Hey gang! I'm back. The trip to Spain was wonderful. I don't know why people don't talk about Spanish food like they do about Italian and French. The food, the people and the things we did were spectacular. We spent 3.5 days in Barcelona, took the AVE (Alta Velocidad) train to Madrid and spent 3.5 days there until flying home.
The train was running at 300 KPH for much of the ride (almost 190 mph) and covered the 320 miles in 2.5 hours. The picture shows the speedometer readout in the first class cabin which is in the lead car. Train was manufactured by Talgo. Tickets were $70 Euro/person and that included a beautifully served hot breakfast.
I simply don't understand why Americans aren't clamoring for high speed trains. I know all the reasons why Americans are married to slow trains, annoying airplanes and our highways. I know that to truly install such trains you need dedicated, new infrastructure which little or no grades, and very large turns. And I know that installing new right of ways runs directly against the NIMBY folks who simply want nothing to change. That being said, the thought of being able to go from New York to Chicago, city-center to city-center in 5 hours, which sitting in perfect comfort, eating good food, doing work, or just relaxing is really something good. I believe the biggest problem is that most Americans have never traveled on an AVE, TGV, ICE or Bullet Train. Once you've been in one you don't want to travel any other way. We also walked a lot, I gained 3 pounds and lost 2 of it already.
Now, back to the mountain building. Finished painting rocks, and painted and grassed the existing mountain. As a result, I'm just about ready to start adding cardboard strips and plastering the remaining front slope. Right now the mountain is a grass-covered mound. I need to do more with this terrain, including some trees and shrubbery. But I'm not quite sure what I want to do. Meanwhile, I want to get it buttoned up so I can start running trains again.
I was able to use sample paint left over from picking the paint for our family room redo. Painting the Gypsolite requires a lot of dabbing and care to get into all the crevices. I ran out of the first shade of grass I was using and changed colors to a darker green. I spread the darker over the lighter to blend the two colors and hide the difference.
I also colored the rocks in the mine area.
The remaining plastering will go pretty fast. I still have to design the actual topography for the incomplete areas. There are some complicated transitions between the completed areas and the remaining space. Regardless, it won't be a problem.
