Saturday: Coda
Today has been a very good day.
And, it’s not even over, yet.

This afternoon, and I had an excursion that took us up to Ogden. Or “b’Ogden,” as some people have referred to it. Ostensibly, we went to check out the Ogden Art Festival. What really happened was this:

We first went to a place called Wonderful World of Trains & Hobbies. It was located a small, remodeled house; most of the first floor had been turned into a store… with railroad layouts all over: Two shelf layouts; a middle-of-the-floor layout with six (6) tracks, done in three (3) different gauges; a small Lionel Thomas the Tank Engine layout on the floor for kids; and a couple of BRIO-scale Thomas the Tank Engine sets on the floor, just to the sides of the main entrance.  I think that I was able to wipe the drool from my chin before anyone else noticed.  I think.  They had something for just about every level of model railroading enthusiast:

  • Garden (G) Scale
  • O Scale
  • S Scale
  • HO Scale
  • N Scale and even
  • Z Scale.

and I spent nearly an hour just ogling the merchandise and being amazed at the variety of items displayed.  I found an old C&O caboose that I couldn’t pass up (partly because it would go decently with my engine and tender combo and partly because it’s rare/odd to find things with B&O/C&O/Chessie System road markings in the middle of Union Pacific territory). That also meant that I needed a section of track to display it on… which also meant that I needed a section of track for the Maryland boxcar I got at the Train Expo a few months back.


Dale, the employee on duty, was knowledgeable, courteous and friendly — an unfortunately rare combination to find in some hobby shops. Aside from the caboose and track, the place had many other items that would go nicely on The Covet List. If we hadn’t made it to anyplace else in Ogden, stopping in that store made the entire trip worthwhile.

From there, we headed up to Union Station. We dispensed with all pretense and immediately headed into Warren’s Train Shop, the model railroad shop in the station. Most (99.5%) of their items were HO Scale, which neither of us are looking to get into. That didn’t stop us from browsing, though.

After we finished there, we headed into the main part of the station to finally see the Arts Festival. It was a small affair, but there were some interesting pieces. Of particular note for me was a piece called Father, done by a high school student. It wasn’t that the painting was phenomenal or amazing (though it was very good), but it was the attached description that made the piece even more moving.

We came back to SLC to meet OnlyAly for dinner at the Midvalley Old Spaghetti Factory; I hadn’t eaten at an OSF in many years. I had the Italian Sausage with Meat Sauce over spaghetti. The dinner and the company were very good.

I should be preparing to finish sanding and painting the last wall, but that doesn’t sound particularly fun. Meh. It is something that needs to get done. So, I’ll do it. Soon. Or, in the words of St. Augustine:

…but not yet. Not yet.

Namaste.