Clearest Blue

[tracker7]

Before I forget, trains seen today: Union Pacific, 3x SD40-2, Abilene; 5x BNSF mixing EMD and GE, NW Texas and NE New Mexico; South Plains Railroad somewhere in NW Texas; Amtrak, 2x P42 Genesis at Raton Pass.

I’m in Florence, Colorado. We left Liberty at something like 1AM Sunday (yesterday, October 10). Dad, me, and a 95 pound Doberman in a GMC Yukon. Made it to about the 6MM on 65 South when traffic stopped dead for about an hour due to a serious accident. Back underway, heading to Abilene, Texas.

Fast, easy drive through western Tennessee and Arkansas, with Dad and I taking turns driving. Lots of construction, of course. Dallas was a pain to get through due to construction and accidents. Got clear of DFW and raced for Abilene, getting to our just a few minutes before a severe, if short-lived, thunderstorm brewed up. Sleep, finally.

This morning, Dad drove us around Abilene. The park where he and Mom met, 54 years ago. Their first apartment. Some places he worked. It’s good to see these places. They’re my history, even if I didn’t exist when they mattered to them. We drove around the edge of Dyess AFB, saw the main flightline and a full dozen B-1s sitting out as proud and beautiful and menacing as could be. Had my first visit to a Whataburger, and those are so good.

From there, we decided to head to Colorado. I had mentioned visiting a game shop near the base, but didn’t really want to wait around for an hour-and-a-half, and look, I have two darn good game stores back in Louisville. So, I pocketed this for a stop somewhere else along our trip. 

Abilene is at 1719 feet above sea level. Raton Pass is 7834. We climbed over a mile over the few hundreds of miles between Abilene and the New Mexico/Colorado border. And we made some good time. The Farm-to-Market roads through that sector of Texas are really REALLY well-built, and marked at 75MPH, and that behemoth of a SUV handled them just fine. Same with the Federal highways we traveled, but New Mexico has some egregious bullshit - anywhere that could be remotely defined as a community, the speed limit drops from 70 to 40 or 30, for maybe 3000 feet. Then it’s back to zipping right along.

I’m glad we’re doing this, even if the dog’s neurosis is getting to me - he loses his mind at the sight of another dog, bellowing out his nerve-wracking barking. 

Gods, it’s after midnight my time. Seeing Mom’s last living brother tomorrow before bladder cancer gets him. Then heading back east. Dad’s planning to stop in KCMO for some antique truck parts for his fool’s errands. I gotta get some sleep.