I'm $3 up on the state of Illinois

In July of 1993 my regular foaming buddy and I headed out west to Chicago for our annual summer expedition. The national convention of the NRHS (National Railway Historical Society) was being held there, and it offered the chance to see not one, not two, but FOUR big steam locomotives running in mainline action, pulling excursions to different points of the compass out of the Windy City.

One of the excursions was down the UP mainline into central Illinois, through a town called St. Anne. St. Anne was the junction between the UP and a shortline the Kankakee, Beaverville and Southern. The KB&S was known for their old, unique locomotives. These were from builder ALCO, who had gone out of business some 20+ years earlier. We decided to spend a day on the KB&S chasing these old oddities before heading for Chicago.

After a fun but hot and sticky day chasing the KB&S local through the cornfields of central Illinois we decided to spend the night in St. Anne. By the time we checked into our motel and had dinner, it was dark. We decided to go back to the junction where we had seen some units parked, and get night shots. It was a good setting for doing so. No one around, no extraneous lights, nothing in the way that we might trip over in the dark while taking our shots. It didn't take long for me to determine why no one was around - the mosquitoes! The little buggers were eating me alive! I must have lost more blood that night that I had in a year's worth of donating to the Red Cross. We finally decided enough was enough, so headed back to our motel room.

On the way there, we figured we better gas up the van, to be ready for action the next morning. When I went in to pay, I decided as a lark to buy a dollar lottery ticket. When I scratched off the covering, I had won - a whole dollar! Couldn't leave it at that, so I reinvested the dollar for another ticket. Another winner! Didn't want to break my winning streak, so cahed it in for yet another ticket. Another winner! By this point, my buddy was impatient to retreat to the cool comfort of the room, so I kept my winnings and we moved on. I guess I'm really not any money ahead, though, since Illinois got it back, and then some, in sales tax.