Railroad Museum - July 2018

Troupe 001 was recently invited up to Portola in an effort to identify a strange phenomenon located in the balloon track of the Western Pacific Railroad Museum. Weird occurrences of otherworldly connections seem to be happening as dreams in particular were taking shape in strange ways, especially amongst the train engineers of the museum. Troupe 001's Lark took a particular interest in finding out more as this is a place of great importance to her and her family. After a few months of logistics and correspondence with the museum, our path was paved to take an expedition group to the space.

Our caravan rendezvoused early in Vacaville at a rock shop along the freeway. Here everyone perused the collection, which included an impressive fossil and amethyst collection, and everyone walked away with a small token of protection. I acquired an obsidian needle and a small piece of shattuckite to serve as protection from the unknown elements ahead of us.

The expedition team made it to Portola by mid afternoon and our host, Paul, eagerly greeted us. The phenomena made itself known as soon as we stepped foot on the property. A reverse explorb was in the center of the balloon track! I was a bit dumbfounded as I have never heard of a reverse explorb, but luckily Troupe 3004 has been researching the various forms of explorbs for over a year now. "In contrast to common explorbs which trap the mind of the unwary, reverse explorbs free it to roam other planes of existence." The balloon track was built right on top of it making the whole space an active trap for the engineers.

Not wanting to waste anytime in our research, we began our instruction on how to become train engineers (or hogheads). The 15 members of our troupe familiarized ourselves with the equipment, different types of train engines and general safety procedures around active train tracks. We additionally learned the importance and techniques for hand signaling and train horns for different scenarios. As we soaked in all this information as quickly as we could, Paul worked with the on-site engineer to offer us a special treat, actually driving the locomotive around the balloon track. Recognizing how unique an opportunity this was, we excitedly agreed. By the end of the day, as we finished our teachings of lantern signaling, Paul reported to me that we had all earned the hoghead badge and title.

Relieved, and a bit exhausted, the troupe made their way to the bunks in an effort to make their homes for the night. Dispersing themselves between the modern sleeper, caboose and troop sleeper, everyone had their little nook. Dinner was had in the train yard, and though there was much celebration for our accomplishments, our evening was far from done.

As our food was packed up for the night, we made our way to the balloon track as official hogheads. Under the light of a blood red moon we were informed of how we could properly activate the Balloon Track Reverse Explorb (BTRE). In the field we were to hold a sky anchor ritual, a practice we learned about last year and were able to do again now. The troupe all found a star in the sky to align themselves under, from here we told the story of Djephry (pronounced "jef-fer-ree") - a creature which tunneled rain water across the universe, laying down tracks from bone, sweat and sinew and providing the universe a way for life to begin (see references in the Stellar Cartography book). This story, bound to the stars, then back to the earth connected us through the BTRE. Though no noticeable physical changes occurred, we were told that our dreams would further hold the key to the BTRE.

That night as the troupe made their way to bed, we all were to take special care in considering what our dreams may present that night. Resting in the rustic comforts of the train cars we fell to sleep and each of us explored our subconscious landscapes.

By the time morning came, a thick layer of smoke had descended upon the valley of Portola. Over breakfast, stories began to percolate about the dreams we had all had the night before. Even I, their captain, had explored some deeper recesses and found myself sharing too. The BTRE touched us all, but I couldn't let that wary us for too long. With the smoke as thick as it was and knowing we were a bit out of sorts, we made plans to go explore a local lake. It was a short drive, but we found one of our cars had a critical failure, overheating and ejecting coolant faster than any of us had ever encountered.

Deciding it was best to let the car cool down first, we hiked up and had our lunch lakeside. Beside the general hazy sky, it was a perfect day. The water was delightful and the lunch company excellent. We all needed the break, and we were all grateful to relax a bit. It was good that we had a relaxing day too as guild dispatch needed a few explorers to return to the Bay Area a bit early. We cut our lunch a little short and headed back. Of the 15 originally dispatched 7 headed back to the Bay while the rest of us made plans for the train yard. We were thankful that the car with the critical failure seemed to no longer be leaking by the time we got back to it. Our trip back to the museum was uneventful though we stopped at an ice cream shop to help mitigate the heat a bit.

We spent the remainder of our day poking around the trains and learning about some of the more unique pieces of equipment, like the massive snow plow engine which looks like it has a jet engine strapped to it. As dinner was served, a strange unidentifiable object was spotted in the sky. Using our binoculars we were a bit unsure of what it was as it just sorta hung above us. As we all searched for an explanation for what it was, we collectively identified it as a Sky Jellyfish and logged it into a cryptozoology documents.

Our night ended with a rousing evening of stories held in the caboose. Story after story we found ourselves enthralled and taken away to wonderful adventures. The biggest surprise of the night was from Lark with an epic ballad of our journey on the Kalaupapa stairs. As we all chimed in to sing the chorus together, Lark ended the song with a couple final words, which I believe ring true for all explorers in the guild: "Some experiences need a ballad."

Spending one final night in the trains we woke the next morning to a gentle reminder of where we were. A cooler of food had been left outside the main museum building. Multiple explorers expressed curiosity of this, thinking perhaps it should be brought inside but no one said anything, including myself. In the morning, we found the food stocks to have been visited by a bear. Consider this a gentle reminder to all of us that we should ask and act according to our instincts. Everyone and everything is fine, but let's always remember not to assume anything.

Lastly, we had a number of badges earned this weekend. All expedition attendees received the Hoghead badge. This would be: eXmarksthe, Andrew, K-dawg, Lark, Celsius, Salty Dutch, MS Robot, Turtle-ish, Wisp, Denorae, Sindra, Panopticon, Tybeck, Zepheer, and Dr. Professor. Additionally Lark earned her Culinarian badge and Skills Badger badge, great work on putting together the logistics of the expedition. Lastly, Dr. Professor finally earned his Radio Operator's badge and was given a special red guild walkie-talkie in commemoration of this achievement. Much thanks to Turtle-ish for making this happen.