Welcome to Beyond the Depot.

With my grandfather, Francis "Bud" Bry, as we travel to Alaska.

When I say that my interest in local history started with an obsession a few years ago over the whereabouts of an old depot, that's not quite true.

It really goes further back than that, to childhood. I had a penchant for digging, whether it was dirt in a garden, or information in an old encyclopedia, etc. This urge to dig led to me to announce when I was 13 that I was either going to be an archaeologist or a journalist. It turned out to be the latter -- journalism being a more metaphorical form of digging.

I also liked trains as a child. I didn't know anyone that worked for the railroad, so I don't know where my fascination with them came from. Two highlights of my childhood were traveling to Alaska with my grandfather on the train (see photo above) and traveling by train during parts of a trip to the UK with my parents. 

When I'd spend the night at my grandparent's house in Marysville, Wash., I'd often fall asleep to the sound of a lonesome train whistle blowing in the distance. I wondered where that train was going, and wondered if someday maybe I'd find a way to be on that train, wherever it was going.

When I got a little older and my family moved to Arlington, Wash. (a few miles north of Marysville), I figured out where those trains had been going, but by then, it was only freight trains that ran along that route. Later, when I came back from college, even the tracks were gone. But that's a story for another blog post.

And now here I am in my adult life, where I've managed to wander my way into being referred to as an "amateur historian." I probably know a little bit about a lot of things, and too much about a few specific things, and none of it is particularly useful or interesting to anyone but me. But I still scavenge and collect and retrieve and dig. It's just in my nature.

So here it is, "Beyond the Depot." At some point, the name might change if a more meaningful one comes to mind. In the mean time, please enjoy various bits of musings and ephemera that may or may not strike a chord in you. Cheers!