Riding with Strangers 2022 – Trails to Rails Scavenger Hunt Part 1

For the last several years, each summer I do a national-scale motorcycle scavenger hunt run by a  motorcycle club out of Minnesota known as Team Strange. Each year it has a theme. This year’s Grand Tour is called Trails to Rails and has us looking for steam locomotives. We get one point for each locomotive on exhibit and five points for ones actually running.

There are also a few other sites that are worth more points, such as Golden Spike National Historical Park in Utah where the Central Pacific  and Union Pacific railroads came together.

I collected my first images for this tour during a recent visit to my family up in the Twin Cities area. (Strangely enough, this is the home of Team Strange!)

These first two come from small towns I passed through in Minnesota on my way north and east. (Taking these photos was a bit challenging because I left the clip-on weight that’s supposed to go on the bottom of my rally flag at home. Thanks to the awesome Hammy Tan for my Hammy Stick used to hold my flag!)

01 – End-O-Line Railroad Park, Currie, MN, 5/15/22

02 – Wheels Across the Prairie Museum, Tracy, MN 5/15/22

I then picked up a couple of images in St. Paul, not far from where my brother lives. The first of these was easy to get – parked in front of a urgent care clinic with a handy parking lot.

03 – Bandana Square, St. Paul, MN 5/18/22

And then there was engine hiding at the Minnesota Transportation Museum. One of the rules for the tour is that your motorcycle, rally flag and locomotive all have to be in the same photo. The problem is that the locomotive is largely hidden behind a passenger car. But I spent too much time circling the buildings and rail yard where this train was parked, and I was going to find away to get this picture.

Technology to the rescue.

With a panoramic photo on my iPhone I was just able to get them all into a single image. You will have to click on the photo below to really be able to see it all.

04 Minnesota Transportation Museum St Paul MN 5_18_22 – Click on photo to see full sized.

My final locomotive of this trip was in Pawnee Park in Columbus, NE. (For those of you with good memories, that’s also where I got a photo of the Higgins Boat Memorial for last year’s tour.)

05 Pawnee Park Columbus NE 5/19/22

Many more to come…