Roads and Rails

Tuesday afternoon in Kansas, we were loaded up and heading to Wyoming with fertilizer. People say that the mid-west states, the prairie states, are flat. No they aren't! In fact, most are far from flat! But Kansas! Kanas is absolutely flat as a board. OK, maybe a warped board. There are hills and dips here and there. But overall, its F.L.A.T! Which makes the gigantic elevators even more impressive looking!

And Kansas has lots of gigantic elevators. Even the dried up, boarded up little towns have large operating elevators.
We had loaded in Emit, Oklahoma, and en-route, for a few moments, we were in very close proximity to a brush fire. Emergency response crews were trying to shew spectators away, but fortunately traffic hadn't been stopped yet, so we were able to make it past and be on our way.

The smoke! Oh the smoke! It filled the air for miles and miles, as far as you can see! And you can see a LONG way out here!

On Wednesday morning, after driving all night, we were nearing our destination. Central Wyoming...not flat, but very dry!

6% is considered a pretty steep grade. This particular hill was a 9% grade! Kind of impressive!

We delivered just north of the hill in Riverton, WY. And then we had a 650 mile empty bounce to get done by morning for the next load. Just north of Riverton it seemed we were driving into a rock wall.

But what we were actually entering was the amazing 14 miles of the Wind River Canyon!



I found myself craning my neck to see the sky, as the canyon walls were so high.

We pulled off the highway to check on the trailer, and while Malcolm was doing some maintenance, me and the girls climbed over the guard rail and walked over to the edge to look down...

...on Wind River.

The breeze was a bit chilly, but the sun warmed me up. I found a soft spot of dried grass to sit on and soaked in the sound of the river, the wind, and the lack of traffic. The girls did their usual energetic snooping, occasionally straying just close enough to the edge to make me nervous.

The entire canyon is really narrow, forcing the river, the rails, and the road to share a small space. Looking north from our perch...

and looking south.

Can you see the train rails on one side and the roadway hanging over the river on the other?

Speaking of rails...

...that brings us to our destination in Montana. By 8:00 Thursday morning we were sitting in Pinnacle, MT. We had driven 650 miles empty, a long bounce for us, for a very important and very high paying load. Let me get off track here for a second to share that...

Recently the railroad has been conducting an advertising campaign trying to convince the public that if more businesses would ship by rail, there wouldn't be as many trucks crowding the road. Needless to say we were offended and feel that they are seriously misleading the public. I explained in this post. 

What does that have to do with loading in Montana? I'll tell you! We loaded in Pinnacle, MT, just on the southern edge of Glacier National Park, where 2 weeks ago a train derailed.(the previous link has a great shop ot the wreck from the air) Yep, a train, the 3rd to derail in Montana in a three day span if I understand correctly, derailed and dumped lumber, paper, grain, frozen turkeys and plastic pellets all over the ground in the national forest! And they called in the trucks to clean up their mess!

They also called in this company to man the work with their personnel and equipment, and I was really surprised to discover that apparently train derailments are common enough, that there is an entire company whose specialty is cleaning up derailments! Well, they also build track, BUT their other job is cleaning up, and they have a lot of expensive equipment to do the job, so it must happen frequently to justify their expenses!

I was trying to be discreet in my picture taking. Didn't want to tick off the BNSF reps, and didn't figure they'd want me taking pictures of their mistake. But I couldn't resist at least getting a few shots.

The cars had been drug down the track about a mile from the derailment, I guess so that track could be repaired and so that the product was more easily off loaded from the train cars to the truck.

We were getting a load of the plastic pellets. One cars cargo of plastic pellets was valued at $100,000. And one train car held about 4 truck trailers worth of product. They were using a gigantic vacuum to suck the pellets out of the train car and then dump them into our trailer.

this car was hauling some kind of sand, and there were sand and rock trucks from Havre waiting to load it.

The entire process took about 6 hours, and the entire time we were parked next to the track, a little too close for my comfort, as trains were still traveling through the area, at least 5 passing through while we were there loading.

It was a long 6 hours for us. I spent part of it catching up on sleep. But there wasn't any cell phone signal out there, so we were completely cut off. I hadn't realized how dependant we were on the phone and internet for entertainment when we're waiting.

I did get a chance to try out my new toy, a hot water heater that plugs into the cigarette lighter. I was skeptical, as I always am of these things, but pleasantly surprised when I actually got some pretty hot water out of it! We'll see how long it will hold up.

And so part of the time we were waiting, we enjoyed a cup of hot tea...

...and did a little bird watching.

a Stellers Jay. I know they are a jay, but I think they are so pretty!



Finally loaded, we hit the road for home, where we get to hang out till Sunday morning. The plastic pellets have to be in Illinois Monday morning. Originally surgical quality, the entire load of plastic pellets was downgraded to just animal grade plastic and will be melted down to make things like dog bowls or such items as would be used for animal care.

So...that's that. And I'm not going to get on my soap box, but I can't resist pointing out that...

...the trains can carry 250 trucks worth of product, but when a truck rolls over in the ditch, we only spill one trucks worth of product! So take that you deceiving railroad advertisers! And they may have told the newspaper that it was due to a snowslide, but the cleanup crew manager told Malcolm it was operator error! So you can't say you were not to blame!

As a last note: I have been playing with technology, something I fear I'll never master. But I'm learning and in the process, I've made a facebook page for my blog. If you look to the right, below the "Followers" section, there's a place to "like" me on facebook! Feel free to "like" me. I like being "liked!"

Texas, Before It Froze

I'm sure you've all seen the pictures on the news by now of the massive winter storm that swept the nation. And as I look out my window, I keep thinking to myself about what I see, "and this is just from the southern tip of the storm!"


We are grateful that this is where we are, because it could be a different story for us.

But, I know many of you are tired of winter, so let me tell you about Texas before it froze instead.

Let's go back to the weekend.

We got a load from North Dakota to Houston, TX and on Sunday we reached southern Oklahoma.

We pulled off at a rest area to let the girls out and check the tires and relish the warm air for a few minutes. I know it doesn't look warm, but it was 65 degrees and climbing.

The girls were thrilled, though it was still a little cooler than they like. I knew they were happy though. I can always judge how they feel about the weather by how long Paris spends snooping. She doesn't tolerate the cold. Miss Skinny finally, after 4 years, has some meat on her bones and I love her little pudge rolls. She has been so much happier since she gained weight. I think the cold is less harsh for her.

Back on the road, across the Red River

and into Texas...land of yummy food, real sweet tea, and southern accents (among many other delights)

By the time we reached Dallas it was 70 degrees. It was a WONDERFUL!

I'm not a big city girl. In fact, I'm not even an small city girl. We've discussed this before! However, I can't help but admire the beauty of the designs of the buildings. Architects are artists in business suits.

We did laugh at ourselves a bit for gawking. Its not like we've not seen Dallas before. We've been through many times, but for some reason this trip through, there was a lot catching our eye! If anyone looked in our truck too closely, they probably thought we were a couple of hillbillies from Montana, the way we were pointing and staring, etc.

One of the fanciest billboards I've ever seen.

The biggest complaint we had was the traffic, even on a Sunday. Having spent the last month cruising back and forth across Montana and North Dakota with minimal traffic and wide open spaces all to ourselves, Dallas felt a little claustrophobic.

South of Dallas, and after we'd stopped for dinner, we ran into some beautiful clouds. It looked like a summertime sky!

I don't usually "see things" in the clouds, but this one was so obvious, even I couldn't miss the duck.

It showed up better in person.

The beautiful clouds turned into thunderstorms by sunset. There was lots of lightening and rain, and after we parked I cracked the window to enjoy the thunder while I waited for sleep to over take me.

Monday morning Malcolm got up early and drove into Houston, arriving right at daylight. We delivered a load of malt to Anheiser Busch on a very foggy morning.

From there we went south to Freeport, TX to the port where we loaded rice bran.

The rice bran wasn't so interesting, and besides I'm not supposed to have the camera out while in the port. BUT...no one said I couldn't take pictures before I got inside the port, and the sections of wind turbines being unloaded were interesting enough for pictures.

and also I enjoyed the novelty of palm trees in their landscaping, but maybe even more so, I enjoyed the very green grass.

Loaded up and headed back north to a town east of Dallas. We had to drive back through Houston, where the fog had lifted, the sun was shining and it was 74 degrees!!!!!!! (I'll stop on the exclamation points, but can you tell how much we enjoyed that!!!!!!!)

We had the windows down, the radio turned up, and the sunglasses on. It was such a treat!

And Houston is huge! Can you see if all spread out up there on the horizon? 

We took 288 right into the heart of town where we picked up I-45 to head north towards Dallas.

On the north side of Houston, I-45 runs through a lot of miles of shopping districts. There was lots to look at as far as citified sight seeing goes.

North of town we passed this large statue of Sam Houston, near the Sam Houston State University. I thought it was a neat way of honoring a very historical character of both Texas and the United States.

As we traveled on north of the city, one of the strangest things that caught our attention were the road signs. You know the ones that light up and they can change the messages that are written on them as to road conditions, amber alerts, etc? Well we knew the weather forecast, but at 74 degrees and with summer like sunshine to bask in, it was hard to absorb the reality of the threat. Until we saw the signs in Houston. But still, with such warm temperatures, the messages seemed somehow like a strange joke being played.

Really? De-icing...with it as warm as it is?

That was Monday. We arrived at the receiver that evening around 10:00 and it was 60 degrees. Tuesday we woke up at 6:00am and it was 23 and sleeting. It was like waking in another world. The roads never got icy where we were unloading. I think the ground was still too warm, thankfully. We went east to Arkansas to reload and were there till midnight, when we were finally loaded and got to head back west.

Malcolm was driving and I woke when we reached north of Dallas, because of the bumpiness of the roads and all the turns he was making. I couldnt' figure out why he was stopping and turning so much. I found out when I got up. We had planned to add some miles to our trip by going around the south side to Lubbock and then cross country to New Mexico, hopefully skipping all the winter roads. But there were so many accidents going that way that the interstate was basically closed. Apparently it wasn't far enough south to get out of the ice. So Malcolm had made an executive decision to go ahead and take the north route, saving us miles, since either route was going to have road issues. The bumpiness that woke me was the ruts and holes in the snow packed roads. It was worse than driving on a corduroy road! For about 100 miles from Dallas to Witchita Falls the roads were horrible and there were trucks and cars off in the ditch all over the place, trailers snapped in half from wrecks, loads scattered in the ditch, it was a mess!!!

But past Witchita Falls, the roads cleaned up and dried up and the rest of our trip was smooth sailing.

I started this post on Wednesday morning as we were driving those icy roads, but it was SO bumpy I gave up and quit. I couldn't type or even see what I was doing on the screen. As I finish this on Thursday morning, we're just crossed into California. Its 42 degrees and climbing. The girls are happy again, or getting there. I think they thought I was playing a cruel joke on them when I told them it would be warm in California. They were VERY upset with me when we took them out to potty in New Mexico and it was 1 degree with snow covered ground.

After we deliver over here in Victorville, we are hanging out till tomorrow. We reload down in Long Beach at the Port of Los Angelas. Then we're headed to Nashville! It will be a nice trip for the weekend, and hopefully (fingers crossed) enough time for Oklahoma to clean up its roads before we get there! That's the only state we will go through that has had major storm problems. So it sounds like a nice trip for the weekend with a destination we love to go to. Hoping for shopping time in Amarillo, and maybe dinner with my sister and her fiance when we get to Nashville. Fingers crossed!

South Georgia and Oklahoma Cotton

This is Ella's way of saying, "Mom, will you PLEASE hold me?"

And of course it works every time. I've ruined her!

Monday morning, after delivering south of Macon, GA, we headed towards the southwest corner of Georgia and a little town called Blakely. Central Georgia is SO populated, really just one gigantic metropolis and suburb of Atlanta. I think just the very outer edges of Georgia can even be considered agricultural, but this is just my opinion. I'm not a fan of big city life and scenery, as you may have guessed from reading this blog. And because of this, and the fact that we drove through in the dark hours of morning, I did not photograph Atlanta and its surrounding area.

Rural Georgia, though, is quite picturesque and I enjoyed  that part of our trip very much.

South Georgia is much flatter than the northern part of the state where I have had most of my Georgia experiences. Its mostly agricultural with the majority of the land seeming to be cultivated in pecan groves (which are beautiful but hard to capture in the picture),

peanuts (this field had been harvested already),

lumber,



and cotton.

Most of the cotton had been harvested already. I always marvel at the huge bales of cotton waiting to be transported to the warehouses and the gins.

 

On the way to Blakely we stopped at a little pull off so Malcolm could clean the trailer out, and me and the girls got out and walked around a bit. I wanted to see what this field was planted in.

I'm still not sure what it was. I was hoping peanuts, but I don't think it was. And then because there was shreds of cotton all over the ground, I thought maybe cotton, except cotton plants turn dry and dead when the cotton is ready to harvest, and all the other fields were at that point or beyond.
So it wasn't a cotton field, but the tufts of cotton on the ground had to be investigated.

I'm fascinated at how much waste is involved in harvesting cotton. Half the fields that have been harvested, look like they were never touched, so much fiber is left on the plant. And there is tons of fiber lost on the ground, like the wad of cotton in the picture above.

And inside every bole of cotton, there are several cotton seeds, like this one.

They are about the size of large raisins. And let me just say, trying to extract the seed from the fiber without wasting the fiber...that's a challenge! Makes a person really appreciate the importance of the invention of the cotton gin! I used that in a student teaching lesson once, when we were studying the Industrial Revolution. The students were really impressed because its HARD to clean the seeds from the cotton fiber!

In addition to cultivated fields, Georgia also has lots of old architecture to enjoy. I love old houses and towns!

Where as most western tows were built with businesses facing each other along a main street, many southern towns grew up around a courthouse square. I think they are very charming.

That is the Blakely courthouse above, and in that town we loaded something I'd never heard of before. I enjoy peanuts, but I've never even considered what happens to the shells. Once again I was shown that our civilization is not as wasteful as I imagined it to be! It turns out peanut shells do have a use!

We loaded peanut hull pellets. They grind the shells up and compress them into pellets, then sell them as livestock feed. We took them to a feed company in Oklahoma.

On Tuesday we delivered and then went 30 miles west to reload. I was grateful for my interest in the cotton fields from the day before, because we loaded cotton seed. So I had picture from the field on Monday, and Tuesday I got pictures at the cotton gin in Hollis, OK.

I was in the truck the whole time pulling forward and back so it was hard to get good pictures. Cotton seed is light stuff and its fluffy because even the gin doesn't get all the fiber off. Therefor its a long process loading, dumping buckets in, and then it has to be stomped and shoveled down so that we could get enough weight on to make it worth while. We did manage to get our usual 50,000 pounds, but the trailer was so full Malcolm had a hard time getting the tarp to close over it.

I wanted SO badly to go inside the gin. But they weren't overly friendly, and besides, I was busy helping load. SO...here's what I can show you. First trucks bring in the big bales that had been out in the field. These bales were just delivered and are on some kind of conveyor waiting to go into the gin.

Inside the gin, through some mysterious process that I really want to see some day, the seeds are extracted from the fiber. Then the seeds are blown through a pipe and are deposited in this pile outside.

A closer look...

The man in the bobcat in the first picture was scooping it up and dropping it in the auger...

...and then it was carried up the auger and dropped into the trailer.

The air was absolutely full of cotton fibers floating around and stuck to everything ( one reason to be thankful I was stuck in the truck b/c I'm sure it wouldn't have been good for me to breath) . It was a very fluffy place!

As fascinating as I found it, the girls were apparently bored.

Once the seed is extracted, I assume the cotton is cleaned somehow and then packed into bales, wrapped in plastic and loaded onto trucks to be transported to mills.

The seed, as it turns out, is used for animal feed. Apparently its not only very nutritious, but critters reportedly devour it like candy. I can vouch for dogs not finding it appetizing though. There is a handful of seed on the floor of the truck that got tracked in and no one has shown any interest, and believe me, they are quick to lick up anything tasty that comes in on our shoes. They always check when we get in!

Unloading this morning in Wiggins, CO. Its even more work to unload the seed than to get it loaded.

Once its in the trailer, it doesn't like to come out. Its all stuck together by the fibers and it takes a lot of man power to get it to fall out of the hopper doors under the trailer.

Fortunately we got there last night, were the first in line this morning, and are now well on our way to Green River, WY while the 2-3 trucks that pulled in after us may very well still be trying to unload.

Its COLD and WINDY but at least the sun is shining and there is no fresh white stuff falling...for now!
Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Despite a hard year and less than favorable economic conditions and all the other things that could be different in our world, we all have a lot to be thankful for!