she moved last summer. She comes home to visit as often as possible, but it’s a six hour drive each way and that limits her trips to once a month or so. It’s hard for toddlers to understand why she isn’t here more and they have no concept of where she’s now living.

So, she and I decided last fall that we’d plan a trip this summer for her grandson, Xavier, along with Damion and Elaina, to see where she lives and works. There are a million fascinating things to see and do in Chicago and we know they will have an amazing time. It would be nice if we could take all seven of the ones who live here, but traveling with that many under the age of six is too much even for me. As it turns out, getting three of them there may be too much.

Obviously, we thought, the trip would have to wait until school was out. I suggested sometime in June. She said, “Probably not. I think Xavier will be in Texas with his dad then. July is also impossible, even if Xavier is home by then, Damion and Elaina both have birthdays that month, as does one of Xavier’s sisters that lives in Texas. School starts back the first week of August. Damion spends every other weekend with his dad, so that left only two available weekends in May. We settled on the week of May 20th. When we started notifying parents, Damion and Elaina’s grandmother said, “No, we’ve already got plane and hotel reservations to take them to the beach that weekend. (Hmph, sigh) 🙄 Back to the drawing board.

Another consideration, Damion and Elaina will be playing T Ball this summer. We don’t have schedules for that yet, so we can’t even begin to see how it will affect things. Their grandparents will also want to take them camping, at least once. They only do one kid at a time, so that ties up two more weekends.

Maybe we should just give up on the summer. It is much shorter than it used to be when school didn’t start back until Labor Day week. I’m thinking maybe we’ll have to wait until fall break in October. We are both retired. Chrystal is off every weekend. The kids are five and under. Scheduling shouldn’t be this hard. I dread to think what it will be like when they are ten.

Where did my love of photographing trains come from?

March 20, 2017 Jim Pearson Comments 2 comments

Road trips don’t always have to be somewhere far away or a long number of days on the road. As most of you know I’m pretty much hooked on trains! As such, I hit the road usually at least once a week to search for new and different train photos for my Facebook page, online sales store and also my website.

So, where did my addiction to photographing trains come from anyway?

Well, I can’t really say for sure, but I’ve told my sister April and others that I think it comes from when we lived in Conover, Ohio, about a block away from the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, then commonly referred to as the Panhandle Route, which was was part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system. Of course I was only about 2 when we moved from there, so my sister and others say I couldn’t remember trains from that young an age. As for me, who knows for sure.

It possibly came from our mom’s brother who was my Uncle Willard Moore, who was a yardmaster at the then L&N Railroad’s Atkinson Yard here in Madisonville, Ky. I can’t however say that I ever recall going out to the yard to visit him there, but here again I was still young. I do remember walking the spur line that went to downtown Madisonville which came out to the bulk oil plant that ran alongside of the Government housing projects where I grew up most of my young years. We’d hike the tracks to downtown which was the center of the universe for a young kid back in the day when downtown was the happening place.

L&N Depot, Madisonville, Ky – (West Ky NRHS Photo Archive Photo from the Harold Utley Collection)

I recall passing the L&N depot when I’d walk this line with my brothers or friends. Can’t say I remember any passenger trains stopping there then, but I know they did when I was a kid.

I guess I can truly say that I recall the most when this addiction began of photographing trains, at least that I can remember for sure, was in Germany!

I had just finished a graduate course in Photojournalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Communication at Syracuse University in 1978 where the US Air Force had sent me for training to be a Photojournalist (PJ) where I worked with Combat Camera until I retired in 1995. My first duty assignment was at Rhein Main Air Base, just outside Frankfurt Germany. This is where I met the Grant Family. Norm was our photo maintance man and he along with their son Dale and his wife Gloria, were all into trains and we struck up an instant friendship that carried us pretty much through our whole lives. Norm recently passed away, but I’m still good friends with Gloria and Dale (who is an engineer for BNSF Railway now).

Jim Pearson watches a maintenance operation from the cab of a German Steam engine outside Frankfurt, Germany in 1979. (Photo by Norm Grant)

I can remember to this day our train trips to downtown Frankfurt’s main train station where we’d spend countless hours photographing trains from the platforms there. I guess then Germany and Europe in general was the place I fell in love with photographing trains. During all my travels, in the three years I was stationed in Germany, I always included photographing trains somewhere, on a regular basis.

After I left Germany and was assigned to Norton AFB in southern California where that love of photographing and chasing trains didn’t change at all and has continued through today.

People say why and I say why not! LOL Everyone’s got a hobby of some sort and this one has served me well over the years by taking me to places I might never of gone and allowing me to make friends with fellow railfans from around the world.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! So, expect to see a few train pictures here from my travels!