Crossposted from WNHPC Blog.

I found these photos at the Willamina & Grand Ronde Railway history page. They show the rail yards in Grand Ronde, Oregon, and one steam engine in particular. Now you may be wondering why these photos from Oregon are in the Nevada historic photo collection. The connection lies in the locomotive itself.

These photos were taken in 1960. The locomotive is #680, which had served on this logging railroad for 40 years, and was being kept active as a backup engine if the diesel locomotive was ever unavailable. Later on the engine was retired completely and parked in the enginehouse nearby.

In 1977 a fellow from Nevada was looking to purchase a working steam engine, and he found his way to Grand Ronde. A selling price was agreed on, and the engine was hauled out of the shop and loaded onto a truck. Over the next few days it was driven down to Nevada.

The man’s name was Bob Gray, and the railroad he owned was the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. He acquired this engine, #680, and renumbered it V&T #29. This is the same Engine #29 that still runs in Virginia City today. It’s been kept in excellent condition, and I have many present-day pictures of it in service on the Comstock. But I wasn’t sure if there were any photos of it in its former life to be found. That’s why finding these photos are so great.

Photos are from the Salem Public Library Historic Photograph Collections, Salem Public Library, Salem, Oregon (except for the color one, which is mine), and published online by Brian McCamish at http://www.brian894×4.com/WillaminaGrandRondeRR.html.

Probably the worst part of the renovation this weekend was that I had to tear up perfectly good tile just because it was a couple of shades lighter than the new tiles I laid down next to it. I tried to justify leaving it for the longest time, but the difference in color was just too noticable. So I had to smash the old tile and put down new tile, hours of work. But it’s done now and it looks nice, so I guess it was worth it.

I also finished laying tile on the two big projects I set out to tackle this weekend, re-tiling the bathroom and finishing the tile in the dining room. I’ve been laying tile in this dining room in stages over 2 and a half years, and this was Stage 5. Glad to see that it’s finally all done.

Oh but I’m not done yet! Tomorrow, grout. It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it? But I did get outside for a couple of minutes.

Crossposted from Around Carson.

I was passing though the Washoe Valley last night, and the harvest moon was just too great to pass up. Put your camera on a tripod, and it almost looks like daylight.

Also, the old Mint building is lit up great at night. The moon didn’t have much to do with this, though.

I’m back at it again with the house renovations. This project has been going on for six years, and has included redoing both bathrooms, ripping out the whole kitchen, and replacing the carpets in the whole house with tile and laminate flooring. And it’s not done yet!

The latest leg of this project is to redo the third bedroom. Years and years ago, when our niece Keirra was 2, she came to live with us for a bit, so we fixed up the room for her. We painted it sky blue and put fluffy white clouds everywhere. Then she moved out, and the room became little more than a storage unit. Even as we had two kids of our own, we just blocked it off and piled our junk in there, including two cats that had trouble finding the litter box. So it’s an understatement to say that the room needed work.

But now we’re clearing it out, painting, and finally putting down laminate flooring. It’s a lot of work, but it will pay off with a third bedroom that we can actually use!

And don’t even mention the upcoming Labor Day weekend. I have floor projects all over the house that need to be done, and I’m not looking forward to it. At all.