Frozen in Iowa.......

I could put a sign next to this guy and declare "dog is at rest".  In many ways this also is his work time. He is keeping an eye on me while I worked in the dining room. In his younger years he wouldn't allow us to walk around him and he would jump up instantly.  Now he has us trained to just walk around him or even over him.

I have to look closely as to what scale this locomotive is.  It is the smaller one as the smaller one as I can see a plane in the background  of the photo.  The small scaled ones are fun to have and yet they don't work very well when you run the on their track.  My dad never really played with these trains but the boys would be there over Christmas and put them out to run.  They were frustrated as to how quickly they would derail but they would be stubborn and keep them working long enough for their grandpa could enjoy them.

The larger train has a larger coal car behind it.  It probably is more accurate as to how they looked in actual size.

We watched the "Polar Express" movie last night.  It has become such a good tradition for us.  I am always amazed as to how the artists who worked on the movie illustrated the train and cars to such a great accuracy.

You get to see the undercarriage of the train cars and the interior of the train engine.  The last car in the train is the streamlined smoking car.  They showed the  Art Deco decoration of the interior with seats lining the car facing inward.  They   didn't have a caboose on this train as the story worked better with the children looking out the back of the train on that car.

The boy in the story has a 1950's Ford hubcap in his bedroom leaning against the radiator.  I guess that gives the viewer sort of a frame reference to the time period that they are depicting.  The mother wears a maternity top that looks like a late fifties pattern on it.  The train in the movie may be a replica of the toy train that he has as one of his toys. I just remembered that my oldest brother had a 1950 Ford when he was in high school.

Having just spent time on a 1930's passenger car this early fall on our train ride,  it seemed appropriate to be watching the movie.  Also the outside of the passenger cars reminded us of  our electric  streetcar we painted in a mural for our town.

We rode in one of the cars shown in the movie a few months ago.

This is a repeat sharing of the mural my wife and I painted probably 7 years or more ago. The electric car was a part of an interurban railway line.  It travelled from our town all the way to downtown Des Moines, Iowa.  They carried passengers and farm products, like milk, daily to various locations.

Not all of our decorating is done but we are close to it. We put our big tree up last night and it went smoothly.  I had boxed the branches by sizes and labeled the boxes last year when we took it down.  So we started with the right sizes of branches and worked up to the top of the tree.  Lights will go on some time today between all the other projects that I have going on right now.

We are so cold that going outside is not really an option in the morning.  I just put seed out on the bird feeders with a coat and stocking cap and that was good because I was directly in the sun.  When I walk Barney later today I will have three or four layers on to keep from freezing.  My son gave me some thermal liners to wear and they are wonderful.  He rides the train to downtown Chicago weekdays.  He has to stand on a platform in winds while waiting to get on the train for his 40 minute trip.  He   says that the waiting passengers all look  like a bunch of penguins standing in a bunch waiting to get inside.  The thermals are great and I don't shiver and fall down anymore.   The falling down was an exaggeration but at one time I could tell I really needed to get back inside, even if Barney didn't want to do so.

The temperatures at night really will be horrid every single night this week.  I guess we are getting natural payback for all the warm winter weather that we did have.  I hope all are well today and thanks for stopping by my post.