Good afternoon. The forum is having troubles again. Trying to catch up on posts and the forum is slow or not responding. The heat must have gotten to it.
westtexjohn - I will also welcome you to the remote shopping group. I live close to
Todd and in a way feel like I went back to the stone ages in some respects. I had lived near Bozeman, MT for over 45 years and watched it grow from a smaller agricultural, college town to what I would call a s##t hole. When I returned in 1976, there were 3 grocery stores, and few chain stores. It grew and in came a new interstate exit, a Home Depot, Lowes, many more franchise businesses and grocery stores an the busiest airport in the state and an influx of out of staters, many of who were quite rude. Had grown from a bit over 18,000 people to just under 60,000 when I moved out.
I miss my hobbies a lot but then I am getting old (80) but still have the urge but don't have the room. Can't restore or work on my vehicles and NO MORE MODEL RAILROAD layout. That is one reason I started my little shelf display. I won't be able to run trains, but will have a miniature 3D photo above the TV. Got tires looking at all of the cables behind the TV also.
I do shop locally being that there is only me and my 2 little dachshunds. Like Todd mentioned, we have 3 different Dollar Stores. I have been in them only once and was unable to find some of the items that I prefer. It brings tears to my eyes when I walk past the meat department having grown up on a ranch and raising our own beef and pork. As much as I dislike going to Kalispell, 90 miles east of us, they do have a Costco where I do stock up. For beef, I buy a boneless Rib Roast and butcher my own rib eyes. Costco does have PRIME beef. Grocery stores usually only carry choice and select. With the thermometer showing 100 degrees, I will have one of those rib eyes tonight. I am of course a big fan of Amazon, but try to avoid and Chinese products when possible. I love to cook and try to cook everything from scratch when possible.
I have been working on making trees. I am trying to build this on the cheap. With the way the left side of the layout is coming along, I am frothing at the mouth to get some "grass" and trees in the empty space in the middle. I was going to wait until the guardrails came in but I have no idea when they'll arrive.
It will look so much better with some ground cover, trees and foliage. I don't think I will try to ballast the tracks at the rear as they will be mostly hidden.
I am going to say adios for now as things are going so slow on the forum this afternoon. No archive photos.
LATER
