Train Whistle Blowing

The theme for this summer was family, and we took a little time to recharge and take a Great American Road Trip up to the far reaches of upstate New York and back down through Appalachia.  Leaving the heat of Texas behind us for a couple of weeks, we drove over 3,000 miles to visit extended family we haven’t seen lately, splashing in sunlit rivers by day and watching fireflies wink like woodland fairies by night.  A beloved moment was getting to share one of my favorite sounds in the world with our daughters – the train whistle of a historical steam engine as we chugged up a mountain on the Cass Scenic Railway in West Virginia.  That sound – I can’t do it justice, but it’s a long friendly call that echoes over the mountains with notes of harmony from the whistle that sounds like a choir of ten.  The powerful bellows of steam puff and the thrum of bass beats in time with your heart.  It is all enough to spring tears of joy in me, and I can’t explain why, but it is a wonderment.  Cool breezes from the open railcar carried the sweet smells of summer in the woods as they danced with wisps of hair that stray from the ponytails of our growing daughters, and it is a memory I will cherish forever.  I hope summer overflowed with sunny joy for you too!