Locomotive
At the tail end of a week-long camping excursion, M and I somehow found ourselves participating in a locomotive race.
The race consisted of three 1870s-era steam locomotives on three parallel sets of tracks stretching across a long flat plain. Judging by the duration of the race from start to finish, the course was probably around 100 miles long.
M and I took turns operating the train and shoveling coal, and, about 2/3 of the way through the race, when the coal ran out, we switched to wood and a bellows. We'd fallen behind, and were trailing the other two trains by about a quarter mile.
By stoking and blowing the wood, I managed to get a lot more heat, and after a while we started to close the distance between ourselves and our competitors. The stash of wood had run out, however, and it didn't look like the wood left in the furnace would last, especially burning as hot as we needed to maintain our speed.
M kept the train operating smoothly as I searched around for a suitable solution.
I checked a pantry cabinet in the train looking for anything that would burn well. I passed over canned foods, some potato chips, and other snacks, before discovering a very large tin of Planters' dry-roasted peanuts sitting on the pantry floor.
"Peanuts!" I said to myself. "They're dense, oily, and flammable — this just might work."
The wood had burned down to a few hot coals, so I cautiously arranged as many peanuts as I could around the hottest parts of the fire, and watched as the oily little legumes began to ignite with a surprising ardor.
"How are we doing?" I shouted up front, while blowing on the fire.
"Look!" she shouted.
Once certain that the fire was going well on its own, I stood up to see us rocketing past the trains on either side, just before we passed the line of red pennant flags that marked the finish line.
"We won?" I asked, still in astonishment as M pulled the brakes to slow our locomotive to a gentle halt.
"Of course we won!" M answered, and leapt forward to throw her arms around me.
The race consisted of three 1870s-era steam locomotives on three parallel sets of tracks stretching across a long flat plain. Judging by the duration of the race from start to finish, the course was probably around 100 miles long.
M and I took turns operating the train and shoveling coal, and, about 2/3 of the way through the race, when the coal ran out, we switched to wood and a bellows. We'd fallen behind, and were trailing the other two trains by about a quarter mile.
By stoking and blowing the wood, I managed to get a lot more heat, and after a while we started to close the distance between ourselves and our competitors. The stash of wood had run out, however, and it didn't look like the wood left in the furnace would last, especially burning as hot as we needed to maintain our speed.
M kept the train operating smoothly as I searched around for a suitable solution.
I checked a pantry cabinet in the train looking for anything that would burn well. I passed over canned foods, some potato chips, and other snacks, before discovering a very large tin of Planters' dry-roasted peanuts sitting on the pantry floor.
"Peanuts!" I said to myself. "They're dense, oily, and flammable — this just might work."
The wood had burned down to a few hot coals, so I cautiously arranged as many peanuts as I could around the hottest parts of the fire, and watched as the oily little legumes began to ignite with a surprising ardor.
"How are we doing?" I shouted up front, while blowing on the fire.
"Look!" she shouted.
Once certain that the fire was going well on its own, I stood up to see us rocketing past the trains on either side, just before we passed the line of red pennant flags that marked the finish line.
"We won?" I asked, still in astonishment as M pulled the brakes to slow our locomotive to a gentle halt.
"Of course we won!" M answered, and leapt forward to throw her arms around me.