Lonesome Sound?

I've heard that a train's whistle is a lonesome sound. (Isn't that in a song?)
Some people even think it has a certain "romantic" ring to it.

We hear that lonesome sound twice each day. Although in our house, it's not the romantic, lonesome sound that some say.
We hear it as a freight train running right through our house.
The floor vibrates.
If we have windows or doors open when we hear the first faint sound of it rumbling down the valley, we rush to close everything up.

Yes, we live in a very peaceful, quiet, country valley.... but we also live right next to the train tracks.
So anytime between 9pm and 11 pm, the train comes rattling along.
As it approaches our valley, the coyotes begin their song. They howl along with the thundering of the train. You can hear them long before the train actually arrives near our house. They know it's coming.

And then again in the early morning, it returns to wherever it came from. Rumbling past again.

When we moved into this house (2 years this July), I thought I would never get used to it.
Neighbors told us we would get used to it and I thought they were absolutely crazy!

When the whistle would blow 4 times at our crossing, I would wake up with my eyes popping out of my head and my heart pounding like you wouldn't believe!
I told my hubby, "I'm going to be up with 4 kids every night when that "thing" comes through!!"
But, who would have thought, the kids don't even notice it!

And as time has gone by, there are nights when I don't even realize that the train has gone by.

When we have overnight guests, I always warn them to be prepared. Don't panic.
The train will come, and come it does.

Our valley is so tranquil most of the time.
But it really livens up and makes some noise twice per night!



(I'm still having blogger troubles. I cannot open anything that would open in a separate window, such as adding a photo to my post and opening the blogs that I read from my list. I have to manually type in the entire address to read them. uuuughhh!!! I can't even open the Help window to get this figured out!
So needless to say, sorry no pictures with this post. I actually have some really good shots of the tracks and the kids walking along them)