First Ever "Layout", 17 Years Ago

My wife happened to dig up some old photos while packing for our move this weekend.  She asked me about a few and I started shuffling through the stack.  You know how that goes right?  Well I happened to shuffle by one and couldn't believe what I saw.  They were pictures of my first layout, a 2'x4' "mini layout", from 1994.

Of course back then I don't think mini-layouts were as popular as they seem now days.  The only reason it was mini was because I was 12 years old and that was probably about the best I could afford on my allowance.  Still I was really surprised but what I saw in the pictures -- on the layout was a scratchbuilt cattle pen and fences.  How about that, I was scratchbuilding at 12.  I had totally forgotten about that.

As I looked at the pictures there were several things I remember about them.  The mountains were made with balled up newspaper covered in paper mache.  The entire thing was spray painted forest green.  I remember making a road by squeezing Elmer's glue out and then sprinkling ballast over it.  The whole thing was then covered with Woodland Scenics ground foam.

The funny thing is the track and cars are N-scale but nothing I scratch built is even close to N-scale.  It's a bit more like O-scale.  Haha.  Those were the days, right?  Well anyways, here are the 3 shots I was able to find...