[Image]  A couple weekends ago I had the opportunity to participate in Nevada Northern Railway's Plein Air Outdoors Art Festival. This is the fourth year they've had the event, but my first to attend. I went as one of 16 vendors that included artists, photographers, food vendors, crafts booths, and product booths.

The weekend kicked off with a train trip pulled by Steam Engine 93. It sure is magnificent.
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We left from the East Ely Depot.
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This logo is on the tickets, too.
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We went with friends, which made the trip even more fun. A highlight for the kids is getting the tickets torn and later stamped by the conductor.
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Harold narrated the trip, telling us about the history of the train and Ely, as well as information about some of the sites on the way.
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The girls were all chill.
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We sat outside briefly on the way up the canyon, but that's when they're really shoveling coal, so you get a lot more cinders on you. So we stayed mainly inside going up but mainly outside heading back down the canyon.
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Angie was the engineer for our trip and we had a smooth ride.
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A game of I-Spy was lots of fun on the way down. We looked for and found lots of holes in the rock, both mines and little solution caves.
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The kids posing. I don't get many of them this way (sitting down together).
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Everyone on board seemed to have a good time.
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Deanna and her girls.
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A highlight of the trip is going through the two tunnels. Here's the older tunnel. Some people were preparing for the cinders. They weren't bad.
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The next day Deanna and I set up canopies and displayed photographs and books. I didn't have any train photos, but Deanna had quite a collection from her Western Mountain Photography.
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The kids constructed a train out of boxes and other kids were encouraged to help. [Image]
It was nice having both of us there because we could take turns watching each other's booth and then wander over to the other booths. I met Colleen Reynolds, an artist from Salt Lake City, who was painting the scene in front of her. This was so impressive to watch! [Image]
It was a fun weekend and we learned a lot about being at an art event in a capacity different than a visitor. Thanks so much to Dany Feinstein of NNRY for organizing this event!
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The railroad has the Ghost Train coming up in October, which people who have been on it have told me is really fun--and spooky!