New Years Weekend at Joshua Tree, December 30, 2016-January 2, 2017

With the old year winding down and anticipation for the new one. It was time to head out for some decompression therapy. It looked like it was going to be a small and close group out for the weekend and it was. John Griffin was cleaning up in anticipation of the crowd when Colette Gordon showed up followed closely by Allan Ratliff. Greg and Becky were a close third having traveled the furthest as they left Ventura in the morning. Shelli and I got in after dark but in time for a change in plans and Steak Night was moved to Friday. The weather wasn't too cold and the fire felt pretty good.
  Saturday it was cloudy but the Sun shone through most of the day and operating trains was quite enjoyable.

Greg was running JT&S #7 and a string of flats, The Tolan Family rolled out for the weekend and brought along Rusty the Davenport #50, Jerry McPheeters put in time on the Edwards Motor Bus and I put a few buckets of coal across the grates on the 4-4-0. We had visitors up from Chula Vista; David Dull and Ron Atkinson brought up a pickup truck load of firewood, a quick unload and they were free to visit and look around the rest of the day. John Griffin even made it out Saturday for a rare weekend appearance. John has been doing grading down on the Thompson end of the railroad, making our dirt pile just east of the station grow smaller and smaller.
  Saturday night being New Years Eve we had appetizers for an ongoing dinner instead of one sitting. All was doing good and we were many courses into the dinning experience when the clouds decided to grace us with rainfall. It came down pretty steady for a hour or so, maybe half an inch or so. I took my usual early night, and the revelers didn't make that much noise when the ball dropped.
 Sunday dawned a pretty nice morning and soon it was up and running around the railroad. we had four trains running during the morning till it was time to start packing it up for those that needed to head homeward on Sunday afternoon.
  The recent rains and the amount we received Saturday night are a welcome sight. The water table surely needs it and this Springs Wildflowers should be a sight to see.  It still is early in the rainfall season, the washes have not ran up there yet. It wouldn't take too much more of a good cloudburst in the right places to make that happen. It has happened in other places throughout the High Desert, we'll just wait our turn.
  We didn't get much work done as there wasn't any attendance. Some weekends are just best to be run weekends and that is what happened. You are always welcome to bring the equipment to run and we just might find a bucket or two for you to haul someplace.
The pictures from this weekend are on a different sharing system, my beloved Picasa was gobbled up by Google a few years ago and is now completely taken over by Google. I'll get used to it. Somehow when they say it is easier they didn't mean by the end user. I need to go through and change the links to any pictures in previous posts so they can still be seen. Hope you find them okay, and if you don't leave me a message and I'll figure it out.

The links for this weekends pictures should be:
https://goo.gl/photos/VcFEPwTdb42Bo6fa9

We will be out in two weeks for the Mid Winter Weekend, see you there.